Florida

Just got back from Florida. Why did we go to Florida? The fencing summer nationals were held in Miami Beach. I fenced the men's foil team event, and the men's foil Div II event. Eva didn't fence, as she wasn't a permanent U.S. resident in time to qualify.

I fenced for the "Denver Fencing Center" team, with me, Nathan, and Trevor. Nathan owns and runs Denver Fencing Center, and Trevor's a teenager who fences at the club. We got a bye for the first round, and then went up against the New York Athletic Club in the second. For those of you who fence, you'll know that we got our butts kicked. But it was fun, and we made them work. As for Div. II, I fenced poorly in the pools, got a bad seeding, and lost my first direct elimination bout. But he only beat me 15-10, while he rolled over his next two DEs 15-4 and 15-6, and then went on to tie for third. It's hard to complain about losing to someone like that.

Anyway... Miami Beach is kind of a shit-hole. Run-down, dirty, touristy, expensive. The beaches were disgusting. I imagine it would be a total nightmare during the main tourist season.

But we got out of there nice and quick, and headed down to Florida City, from which we explored the Everglades and the Keys. And that was awesome. The Everglades are, apparently, a unique ecosystem in which tropical and temperate flora and fauna mix. And there are, in fact, crocodiles in the Everglades! I had always thought alligators were the only big lizards in the New World... but I was plain wrong. The American Crocodile is pretty rare, but we even managed to see one (though we didn't get a good picture).

As for alligators, we saw tons and tons of the suckers. Here are a couple of pictures, the second of which is my attempt to earn a Darwin award.



Actually, it's not as dangerous as you might think. When it's not mating season, they're pretty docile. And if he had minded my being that close he would have given me a warning, rather than just coming up and biting off my arm. In fact, a group of Italian tourists came by and decided to demonstrate their machismo by whacking the alligators with sticks and branches. While the gators seemed annoyed, no one got hurt.

I'll be posting a link to the rest of our Florida pictures as soon as Eva has time to put them on her website. There are some nice ones, including some great shots of giant grasshoppers mating...