I visited an American Indian Reservation in Florida the home of the
Seminole Indians. When you buy things here you don’t pay tax to the USA because they are an independent state. That makes things a little bit better value.

We went on a boat ride through the Everglades and saw American alligators; they swam really close to the boat.

We also went on a swamp buggy a ride through the swamps and this eco tour showed us how the everglades are suffering from global warming because they are experiencing a drought and how other states are taking their water leaving them with none.

We went across to the Gulf of Mexico and we saw the sun setting on a beach in Naples with wild dolphins swimming not far from the shore.

We went down to the furthest southern point in the USA called Key West, its only 90 miles to Cuba and we visited Ernest Hemmingway’s house. He had cats with five and more extra toes they looked really weird. Ernest Hemmingway was a famous writer who died many years ago and his house remains the same today. Although he was a famous author, I’ve never read any of his books as they are a little difficult for me. (Maybe I will when I’ve grown up a bit more.)

I chilled out in Naples enjoying the beach and the pool area at the hotel we stayed at.

The sea when we went to the beach was really warm but when we went to Melbourne (not Australia) visiting Coca and satellite beaches on the Atlantic side of Florida the waves were really big and strong. People were surfing and the sea was really cold.

I also saw a delta 2 rocket launch a milstar satellite for the military at Cape Canaveral it went up like a firework. We also on the 23rd of October at 11.38 saw the launch of Discovery, the space shuttle carrying the harmony unit for the international space station. It was touch and go on the day because of the weather and the cloud cover but we went down all the same. We had to wait 3 hours in the sun eating ice creams and drinking coke to keep us cool. We listened to the live broadcasts from Kennedy and Huston. I met Bob Giffen who managed all the Apollo and shuttle launches at Huston before he retired. I also joined in the countdown to the
Discovery launch it was really exciting we didn’t hear the engines for quite a few minutes after the launch because we were so far away but when we did you could feel them as well as hear them.

While we were in Florida we visited the various theme parks and we did trick or treat in Disney. Tigger dressed up as a pirate and Stitch went as Elvis. I bet I sing better than him!

Many thanks to the Gray family who looked after me. It was a shame we had to come back to school but that means I might have another adventure.

See you all.

Lots of love

Barnaby