It seems like just recently I was in California, looking at the shore Pacific Ocean. Just recently I swapped Louise Malibu for the still unnamed Sonic. It turns out that two weeks have already passed, and during this time I have traveled six and a half thousand kilometers.

The other day I got there east coast America and entered the state of Florida. Oh, there's a lot of interesting things here! But I’ll start with what every tourist sees at the entrance to almost any American state.

1. Almost always, especially if you are driving along the main highway, when entering a new state you will come across a tourist center or simply a “Welcome!” center.

2. This looks like a rest area, which are constantly found on highways, at least once every 100 kilometers. Here you can at least go to the toilet and sit on a bench and take a break from driving.

3. The Welcome Center differs only in size. The state border entry sign is duplicated here so that people do not stop on the highway, but can take photos in front of it without endangering the safety of themselves and other drivers.

4. Another difference - in the tourist center there are specially trained people who will tell you about the state and interesting places, will answer your questions. Here you can find out about all the interesting events that will take place this month.

5. There is free information at the stands. Hundreds of booklets about parks, entertainment centers, museums. There are special books with coupons in which you can find discounts on all these entertainments, hotels, restaurants. You can take as many booklets as you like - they are free.

6. You can also buy soda and snacks here, and sometimes they sell ice cream. All machines accept bank cards, and a special machine gives change if you have a large bill.

7. And of course, in such a center you can always find a clean toilet, drinking fountains and garbage dumps where you can throw away the garbage that has accumulated along the way.

8. The first city in Florida I visited was Panama City Beach. This is a kind of local Gelendzhik, a city built specifically for beach tourists and living only off tourism.

9. The town consists of one main road running parallel to the sea. Everything a vacationer might need is located here.

10. There are a lot of overpasses so that people can cross the road safely.

11. There are huge multi-storey hotels, and there are small houses. The average hotel price (houses are cheaper) is $400 for two people for a week. You can even book for tomorrow.

12. You can come without anything at all; you can buy any clothes or swimsuit right here.

13. And here is the beach with white sand!

14. Formally, each hotel has its own beach, but coastline It is not fenced in any way, there are no fences. You can swim wherever you want!

15. Every beach has a shower to wash off the salt water, but for some reason there are no changing rooms. Apparently they are not needed - everyone changes at the hotel. Well, I changed clothes in the car the old fashioned way :)

16. No one walks along the beach and shouts “Baklava, hot pies, cold beer!!!” It's kind of boring :)

17. The beach is regularly patrolled by special beach police. The guys keep order and are ready to help if someone is drowning. There is a special rescue surf in the trunk.

18.

19. And there are also strange guys walking along the beach with metal detectors.

20. The beach is divided into two parts by a large pier going into the sea. Here you can watch aunties in swimsuits, and officially, for 25 cents.

21. You can sit and admire the sea (and the bathers from afar).

22.

23. Here, on the pier, fishermen gather.

24. There are a lot of fishermen, each of them has a special refrigerator cart on wheels and a folding chair.

25. Some fish for themselves, and others to live.

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27.

28.

29. And the fish you catch here are like this!

30. You can feed your family for a whole week. I wonder, do Americans know what fish soup is?

31. From Panama I went to the very south of the state, and at the same time to the southernmost point of the USA - the city of Key West. About him next time!

I remind you that you can follow my movements in real time!

Sometimes it happens that a journey appears completely unexpectedly, as if it fell from the sky. This is exactly what happened to me this time. My daughter told me on Skype that she was going to Orlando and Miami in early February with her friend and Lisa. “Don’t you want to go with them?” — Mario gave me the idea. Of course, I want to, what kind of question is that, especially since I have an American visa. And it started spinning and away it went. Buying tickets, planning a route, choosing hotels, everything that precedes the journey itself and brings a lot of pleasant troubles and emotions. As a result, our route naturally expanded and took

Three days in Orlando, driving to Key West, two days on the island, moving to Miami, three days on Miami Beach and then I’m alone for two more days in Miami itself. The girls only had 9 days, and I had 11. I flew to Miami, and from there I had to get to Orlando by bus. Quite tiring, more than four hours, but the savings compared to a direct flight to Orlando were significant. In general, we ended up with an interesting arrangement with tickets. My girls bought a combined ticket from Moscow - Aeroflot plus Delta with a transfer in New York, there to Orlando, back from Miami, which cost them about $700. From Santiago, I had to pay as much as $1,200 for a Santiago-Miami-Santiago LAN ticket via Lima; there was simply nothing cheaper. But the distance from Moscow is much greater. But in South America February is always considered the top holiday month and, accordingly, the most expensive in terms of tickets and hotels. Despite all these problems and difficulties, everything was eventually resolved and we were all reunited in Orlando. Well, aren't they miracles? They flew in from Moscow, I came from Santiago, and we all ended up in the American state of Florida, where we began our family trip. This is the main value of money for me: I wanted to meet my family, so I bought a ticket and off I went! In this case, the money brought me the opportunity to see my daughter and granddaughter and take an exciting trip around the USA in their company. This scale of values ​​was determined for me many years ago. Well, I’ll try to somehow organize my impressions of the trip and tell about them at least in general terms.

ORLANDO PARKS

Lisa and I visited three parks—Magic Kingdom, Universal Studios, and Adventure Islands. We lived in a very good, albeit inexpensive hotel Best Western Plus Universal Inn Very close to Universal Parks, which provides its guests with a free shuttle to the parks. But Magic Kingdom is located a considerable distance from Universal, and we got there by car. I was quite skeptical about visiting parks, but what can’t you do for the sake of a child. That's what I thought until I got there. And if Magic Kingdom with its fairy-tale attractions, Cinderella's castle,

June 11th, 2013 , 12:35 am

The road to Key West is scenic to the extreme. Down from Miami is a series of islands in the Florida Keys, connected by bridges and Highway One. Well, imagine: seven miles of bridge, to the right and left of the sea, ahead Paradise Island, music, open roof, everything. It’s a rare coincidence that dreams didn’t even cover half of what happened.
We stopped here to take a break and finally take a look at what we took. And also get the instructions and understand how this roof opens:

Key West (point B on the map) reminded me of the town from Palahniuk’s novel “The Diary” - two-story wooden houses are surrounded by greenery, the smell of the sea, tourists carefully stroll along the narrow main street. The houses are old, you turn off the main street and you find yourself in a village where chickens run across the road and a ’70 Ford pickup sits in a rickety barn. This is the southernmost "continental" point of the United States. It's 90 miles from here to Cuba. Less than Miami. Photo fact:

The hotel and house adjacent to this painted barrel with a line of tourists to take pictures are not far behind and are called “the most southern house” and the most southern hotel,” respectively:

It's good here:

And when everyone went to watch the sunset at the southern point (there is such a tradition in Key West), we were at the northern one:

Breakfast on the terrace of the hotel (by the way, a small guest house with 12 rooms with an elderly talkative and very courteous hostess):

Here we correctly predicted that one night would be enough, and went back in the morning (the photo shows the old Seven Mile Bridge) and the new one in the background:

What does the corresponding sign indicate:

This is the "relaxation area", guys. You are driving along the highway, tired, pulled off, rested, had a snack, looked at the birds (there is a marshy nature reserve around). Can you imagine something even remotely reminiscent of this here, next to the 7.11 sign? Alas. And there is such beauty there, you don’t want to leave:

Next on the plan was Naples (point C on the map). The wildest wilderness. If you need to forget about everything, and white light is unnecessary, this is the place:

Nevertheless, there is a wide beautiful half-empty beach

with seagulls and pelicans

and the whitest fine sand

By the way, it’s suitable for families with children.

We arrived in Naples, watched the sunset, slept, and drove on to St. Petersburg, which everyone simply calls St. Pete (point D on the map). Although it turned out that our place is called Madeira Beach, and the coastal towns imperceptibly merge into each other
Here we stopped thoroughly for 3 nights, did nothing and did not go anywhere. In the evenings we sat on the balcony and looked at the Gulf of Mexico.

The beaches here are just as steep, but there are more people, the holidays are more decent, there are all sorts of cafes and shops around.
But the coolest thing is the sunsets:

There is a category of hotels where they give you a room and that’s it, then you do it yourself. You can, of course, call to clean the room, ask for more coffee for the coffee machine, but get the food yourself. Here's a microwave and sometimes even a stove, here's a mixer, a juicer and a dishwasher, or here are restaurants half a kilometer away. And no one touches, no one knocks “cleaning” in the morning. You go to Walgreens, buy fruit, yoghurt, cheese and all sorts of other food, fill the refrigerator, and slowly consume everything. Bliss.

Well, then we went to Orlando (point J on the map, and not exactly Orlando, but Kissimee, and so much the better).
This area has all the entertainment on the planet, a dozen theme parks, of which we were in one - Universal Island of Adventure (period, sorry, G). We chose it because it has a themed area named after Harry Jamesovich Potter. The very first attraction is "Hulk". Roller coaster.

Olya proudly shows her index finger and little finger in the Marvel zone, now superheroes will ride motorcycles from behind. I am not lying.

And I entered into a fight with Doctor Doom and accepted defeat

The show, by the way, was wonderful. The castle is like a real one, the paintings really move and talk, and, of course, in addition to the price of the entrance ticket, you will leave a lot of money for souvenirs and food with a view of Hogwarts. Or Jurassic Park.

The next point is Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral (point I on the map).
Interesting, very interesting, nothing to add, I liked everything:

We had plans to go a little further south after the Cape and take a final swim, but the rain changed our plans and we had to return to our Kissimee.
And the next day we returned the car and flew to New York.
The described segment took exactly one week, although now it seems that we spent two and a half there, no less. Lots of impressions, great car, good weather.
Stay tuned, dears.

Photographs taken by the author are used in the design.

On December 21, 2000, from snowy and frosty Rockford into the night we are driving to the “sunshine state” of Florida (as it is written on all the license plates of local cars).

I don’t remember the road there - the fragments of the road that I saw in my sleep were quite monotonous. Snowdrifts up to 2 meters stretched monotonously along the roadsides, overturned cars in ditches, Vadim cursed monotonously when the car was turned around by a side gust of wind and skidded. The rhythmically snoring Fluff on my neck, turning from side to side, left no doubt that our path would be safe.

In Tennessee, about halfway to Florida, what we call a “roller coaster” began - we entered the spurs of the Appalachians and found ourselves in three-dimensional space, moving steeply up and down and simultaneously left and right, with 90-degree turns at On a narrow mountain road, local reckless drivers, including huge refrigerators, passed at a speed of 130 km/h, rushing past us with a whistle and a roar.

Having entered the southern states, we found ourselves in a zone of annoying sun, and although it was below 0, it was blinding and seemed to ask: “Who are you working for?” The state of Georgia met places familiar from Gone with the Wind: Atlanta, Nashville. We whizzed through Atlanta from south to north through downtown with its skyscrapers and interchange bridges - for the first time I drove a car along a 7-lane highway, getting confused in the lanes, trying not to stray from the right direction, so I didn’t see any special beauty. The edges of the road were lined with pine trees - shaped like a fir tree with soft needles like larch and as long as cedar.

Less than 15 hours had passed since we entered Florida, where palm trees, crocodiles, dates, oranges, bananas, etc. are like dirt.

Florida is shaped like a goal without a left crossbar, with the corner facing northeast. Accordingly, on the right is the east coast, the Atlantic, on the left is the Gulf of Mexico, the west coast. If you drive all the way from north to south, you will come across a chain of islands arranged in an arc with a total length of 192 km. All the islands are connected by a road that connects the islands with bridges, the longest of which is 11.5 km.

Florida is an agricultural state that supplies America with citrus fruits, juices, jams and vegetables all year round, from 6 am until late at night. It is also a land of tourists and retirees; the season there lasts from September to April, since not everyone can withstand summer in the tropics.

The Cape Canaveral spaceport is also located in Florida, and anyone who is not too lazy to get up early in the morning can watch the launch of the spacecraft.

Having entered Florida, we immediately felt a change in thoughts - everything there was conducive to idleness - the outlines of palm trees on the iridescent horizon, cottages, frivolous people who prefer to drive around in snow-white cars in T-shirts and shorts, and the temperature was close to +20. True, the vegetation has not yet pleased with its variety - all the same pine trees, with a sloppy undergrowth of palm trees, and citrus fruits with dates, and bananas.

Our first night was in a completely nasty motel. We really wanted to wander around small town with Spanish-style houses, so we stayed not far from it.

The town of St. Augustine turned out to be the oldest settlement on the coast, it was founded by a certain Don Pedro in 1608, to whom there is a monument on central square. Then it was recaptured by the British, then by the Spaniards, then...

In short, what remains of it is a small mossy stone on which a sign hangs, and everything else - Spanish-style houses, narrow cobbled streets, a piece of the fortress - was made for tourists, of whom there are many, especially in the summer because it is more comfortable than in the south. climate. Now they board a tram decorated with lanterns and ride along the festive streets with music, imagining the history of the conquest of America.

What was especially interesting for me there was the ocean and land, cut by channels parallel to the shore; a picture immediately appeared - a Spanish caravel, brig or whatever, was tacking into the harbor, and the population of the port town froze in anticipation of a surprise.

Cape Canaveral

The next point on our program is Cape Canaveral. It was strange, to say the least, to look at the place from which the Shuttle was being launched.

Actually, I imagined the cosmodrome as a large, scorched desert, with rockets on the horizon, but here it turned out to be the opposite - big nature reserve, where alligators live, many waterfowl, cranes, herons, pelicans, deer, etc. And only here and there are structures related to space visible.

Well, we saw the Shuttle from afar, the rails along which the Shuttle is being transported to launch, too, and the launch site, very far away, and the International Space Station through the glass. In the museum you could touch the moonstone through a slot - such that your fist wouldn’t come back out.

The territory of the space center is simply huge, even moving by bus, from one object to another, we spent almost the whole day. On the walls of all space services there is a huge inscription: “The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but...” K. Tsiolkovsky. This inscription instilled pride in our fatherland.

That day we had a kind of overnight stay - we went to the campground (a specially designated place where you can put up a tent) and in the dark, among the palm trees, we searched for it for a long time, relying on an unclear diagram. We searched for a long time, because at first an armadillo crossed our path (a bad omen). We found a campground, but without drinking water, which is very uncharacteristic for America.

For some reason, there were no fools to spend the night there, but there was a lot of exoticism and a feeling of vague anxiety from spending the night in a completely deserted, incomprehensible to us, swamp-tropical forest - at least the crocodiles were sleeping at that time.

Orlando and Disney Land

We decided to go to one of the Disney World parks with feeling, with sense. We spent a long time choosing which one to go to and settled on the main one, with Mickey Mouse, princesses, Snow Whites, etc. There are 10-15 Disney parks in Orlando, different in terms of theme and intensity. Some have more spectacles, some have more attractions. What is common to all is a parade of Disney characters at noon and a huge fireworks display in the evening.

Usually people come to Orlando (the city where the parks are located) for 7-10 days, stay in a hotel right on the territory of one of them and have fun moving from one to another. One entry to one park costs about $50. A subscription for several days to several parks is somewhat cheaper per day. We decided to stay at a tent campground, about 40 minutes from Orlando.

In the first, nearest park, we were met with failure - they say we have places, but we won’t let you in because your cat doesn’t have documents (according to the law of the state of Florida, animals cannot be taken out into the wild without vaccination against encephalitis ticks) - why -they did not require a similar vaccination from people (with us it would be the other way around).

The Christmas (Christmas) weekend was ahead, it was impossible to get to the veterinarian, and in another park we deceived everyone by hiding the cat under a sleeping bag (Vadim suggested in the trunk), and took it to the park, where he quickly mixed with the vaccinated cats.

In the evening it turned out that in general there was nothing to see in Orlando itself, with the exception of one of the streets, Internetional Dr., which - sparkling and brilliant - we drove through in half an hour, but in one place we could not help but stop - at the will of a sick imagination ( What else could surprise the jaded people?). There the house was built in reverse perspective: it seems that it will buck and fall either on you or on your neighbor. This building houses a museum of all sorts of nonsense called "believe it or not."

Early in the morning we were on our way to the treasured World when we got stuck in a traffic jam of the same fools who decided to have fun on Christmas. Basically, these were dirty, expensive cars from Canada, Alaska and other northern regions.

From this day I was expecting a lot of entertainment, horror films, horror stories, and pain in the spleen, but what I got, mostly, were queues, slightly diluted with simple attractions, noise, hubbub, vanity. (To be honest, I didn’t go to the difficult ones myself, I was scared for something). Anya and Vadim liked it much more, because by the end of the day they found an absolutely amazing attraction, long and interesting.

By this time, I could have been shown anything, even Martians, I couldn’t take it in, I was a concentrate of fatigue and was precipitated, trying to sit down or lie down on anything, so, feeling sorry for me, we didn’t wait for the festive fireworks minutes 15, but I truly believe he was great. One of the attractions in the park is to ride a paddle steamer around the attractions.

But the biggest impression I got from Florida was in the park where we spent the night. The tents were located not far from a rather picturesque river. While walking, we saw a poster that said there was a spring somewhere nearby. Deciding to get water for tea, we went for a walk with a canister in our hands. Approaching a large forest lake, from which this river actually flowed, we realized that the canister was of no use here.

It turned out that this hot key, gushing from the depths (no one was able to dive deeper than 40 m), that this water is completely devoid of oxygen in the place where the springs flow, but that it is warm to swim there even in cold weather, and that there lives a huge sea animal, the monati, which spends the winter , from October to March, swims into this river. He is very kind and lazy, similar in size and face to a walrus, and with a tail like a beaver.

When this spring was described by an English naturalist in the last century, he mainly drew attention to the crocodiles that lined all the banks.

Through the tropics to the swamps

And we moved on, anticipating the beaches of south Florida and the wonders of the tropics. After Orlando, endless citrus plantations stretched along the road, among them a mixture of lemon and orange, orange and tangerine, orange and grapefruit, and simply different varieties, different sizes, natives of the citrus paradise.

The prices for this gushing abundance of fruit are very steep. The main reason for this is the even greater abundance of tourists who really want to spend money on pleasure. We were an exception, so we carried fruits, vegetables and food with us in the trunk, and with them a gas stove, dishes for ourselves, dishes, canned food and a toilet for the cat, in general, you can’t list everything. With all this, the entire trip for three cost us $1,300.

South Florida began at the latitude of Miami. A significant part of it is occupied by swamps. It is, rather, a huge depression submerged by the waters of the ocean, overgrown with grasses and trees.

The trees there are wonderful - the famous mangrove forests. They grow directly in water, equally well in both fresh and salt water.

If you imagine a squid with a branched head elongated in the form of a trunk, the ends of the tentacles are in the water, and the beginnings are in the sky, then you can get the concept of a mangrove tree. Their cheerful company with intertwined tentacles will be a mangrove forest.

You cannot walk through such a forest either on foot or by boat. The coasts of the seas of southern latitudes welcomed travelers mangroves– it was impossible to land on such a shore.

But in these thickets, birds (in particular, flamingos) and amphibians (alligators) feel at ease, while lobsters crawl along the bottom and sea turtles frolic.

One of the ten most famous national parks America, Everglades, where at any time you can make friends with an alligator, as well as a puma, deer and other little things.

Here you can also go on a 10-day hike along water trails to enjoy the rich world of birds and be amazed by the close proximity to 28 species of mosquitoes that consider these swamps their home. The basic rule of safety in swamps is not to feed alligators, so that they do not later confuse you and the food.

We had a dream - to live on an island where you go to the right - the Atlantic, to the left - the Gulf of Mexico, and all around are palm trees, coconuts, tangerines, friendly natives. At the same time, they believed that we were the smartest and most perceptive, having come to celebrate the New Year in Florida. It turned out that this is the American lifestyle, but they are even cooler - they spend the winter in the south, and in the summer they travel closer to Canada, where fishing, mushrooms, berries, in general, are migratory birds on wheels.

True, these wheels are more comfortable than ours - a house with a couple of rooms with a kitchen, shower and toilet sits on them. Basically, however, this is how pensioners live. But the rest are not fools either, so when we tried to get a living in one of the three island campgrounds, it turned out that there were no places, and in one of them, with the most wonderful beaches, places were booked right up until April.

But we were very lucky (as it seemed at first), and we found a small but cozy camp of these same mobile homes, where for 30 dollars a day we could pitch a tent on a patch of mushrooms, topped with thatched roofs, on the very shore ocean. True, someone had strewn the beach with decent-sized limestone blocks with the remains of ancient sea plants and shells (as it turned out, a huge coral reef is made of such limestone, but more on that later).

The first day, or rather the evening, was a complete idyll - warm, sunny. Someone swam with a snorkel and a mask, some of the pensioners went out into the ocean on a yacht to fish, and we, sitting at the entrance to the tent, surveyed the water surface of the ocean and made plans for the future.

In the darkness (and there day and night last about 12 hours each), the people, armed with strong flashlights, went to observe the inhabitants of the seabed. We saw only a few stingrays, which, lazily moving the coattails of their round tailed bodies, slowly moved in search of food. To the side of us, several people saw a small octopus, but we did not have time to get to it.

Not far from our patch there was a galvanized table with a hose from which flowed fresh water. After a successful catch, pensioners cut up fish near this table (they took several pieces of fillet from a huge fish). They gave everything else to the pelicans. The pelicans kept a watchful eye on this table, and as soon as someone approached it, they descended in a cloud, some directly onto the table, trying not to miss the tasty morsel. Once they attacked Anya, who decided to wash the pears there.

The weather in Florida is a capricious lady, especially in the summer, it likes to be blown by squally winds or swept by a hurricane. The last hurricane of 1988 left behind so much destruction that they even decided to immortalize it with a monument.

The words always seemed romantic to me: wind on the sea, inflated sails, foamy surf, wave - but when our tent began to resemble an inflated sail, folded in half under the pressure of the damp wind, and the wave began to flood the entrance, I took the cat under the armpit (according to his disheveled there was no way to understand that he was the cat Matroskin), she went to spend the night in the car, forgetting about romance.

Vadim and Anya decided in the middle of the night to pull the tent away from the oncoming wave, and then the Russians, a husband and wife who had settled next door, came to their aid out of nowhere. Since the world is a very small place, they turned out to be programmers from Zelenograd, they studied at the same institute with Vadim, and the lady was even in the same stream, and it turned out that they had a lot of mutual friends and acquaintances. They also had a common dream: to celebrate the New Year in the ocean with a bottle of champagne.

The rising wind did not subside until our departure; By New Year we were left alone in our little patch with our new acquaintances - not a single American could withstand the onslaught of the weather.

Miami

Our life continued as planned.

After watching a movie about Miami Beach, we decided to check how good the beaches there were - they really weren’t bad. Miami Beach protrudes like an appendix from the flattened and stretched Miami City along the coast.

This is a specifically American resort with hotels, cafes and restaurants, and an endless strip of coastal sand, in which lifeguard watchtowers are stuck. After low tide, all sorts of things remain on the beaches - sponges, tubular algae, red algae that looks like coral, hard algae like wire, algae that looks like lace fans. You should look for beautiful huge shells and starfish on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

In the south of Florida there are many "Latinos", in particular Cubans, so Cuban shops and cafes are everywhere. We went to one of these cafes to drink coffee. I was a little shocked when I saw Espresso coffee poured into a thimble - it was quite difficult to see it on the counter. It was a sublimate of coffee, bitter and strong as a sip of alcohol, and just as scalding.

A large amount of the southern temperament of people leaves an imprint on the style of driving on the roads. Whereas here in Illinois, a klutz like me would be gallantly let out of line at an intersection, waiting patiently for me to figure out where I needed to go, here I had to keep my eyes peeled, dodging suddenly jumping cars and letting impatiently honking reckless drivers pass ahead.

In local reserves, life moves slowly. One of them, which includes not only land, but also most of the ocean, is called Coral Reef Park. People come there to see what is there in the depths. You can do this by scuba diving (rent one) or go on an excursion on a glass-bottom boat.

The reef is located some distance from the coast, and since everything there is a protected area, ships move in one fairway, marked by buoys with a flag. Due to the cool weather, we went on a boat.

The coral reef in Florida is a huge shoal of limestone smoothed over centuries - we didn’t see a single coral there. But there were sharks, huge sea turtles, stingrays and, of course, exotic fish swimming there. There are quite a lot of people who want to see the reef - while we were waiting for our turn, we took a canoe for 2 hours and swam among islands overgrown with mangroves and rugged shores, also made of limestone.

Key West

The quintessence of Florida - Kay West. This is the most remote island from the mainland, located at mile 120 of the only road connecting the islands with the rest of the world. All of them here have the common name Keys, and each, in addition to its own name, adds to itself this short word “key”, which means a reef, a sandbank, and also a key.

I think all these meanings fit into their meaning, since the islands are made of limestone, the same as the reefs around the sandbank, and these are also the keys with the help of which, in particular, the Cubans penetrate America, sailing on homemade boats , boats, etc. The shortest distance to Cuba from Key West is 90 miles or 140 km.

The tropical climate is known to be relaxing. Relaxed people have always lived in Key West, whose main occupation was the appropriation and division of the property of stranded ships. This was legalized by a special permit, according to which they, however, had to save the unfortunate victims.

The only one making honest money on the island was the lighthouse keeper, who, I think, was paid extra by someone to send signals in the right direction.

After hard work - transporting the spoiled goods to their homes on special boats that had a huge hold, a mast and nothing else, people went to the taverns, which, due to demand, were like jellyfish in the sea.

It was on this island that Ernest Hemingway lived and worked. Now his house has become a museum, where everything remains as in life, even the descendants of his cat have been preserved, which have multiplied to 50 pieces and filled the house, yard, and garden. To support their active life, there are several bowls of food in the yard. The cats, it must be said, are mostly shabby and completely mismatched, not matching the color of their ancestor.

They say that it was Hemingway who started the tradition of taking a daily bar cruise on Key West. Now he has a lot of fans from all over the world. This eternal Fiesta attracts so many people that it is almost impossible to find a parking space. Drug addicts, gays, hippies and people who perceive life easily and freely find shelter here.

Every day there is a holiday here - seeing off the sun at sunset on the western shore of the ocean. After which everyone continues to have fun in the surrounding taverns. They are creating a monument to him, not made by hands. True, this holiday is not for boring people like me - neither to drink properly nor to punch someone in the face.

That's about it, except for the return trip, which brought us a few surprises - we were delayed for 12 hours because of a cat who got tired of sitting in the car and slipped out near Atlanta at 6 o'clock in the morning. While he was hiding in the bushes, we waited patiently, appealing to his conscience from time to time, but he only came out in the evening. When you're completely hungry.

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The idea of ​​going to Florida had been around for a long time, but it didn’t take real shape until my husband unexpectedly announced that his company was going on vacation for the Christmas holidays, and gave me the green light to prepare for the trip. The route, the plan, the hotels... How I miss this. I had a week to do everything. I will omit the details of the search; if anyone is interested in this topic, I will reveal it in more detail. But let me note that I did the almost impossible, because... Hotels for the Christmas holidays begin to be booked starting in September.

The route was chosen as follows,

New Jersey - Orlando,FL (C) - Everglades national park (D) - Key West (E) - Miami (F) - NJ (G) B - Santee national park, our overnight stop on the road.

In America, traveling by car is easy, simple and affordable. The roads are good, gasoline is inexpensive, and there are regular exits to recreation areas along the highways. Rest areas in each state, of course, are different, but they always have free and surprisingly clean toilets, no matter where you go. There are enough tables for everyone and brochures with discounts on nearby hotels in the region. In Pennsylvania, brochures also described all the sights along the way.
Not a single long trip is ever complete without some kind of traffic jam somewhere, so you need to take it for granted, fit it into your schedule and once you get into it, as in the old joke, relax and have fun - for example, reading stickers on cars.

Americans openly express their attachments, various affiliations to something, and you can often read on the bumper something like “My son is a sailor,” “I graduated from such and such a university,” “I vote for...” and in the same spirit about religion, dogs and so on. The sooner you leave home, the less traffic jam awaits you on the way - this is a time-tested axiom.

Our first stop, not counting an overnight stop along the way, was the city of Orlando, which is located in the very center of Florida and is famous for its many parks, such as Walt Disney World, Universal Studios Florida, Aquatica, Discovery Cove and Legoland. Visiting Orlando is like plunging back into childhood and visiting the world of fairy-tale characters.

It is impossible to get around everything at once. Our friends went to Universal Studios alone for three days. We fulfilled our old dream and went to Legoland. After all, I am the mother of two boys, big Lego lovers. We liked it very, very much, and we decided that we would definitely come back more than once to visit all these parks!

The second day was dedicated to the crocodile farm, and I thought that we would quickly pop in to take a look at it - in the afternoon, according to plan, there was the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Naive! Still, they know how to entertain, and if you paid money, you will get what you deserve in full. Exactly as much as I was indifferent to going to this farm and, in general, spoke out against it, I left it at sunset in exactly the same delight.

But the object of my admiration was not crocodiles at all, but countless numbers of herons of different sizes and species that peacefully and even lovingly coexist in amazing harmony with crocodiles.

This is a unique type of surfing.

Our hotel was called, by the way, “Blue Heron”, and I sincerely recommend it to everyone who is going to Orlando. The room was on the 12th floor with a view of Downtown Disney on one side and a lake with blue herons on the other. The youngest son, when asked what he remembers most about the trip, invariably starts with the hotel.

On the morning of the third day we moved on. I left Orlando with the hope of returning and with the feeling that not everything had been done. After Legoland, I desperately wanted to visit all these parks, and this thought haunted me... But the road took its toll. Between Orlando and Everglades National Park there are continuous orange plantations, palm trees of different varieties mixed with pine trees and signs on the roads: Beware of bears! Watch out, panthers! Be careful, crocodiles!

This amused us until we saw a downed crocodile on the road.

IN national park we took a tour on boats with a huge propeller on the back - Airboat - and I forgot about my sadness for Orlando.

It was an unforgettable trip through the narrow water channels of the park.

Late in the evening we arrived at the very first and largest island of the Keys Florida island chain, Key Largo. Remember the movie "True Lies", where at the end Schwarzenegger pulls his wife out of the car in a helicopter, and they drive along long, long bridge? So it was filmed there. The bridge is 11 km long. On one side is the Atlantic Ocean, on the other the Gulf of Mexico. Indescribable beauty!

Another little-known fact: Hemingway bred a special breed of cats with six toes on the island, which subsequently multiplied and became the property of the island. There are 4 cats for every Key West resident.

In addition to cats, chickens also dominate the island. Yes, yes, chickens! They are declared a rare bird species and are protected by law. They walk like cats around the island, on their own, aware of their importance and safety.

The next original attraction of Key West is a red, black and yellow buoy on which is written: "The most southern point continental USA. 90 miles to Cuba. Where the sunset is."

And the U.S. begins in Key West. Route 1 is the main east coast highway that goes right to the Canadian border in Maine, and it turns out that we all drove it in less than two years!

This is where the road begins.

We spent one day in the city of Key West, mingling with the crowd of tourists. There are really a lot of them, very, very many, and endless standing in lines kills all the charm of this place. I really want to go back there again, but next time I will try to choose a time with a minimum number of tourists, if, of course, this is possible.

The next day was given over to relaxation - we splashed in the ocean, kayaked and wandered along protected trails.

Our route home lay through the glorious city of Miami. Well, how can you not stop by a city that has been on everyone’s lips practically since childhood? Let's go! And they were fascinated by the beauty of its beaches, the azure purity of the ocean, the 7-story cruise ships and the completely indescribable atmosphere of this cozy resort town. And we will definitely return here too!

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