babymoon day 3

Our 3rd day in Florida, we went to Corkscrew Swamp which had a 2.2 mile long boardwalk about 2 feet above the water. It was really neat to see all of the nature and birds. We ended up getting to the swamp later than we'd expected to (3:30pm), so the ticket taker told us we would have to take the shortcut, which was only about a mile long.

After finishing the shortcut, it was only 4:15, so we figured we'd have plenty of time to see the rest of the swamp before closing time at 5:30. The man had told us to start heading back at 5pm so we would be back before they locked the gates at 5:30.

We walked around, admiring trees, plants, squirrels, and birds and looking for alligators (we didn't see any). Buy 5:10 or so we started walking back to the entrance, thinking we couldn't be that far off. Then by 5:15, a man came by on a bicycle telling us that we'd have to have a brisk walk to make it back in time. That was when we saw the sign saying that we'd walked 1.5 miles. So we had to walk 0.7 miles in the next 15 minutes.

We booked it back to the park entrance, getting more and more scared at each turn when we couldn't find any sign of the entrance. We speculated on if they'd actually lock us in or if they made another round on bicycles to get stragglers out. Finally at 5:29 we made it back to the entrance. The person who'd been on bicycle said "Good, you've made it. Thank you." It was a close call!

After that we found a local church that was having a fish bake, since it was Friday. We entered the parish hall and realized that everyone there was at least 75 except for us and 2 other 20-something guys. It was fun and delicious, but there was a lot of talk about the weather. :)

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel for the night.