13:40
Good afternoon, adventurers. and welcome to the Florida Everglades. You guys, there are alligators everywhere. Yeah, I can see alligators right there. It's crazy. So, this national park is way different to all the others that we've been to in the USA. Yeah. In other parks, you'll find majestic mountain ranges, endless forest land, rugged desert landscapes. But today we are exploring a national park that is unlike any of that. The Everglades are basically one gigantic swamp. It's almost completely flat and spans 1.5 million acres. And while there are tons of waterways all over the place, the whole thing is actually one gigantic river.
Yeah, they actually call it the river of grass. Also, you guys, Alex from the Travel Beans is with us again, and he's going to be going all over the Everglades with us. All right, are you ready to explore the Everglades? This alligator sure is. Should we go this way? This way here. Everywhere. Anyway, there's wild like wild life. Wild life everywhere. We know where you were going with it. Let's go. you make your way into the park, there is one stop you have to make and it is here to a place called Robert is here.
It is maybe the biggest fruit stand we've ever been to. It's this crazy unassuming roadside attraction. Y'all, we had to park like a mile down the road. There are so many people here. You're just going to see every fruit you can possibly think of. Huge mountains of coconuts. It is a sight to behold. But there is one thing we are here for and that is the smoothies. Give me all the fruit blended up in a cup. Is that what that line is for? The smoothies. I think so. That's a big line. We are late to the party.
All right, we have officially placed our order. And I can't concentrate right now because I'm just realizing there's a whole freaking petting zoo out here, you guys. Yeah, this place is huge. It's a sprawling complex. So, you walk in and it's kind of like a fruit store market. Fruits and veggies and stuff. You come out the back, there are emus and goats and ducks and chickens and parrots going crazy over there. Oh my gosh. I think there's big to tortoises. Alex said tortoise. So now I guess the Brits say tortoise. We say Yeah.
Do not feed the tourists who feed alligators who eat tourists, which is bad for tourism. Good advice. It's weird place, huh? But I'm trying to understand and I'm trying to like let go. And the point is just it's not meant to make sense. And everyone here, are they like, "Yep, this is normal." Oh yeah. They're having the time of their lives. This is the best fruit stand I've ever been to. Yeah. And we haven't even had the fruit. All right. We got our smoothie. We went with banana, strawberry, blueberry, and spinach. Yep. It looks like a lot of blueberries in there. Oo, it is dark.
I mean, it should be fresh as heck, right? Mhm. It's a little tart. We opted for no sugar. Maybe we should have gone with the honey. You can also do a milkshake version of this where they'll put ice cream in there. So, the smoothies might not have been our jam, but it's worth stopping cuz it's just pure chaos. It's the cutest chaos I've ever seen. We've actually gotten kind of a late start, so the sun is setting, but the plus side is it is absolutely beautiful. And I'm hoping that means all the creepy crawies are out for one last uh bedtime snack. But we made a quick stop to the Aninga Trail, which is a mustsee thing in the Everglades. And it's right at the beginning of the park. And that's because it's this incredible boardwalk
that walks in a loop over all this amazing wildlife. You are guaranteed to see alligators. You're going to see anas, which is the bird that this walk is named after, and a bajillion other birds. And you're going to see people with gigantic cameras, which are mo most certainly birders. Mhm. But man, the vibe out here is cool. So serene and so still. There's no mosquitoes out. Alison's looking for more alligators. Well, I know they're out there and I want to see them before the sun officially sets. I We're going to see a ton tomorrow, I think. You guys, don't worry. We got a lot of fun stuff coming up. But, you know, when in Florida, go gator hunting.
One of the coolest things is that this is the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles coexist. What's the difference between them? Well, we're not really experts or anything, but crocodiles, I believe, are usually bigger and they look a little bit different. I'll put them on the screen so that you know. They're usually a little more cranky, right? Too, are they? Yeah, that's a characteristic. Everyone knows why alligators are honory. Cuz they got all them teeth and no toothbrush. Is that a water boy reference?
Yeah. I know this is at the beginning of the park, but definitely come out here for sunset. It is so faking magical. I feel like it is prime Everglades. Like when you look up the photos of it, this is what you see right here. And you hear a lot of creepy things off in the woods, too. I'm very glad that we are high above the water because if you were down in there, you would not last long. From the trail that we were just on, if you keep driving south on the only road, you end up in Flamingo and there is a Flamingo Lodge, which is where we are right now. But check this out. Someone's been sleeping in my bed.
The bed is not made and very disheveled. And there's someone's nasty old towel over there. kind of creepy. All right, so we went to Big Ben National Park recently. Those rooms were a bit sketchy, but the linens were made here. The room is nice here, but that's pretty freaking gross. So, we're going to go to the office and get that sorted. Okay, so the receptionist is on the case. Unfortunately, they are very full tonight. So, he's hoping he has one room left. And if not, then we're driving to a motel 8 or Motel 6, whatever you remember. Yeah. The only sad thing is we are down here in Flamingo and it takes about an hour to get out of here. So, we'll see what we're doing. Solution. There is
allegedly one room at the end of this hall for us. This is it. 101, baby. All right. What's the level of clean in here? Oh, that's clean. Okay. So, this is what the room should look like. Bed's made. We got folded towels there. All right. We're in business now. You guys, Alex has been wanting to have like a classic, quirky American experience. And uh I think he's getting it right now. When stuff gets delivered out here, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to like look them in the straight face like, is this supposed to be good? Like, are they laughing in the kitchen? Like, yeah. And he just took it and he's eating it. I mean, like that didn't that came
out of the tube, right? That cheese. Yeah, I presume so. Or I can. You guys make no sense. We're running a bit low on gas, so we're going to take a quick intermission to fill up. Gas, of course, is crazy expensive right now, but y'all probably already know that we never pay full price at the pump. Instead, we use Upside to get cash back, and they are once again partnering with us on this video. Upside gives you cash back on groceries, restaurants, gas. We've been using their app for years and have gotten hundreds of dollars back at this point. And right now, we've actually already racked up another 20 bucks. To do it, we just pulled up the Upside app, saw that there was a gas station nearby that gives us 10 cents back per gallon.
Then you just click claim offer, then pay as usual with a credit or debit card, and get paid, baby. Upside has given over $1 billion back to its users. To find out how much you could earn, you can download the free Upside app and use promo code Endless Adventure to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas. All right. So far, I feel like we've only seen the Everglades from afar. So, we are about to get in it. About as in it as you could possibly get. All right, let's do it. You guys, it has been a not a great morning. I woke up and our place didn't have hot water, so I had to take a cold shower. As you can see, it's very foggy.
There was so much traffic. Alex spilled his coffee. It's all over my ass. But back to the Everglades. As we mentioned, it is known as the river of grass. And we are going to get on that river right now. You may have noticed there's an airboat over there. We're about to get on that sucker. That glass is ass. They're about your asses. All right. Our asses are going to be in that grass. So, the Everglades out here is 1.5 million acres, and this portion of it is saw grass. That's the grass that we're riding through. The Everglades is a moving river. It is the world's slowest moving river in the world. It moves 1 mile every 26 hours. So, it's moving, but very, very slow. The water right now is about by about 7 in or so. No way. 7 8 in the
most. In about a month or so, if we don't get any rain, all this will be completely dry. Wow. Where we just came from, you'll be able to walk to right here. Wo! Check it out. You can see the engine for this fan boat. Like, how crazy is that? Huh? Now that we're out here, you can really see how it is a literal river of grass. It feels like you're just gliding on nothing but grass. And at some spots, it's even like just 6 in deep. And the way the boat works is so cool. It just glides and it barely makes a wake behind us. Didn't you say that the boat could
actually go on dry land if it needed to? It will go right across the dry ground if you need it. So, what is that? A bonnet moth. So, it's a bonnet worm. Lives in the Yep. He lives in the lily pad and basically does this whole stage, the cocoon, everything. Oh, that's great. Look at him. It's funny. There's so much going on beneath the surface here that you just would never even know about. Crazy. So, this is a gator tooth. Yep. Yeah. It's hollow on the inside. Check that out. That's why they go through so many teeth, I think.
Yeah. Did you say they eat a lot of turtles? Yeah. Their main food source out here is turtles and fish. That's crazy. How many teeth do they go through? They 3 to 5,000. have anywhere from 60 to 80 in their mouth. I could eat so much candy if I had 3 to 5,000 more coming in. Yeah, you guys, the gators here are so chill. Like, he's just like 5 ft away from us hanging out. Doesn't care at all that we're here.
The birds don't care. They freaking land on the boat and just chill with you. Okay, I'm officially terrified. I'm about 2 feet away from him now. He's not bothered by me one single bit. I can't believe that. We found the cutest little baby alligator. Like, how long would you say he is? Probably about 6 to 8 in. They look like little lizards. I know, you guys. It's a rough life for alligators. Once they get big, they're the beasts, but until then, they are prey to everything. So, a bird will come up and just say, "I'll have that baby."
Yeah. Only about 10% make it cuz the birds eat them. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. So many things like don't live up to expectation and I kind of had that in the back of my mind and that was much better than I could have imagined. I love your hair here. It's like boing. It's great. You know, Alex has had a good day when his hair is Yeah. Exactly. Well, that was easily one of the coolest things we've done in Florida. Worth every penny. And uh we completely did not expect to get so close to the gators and to see so much wildlife, so many birds. You guys know when we came through Florida last time, we kind of drove this road and we saw gators ourselves, but from a very far away.
This time we were like one foot away from the gator. We could have touched it, but that would have been a big deal. Should I have tried to pet it? I didn't. I held back. I want you to keep all your little your cute little fingers. Your fingers. I probably need them for some. No problem. There is this beautiful observation tower in the middle of the park. It is a 10mile bike right there. And uh it is very hot out here. We are feeling very lazy, so instead we're taking a tram, y'all.
Hell yeah. Just at the entrance to the park, about halfway through, you can hop on this lovely tram. It'll drive you to the viewpoint, and we don't have to do any work. All aboard. So, this is the shark tower, which is I guess basically the highest point in the Everglades. And that's not saying much. It's really not very high, but it gives you an epic view of the surrounding area and a view down into the water. Probably the most fascinating thing is that uh they have wildfires here all the time, but it's apparently an essential part of
the ecosystem. So, what happens is during their dry season, which is half of the year, everything dries up, lightning strikes, it ignites the ground, and then the fire rages on and they just leave it. In late 2025, they actually had an just an insane fire that if you didn't know any better, you'd be like, "Oh my god, the Everglades are going to burn down." But apparently, it was totally healthy and totally fine. Did you get some gator? Of course I got some gator. Is this your first time trying? I have never tried. Moment I've tried gator.
All right. I can't wait to see what you think. Okay. It's expensive, so it better be good. So, we came a little bit further west to the little town of Everglades City. Now, we're technically not in the national park, but we're right on the outskirts of it. We've seen all this amazing wildlife. It's all been so beautiful and now we just really want to eat it. So, this is apparently the stone crab capital and so we have a fresh order of stone crab claws coming out. We also have gator tacos coming. And I got she crab soup. So, this is made here fresh with crab. I can't remember. I guess they're called she crabs. M. Nothing better than a day out in nature and then consuming that nature. We got ourselves
a little Everglades ale here. And check out what Alex got. I've got my old skunk ape logger. Yeah, we just took him to the skunk ape HQ cuz we went there in our video and just had to show it to him and it was criminal. Yeah. $10 to go in that back room. I'm still reeling. The crabs have arrived. It's It's just their little pincers. Oh, they don't really move. Okay. You came to Florida and you got crabs. It's funny cuz it's true. She got it from me. Yeah. Oh my. I'm riddled with it. So, you paid for this?
Yeah. Well, she's paying for it now. I can't film with this guy. Okay, you guys. This has been my life for days now. So, they come preacked for you so you don't have to use so much muscle getting in there. I can never remember how to do this stuff. Maybe I'll start down here. Apparently, there's going to be meat all throughout this. Ah, yeah. Look at that. What's this? A shuckaneer. So, I'm assuming you use this to get stuff out. Okay. Whatever. You got some meat. That's pretty good. I'm just going to finger it. I'm going to finger my crabs. That's how you get them.
Don't say anything. Don't do it. Okay. And they've got a homemade mustard sauce. That is some juicy meaty crab in there. I'm scared. I already put my glasses on for this parts. We got a shooter. Oh, look at that. All right. That's a That's the size that Allison likes right there. I can't get it off there. So, I'm going to have to suck it off. Off camera. They like this all the time as well. Yeah. I think we might be worse off camera. We try to tone it down, but we can't. We can't do it.
I don't get the tone down version. I'm going in. There is so much more in here than I ever thought. Like the gator, it's a little pricey, but definitely worth it. I mean, you get five of these, but it's packed with all the juicy crab meat. Probably a better value than the gator. So, come here. Stick with the stone crab. Yeah. And a little bit healthy. It's not deep fried. Oopsie. We got to the end of the video and realized we didn't film an end to the video. Classic us. But we had a great time in the swamp. We've actually said goodbye with Alex. He's already
back home safe and sound with his family awaiting their second child. Oh my gosh. So exciting for you guys. Pretty nuts. I know. Can't wait to come and meet her. But we actually have another swamp adventure coming up. But not in Florida this time. No, somewhere else equally as swampy. Maybe more so. It's really going to be a crazy adventure. So, uh, keep your eyes out for that. But anyways, yeah, we just have to wrap this up so we can post this. So, oopsie. Sorry, guys.
That's it. Yeah, I guess. Is that it? Okay. Well, goodbye adventures. We'll see you on the road.
