It's the 22nd US state I've visited. It's the 10th state in this particular trip*, and it contains the 10th national park of my trip, the Everglades. Colorado has forests and rivers; Utah has mountains and canyons; Florida has a swamp. It may be the world's most impressive and biodiverse swamp, but it's still a swamp. An ugly, fetid, featureless, stinking swamp that you have to pay $10 to get into. But the mosquitos dine for free. Like all humans, I undergo intense discomfiture at any threat to my hitherto unchallenged position at the top of the food chain. See photo below.
I drove my rental car north from Miami and visited Pensacola, Tallahassee, Kennedy Space Center and the Everglades, in that order. Along the way I had two one-night stays in Jacksonville. I couldn't stay in Tallahassee because it was college football weekend and all the hotels were totally booked out. (When I say 'football', I of course mean American football. There was no English football this weekend. On the fixture list it said that Sunderland were playing at Southampton, but I refuse to acknowledge that any game took place.)
None of these places really merit a blog by themselves, hence the state-wide scope of this one. Pensacola and Tallahassee were nice; Kennedy Space Center was great. I gave Disney and Universal a miss as they're not really places to visit by yourself. Florida as a whole? It's a place which I can definitely take or leave.
So I'm going to leave.
(*I've mentioned 8 of the 10 states in my blog: there's also Montana, which I entered very briefly while in Yellowstone, and Mississippi, which I crossed between New Orleans and Memphis.)
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| Pensacola Beach |
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| Pensacola at sunset |
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| The old Florida State Capitol building in Tallahassee. It's now a museum. (The new big ugly one is visible right behind it.) |
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| Saturn V rocket at Kennedy Space Center. It's still the most powerful machine ever used by mankind. |
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| Space Shuttle Atlantis |
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| Everglades National Park This is about as scenic as it gets. |
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| Edd vs Food #20 Good old fashioned meat & veg, but posh. At Pot Roast & Pinot in Pensacola. |
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| Edd vs Fast Food #5 Arby's Not as disgusting as it looks. Pretty close though. The chicken was half gristle, and the beef was of the kind you buy in a £1 packet from Iceland. They didn't even have wi-fi. |
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| Mosquitoes vs Food #1 Edd Fatty, quite sweet, with top-notes of ginger. Sometimes cheesy. Very filling when served on the bone. |
