Saturday in Florida

Wow, Saturday was an amazing day. We started out by traveling back to Miami to the tour office. Allen had hit the wrong address on the GPS and even though the area didn't look very familiar, on we went! When "Bunny" said we had arrived at our destination, there we were at a turquoise house - certainly not one that belonged to the rich and famous - and we had a good laugh. After resetting the GPS to the correct address, we drove to the tour office. This is the place that had cancelled our City Tour on Thursday and we were trying to get either the tour or our money back. Because they didn't have a tour going until afternoon, we are hoping to get a refund on our credit card. We have other plans and other things to see and do today.
We then drove to the Shark Valley National Park and went on a tram ride into the Everglades. That is where we saw many aligators, birds, etc. The guide was fabulous - an amazing fount of information about this area. One thing I learned is that the Everglades is not a swamp, but a slow moving river that flows southwest to the ocean and is mostly covered with sawgrass, but has little hillocks of vegetation, some are where aligators live, some where other mammals live. We saw many aligators and birds.
After leaving the park we drove a short distance on Highway 41 to the Miccosoukee Restaurant, owned by that Indian tribe. Allen had aligator tail, and froglegs-daring man that he is-and the rest of us had just the usual boring fare-soup, sandwiches,etc.
We drove to Everglades City to see if there was more to see or do, but it was after 4 when we got there and the next boat ride around the thousand island area was at 5:00. We decided to call it a day and head back to Ft. Lauderdale. However, that was not the end of the adventure.
The GPS took us north to I-75 and then East toward Ft Lauderdale. As we were driving on I-75, Loni exclaimed, "my cell phone, I can't find my cell phone". After I called her number twice with no sound of ringing, we concluded that we left it at the restaurant. At the same time this was happening, vehicles were signaling that we had a problem and so Allen pulled over to check. A Flat! So our time was filled with phone calls to AAA for help, phone calls to 411 for information on the restaurant, looking for the spare and jack, a wonderful Florida State trooper who stopped to help us. The end result was that Allen, Jerry and the trooper fixed the flat, Loni and I had no success calling the restaurant, but we decided to try her phone again and lo and behold we heard a faint ringing from under the front seat - whew - there it was. All was right with the world and we got back to the condo safe and sound !