Posted  by  admin

Casino Alligator Alley

Approaching the tollbooth to pay a $3 toll to drive east on I-75. Alligator Alley has become part of Interstate 75, which road-weary drivers know as the fastest route across the Everglades to the east coast. Pay $3 to drive east on the Alley for about a 100 miles, leading to Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Key West. (Staff Photo by Thomas Bender)

By THOMAS BECNEL, staff writer

The opening scene of 'Clambake,' a movie musical from 1967, features Elvis Presley driving a gorgeous red Corvette along a brand new Florida highway called Alligator Alley.

Alligator alley, brett michaels, broward county, casino, charity, H.O.G. Fort Lauderdale, Joe DiMaggio’s Children’s Hospital Foundation, Rick Case Automotive Group, seminole hard rock cafe, Team National Inc., toy run, toys for tots Leave a comment. An Educational Project of The Casino Chip & Gaming Token Collectors Club, Inc. An IRS approved 501 (c) (3) Tax Exempt Not-For-Profit Corporation The Greg Susong Digital Media Center is dedicated to Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club Hall of Fame member Greg Susong. Tickets can be purchased at Alligator Alley Harley-Davidson 201 International Pkwy, Sunrise, FL 33325 (954) 414-4135 Parade begins at The Big Easy Casino 831 N Federal Hwy, Hallandale Beach, FL Gates Open at 6:30am Kickstands Up Promptly at 9:30am Parade ends at Markham Park 16001 W. SR 84, Sunrise, FL Gates Open at 8:00am For those coming. The Miccosukee Reservation have members living on and off the reservation. The largest section by far is known as the Alligator Alley Reservation, which is located at the extreme western part of Broward County, at its county line with Collier County. It has a land area of 127.057 sq mi (329.076 km²).

'Clambake,' he sings, waving to an Everglades man in an airboat. 'Gonna have a clambake.'

Presley's rollicking road trip leads to Miami, speedboat racing and a romance with Shelly Fabares. That's a tough act to follow, nearly 50 years later, especially for a Herald-Tribune reporter and photographer in a tired blue Hyundai.

Elvis we ain't.

Alligator Alley has become part of Interstate 75, which road-weary drivers know as the fastest route across the Everglades. This featureless highway could use a little less traffic and a lot more personality.

Slower, but more colorful, is the Tamiami Trail, to the south, which dates back to the 1920s. It has more of an Old Florida vibe for a return trip to the Gulf Coast.

This route features the Everglades Skyway, which is an important step in restoring 'The River of Grass,' along with airboat tours, a Clyde Butcher gallery and what tiny Ochopee bills as the 'World's Smallest Post Office.'

From Sarasota, two days is just enough time to drive Alligator Alley and the Tamiami Trail, there and back, with stops for frog legs, Everglades Radio and the Billie Swamp Safari.

[singleGallery galleryid='366018' size='600']

Panther Walk

We exited off the Interstate just before Alligator Alley and stumble onto a place called Panther Walk Adult RV Park. Here we find George Webster with Trixie leaving the laundry room getting ready for a cross-country trip wife his wife, Lee. (Staff Photo by Thomas Bender)

I-75 doesn't turn into Alligator Alley until it turns east near Naples.

The landscaped berms of luxury golf courses give way to the flooded swamps of state forests and national parks.

Just south of the highway, within sight of the first toll booth, is the Panther Walk Adult RV Park.

Life is quiet here — except for the constant hum of traffic.

'Oh, you should hear it in season,' said Bob McIntire, who manages the park. 'The only thing is that I wish they wouldn't allow tractor trailers to use jake brakes — they sound like Ta-ta Ta-ta-ta — to slow down.'

Only about 30 people live year-round in the trailer park, bordered by Picayune Strand State Forest. People share the woods with alligators, bobcats and wild hogs.

'We get black bears, lots of black bears,' McIntire says. 'I had to change the lid on the dumpster to keep 'em out.'

Each year, the sprawl of Naples creeps closer. To the west, there's a Walmart now, along with gas stations, hotels and the Toll Gate Commercial Center.

Residents of Panther Walk rarely pay $3 to drive east on I-75.

'You know, a lot of people don't enjoy that road,' McIntire said. 'It's boring. There's nothing there.'

Controversial Alley

Before the highway opened, though, it was a hot topic.

Naples wanted the road, to help spur local development, but Miami fought the proposal. So did Tampa and St. Petersburg, which wanted the Tamiami Trail widened and improved.

The American Automobile Association argued that a two-lane expressway was unnecessary, impractical and unsafe. AAA coined the name 'Alligator Alley,' which endures.

State newspapers blasted the project: 'Swamp Pike.' 'Expensive Drag Strip.' 'Toll-Road-To-Nowhere.'

These squabbles were recounted in a 1969 history, 'Alligator Alley: Florida's Most Controversial Highway,' by August Burghard.

Things quieted down once the toll road opened. Traffic increased and the highway expanded to four lanes in the late 1980s.

The biggest complaint these days is from drivers who think the 'Chickee Quickee' isn't quick enough.

Eagles mash-up

The Everglades may be grand, even awe-inspiring, but many drivers put themselves on auto-pilot for Alligator Alley.

The scenery doesn't change for miles and miles. During summer, there's usually a curtain of rain.

National Park signs recommend that drivers tune in to the Everglades Radio Network, 107.9 FM, but that just makes things worse.

This station turns out to be a mind-numbing loop of fun facts, environmental tips and recycling commercials. Zzzz.

The only relief is when the signal fades in and out with an oldies radio station, creating a musical mash-up of the Everglades and the Eagles. It goes a little something like this:

Whoa, whoa, whoa ...

'Said a Florida wildlife biologist.'

You get the best of my love.

'Connectivity is the key.'

Sweet darlin', you get the best of my love.

[bcplayer id=2790267803001]

Billie Swamp Safari

Halfway across the Everglades is the Miccosukee Service Plaza, at mile marker 33, where thousands of people — hundreds of thousands — have stopped to buy gas and use the restrooms.

Billboards point the way to Billie Swamp Safari, a colorful tourist attraction 17 miles north of I-75. Would a side trip be cheating on an Alligator Alley feature? So be it.

A Seminole Indian points the way to Billie's Swamp Safari where visitors are welcome to stroll the grounds and enjoy many of the displays and exhibits in the park, such as birds and reptiles, alligator pits and pretty flowers. (Staff Photo by Thomas Bender)

Snake Road winds into Hendry County and the Miccosukee Indian Reservation. There is a Seminole museum, which hardly anyone visits, and Billie Swamp Safari, which draws lots of people.

It offers airboat tours, swamp buggy tours and alligator shows. Visitors can rent chickee huts for the night. The Swamp Water Cafe serves traditional fry bread dishes billed as 'Indian tacos' and 'Indian hot dogs.'

Waitresses, who are from the nearby towns of Immokalee and Clewiston, help tourists decide whether to order items such as gator bites.

'I've had it grilled, baked and sauteed — terrible,' says one server. 'Fried is the only way to go.'

Wendy Blackmon of South Florida's Hollywood ordered chicken strips and fries for her 4-year-old son.

Brody had just watched, fascinated, as a park employee handled rattlesnakes and water moccasins. Lunch was just a break in his day at the park.

'I want to see an alligator,' he shouted. 'I want to see an alligator.'

The Swamp Safari has seen improvements over the years. The gator pit now has glass walls to improve visibility for crowds of tourists. Palms and oaks shade curving paths, but there are also concrete poles and fences shaped to look like tree limbs.

A touch of Disney in the Everglades.

Chickee huts, made from thick layers of palmetto fronds, are a traditional dwelling and symbol of Seminole culture. They appear at the center of tribal crests and flags.

In the cross-cultural experiment that is modern Florida, it is sometimes Mexican laborers who build and repair these huts on the reservation.

Joaquin and Victor Morales, brothers from Oaxaca, work for KJ's Chickee & Tiki Huts.

On a steamy summer day, they replaced fronds on a large picnic shelter at the Swamp Safari. They prefer this kind of work to picking oranges and tomatoes.

Casino Alligator Alley Menu

'It's better,' Joaquin said wiping sweat from his brow. 'A little more money.'

A beautiful sunset in the western sky as we leave Alligator Alley behind us. Alligator Alley has become part of Interstate 75, which road-weary drivers know as the fastest route across the Everglades to the east coast. (Staff Photo by Thomas Bender)

Breath-sucking beauty

When Alligator Alley approaches Fort Lauderdale, a simple route becomes a swirl of highways. The interstate ducks into a tangle of overpasses for the Sawgrass Expressway and I-595, which lead to I-95 and the Florida Turnpike.

For me, a Gulf Coast paddler, it felt like entering a mangrove tunnel with towering concrete roots. Of course, I was exhausted from driving all day, so that might be a sci-fi hallucination.

Casino alligator alley game

Scenic views of the Everglades have been underwhelming visitors for decades.

Daniel Beard, the first superintendent of Everglades National Park, wrote a candid assessment in 1938:

'There are no knife-edged mountains protruding up to the sky. There are no valleys of any kind. No glaciers exist, no gaudy canyons, no geysers, no mighty trees unless we except the few royal palms, not even a rockbound coast with the spray of ocean waves — none of the things we are used to seeing in our parks. Instead, there are lonely distances, intricate and monotonous waterways, birds, sky and water.

'To put it crudely, there is nothing (and we include the bird rookeries) in the Everglades that will make Mr. Jonnie Q. Public suck in his breath.'

There are Everglades moments near dusk, though, when the setting sun lights a beautiful swathe of sawgrass. I kept thinking that it was like a Florida take on the 'amber waves of grain' in 'America the Beautiful.'

But it was late and I was tired, so that might be overwrought or, worse still, overwritten.

[bcplayer id=2790329262001]

This is a Skyway?

The next morning we headed west on the Tamiami Trail, which begins at 'Calle Ocho,' Eighth Street, in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami.

Cuban businesses advertise furniture ('muebles') and jewelry ('joyeria') next to Salvadoran restaurants and Dominican bakeries.

The city thins out as it approaches the Everglades — until a 9-story Miccosukee casino hotel juts into the sky to mark the northeast corner of the national park.

Just a few miles west is the Everglades Skyway, an $80 million bridge that opened this year. It turns out to be a mile long, but only 22 feet tall. Some skyway.

What's important about the bridge is that lifting the Tamiami Trail onto pilings helps restore some of the natural flow of water through the region. This is a big deal, the first in a series of bridges that will help shape the future of the Everglades.

Alligator

Bob Johnson, director of the South Florida Natural Resource Center, met us on a canal levee near the Skyway. I told him this was just one stop on an Everglades jaunt, but he overwhelmed me with a flood of water management history, politics, statistics, graphics and maps.

Finally, I asked him to simplify his simplifications.

'We have replumbed the Everglades and brought 7 million people into South Florida,' Johnson said. 'How far can we open the system and let water through? It's a balancing act.'

Out in the swamp, a few feet can make a huge difference. Driving the Skyway gives visitors a different perspective.

'When you get on top, you have the full vista of the Everglades,' Johnson said. 'That's important to people.'

The new bridge isn't very tall — especially when compared to the Sunshine Skyway in Tampa Bay — but Everglades scientists have been planning and working on the project for decades. I asked Johnson if he cried when the Skyway opened in April.

'No,' he joked, 'but I think I got a little nose bleed from the altitude.'

[bcplayer id=2790329252001]

Dog-like gators

Just beyond is the string of airboat tour operators that have been entertaining Miami tourists for decades.

We stopped at Coopertown Tours, which claims to be the original tour. Apparently, John Cooper was an Everglades frogger who started giving people rides in 1945.

Even large airboats, those that carry 30 passengers, can skim through the Everglades in just a foot of water. Our guide, Mike Baena, accelerated through needle grass to show how a boat can slide through turns.

The Coopertown airboat tours take you on a professionally guided, eight mile airboat tour into the Everglades. Coopertown claims to be the original airboat tour started by John Cooper an Everglades frogger who started giving people rides in 1945. The old Tamiami Trail, known as Alligator Alley dates back to the 1920s. It has the Old Florida vibe with lots of offbeat roadside attractions that we visited on our return trip to the Gulf Coast. (Staff Photo by Thomas Bender)

At certain points in a regular tour, guides stop to point out alligators. Many of them even have names.

'C'mon, Junior,' Baena shouted, adding a joke. 'Stick to the script.'

Sure enough, a gator swam directly toward the airboat. It stopped, like a dog commanded to heel, as everyone takes pictures. For many tourists, this is the whole point of a tour.

For me, it was a troubling scene.

Feeding alligators in the wild is illegal, but over the years these gators have been trained — well, conditioned — to approach tour boats.

On the return trip, Baena talked about the history of the Everglades. He pointed out everything from pond apples to prickleweed. He answered questions and told stories.

At the end of the tour, on the dock beside the Tamiami Trail, he brought out a 2-foot-long gator for people to touch and hold.

'C'mon,' Baena told visitors. 'It's the perfect Facebook picture.'

Photography pilgrims

After lunch at Everglades Safari Park, which marinates its gator meat for 72 hours, we drove east to Clyde Butcher's Big Cypress Gallery.

For landscape photographers, this is like an Everglades pilgrimmage.

Butcher, 'the Ansel Adams of the Everglades,' uses an old-fashioned view camera and large-scale printing techniques to create celebrated images of earth, water and sky.

His gallery is a swamp oasis — studio lighting, soothing music and welcome air conditioning.

Video monitors show interviews with Butcher. There are postcards and coffee table books for sale. Even small prints sell for hundreds of dollars.

Near the entrance is a huge wall-sized print of a classic Everglades scene. How much? $125,000.

We ran into Justin Imhof, a young tourist from Holland, who read about Butcher in one of his guide books. Between air boat rides and gator tours, he decided to stop at the gallery and admire some photographs.

'One question,' he said. 'Why is it all in black and white?'

Our final Everglades stop was the tiny Ochopee post office, where we were lucky enough to catch Shannon Mitchell at the end of her day. Mitchell, a former mail carrier on Marco Island, works in the post office, which is about 6 feet wide and 8 feet deep. (Staff Photo by Thomas Bender)

Ochopee postal shed

Casino Off Alligator Alley

Our final Everglades stop was the tiny Ochopee post office, where we were lucky enough to catch Gerri Fish and Shannon Mitchell at the end of their day.

Fish drives a Toyota pickup with an 'Ochopee Pony Express' vanity license plate. She probably has the most rural delivery route in the state of Florida.

'Oh, I dee-liver,' she said, laughing. 'I do some traveling in a day's time. Every dirt road around here, I know every hole in the road.'

Mitchell, a former mail carrier on Marco Island, works in the post office, which is about 6 feet wide and 8 feet deep.

A historical marker explains that when the Ochopee general store burned down in 1963, a tool shed was pressed into service. It remains the post office for the western edge of the Everglades.

Sometimes Michelle wears a Postal Service uniform. Sometimes she wears blue jeans and a 'Captain America' T-shirt.

Tourists from around the world mail postcards to Ochopee. They visit on vacations to Florida. They ohh and ahh over the post office.

Mitchell doesn't mind answering questions and posing for pictures.

'You don't have people coming here to complain, like a lot of places,' she says with a smile. 'They're all excited to be here, so we're good.'

Back to Elvis

Our Everglades road trip was no 'Clambake' — we hustled there and back — but at least we did our own interviews and photographs.

Casino Alligator Alley Restaurant

Funny thing about Elvis. When he filmed 'Clambake,' he never went anywhere near Florida. All of his scenes were shot in California.

Stand-ins drove his Corvette on Alligator Alley. They rode his motorcycle in Miami. They raced his speedboat on Biscayne Bay.

Casino Alligator Alley Bar

Too bad.

Elvis probably could have used a drive across the Tamiami Trail. And he might have liked those marinated gator bites.

Casino Alligator Alley Games

Here we are looking at the new mile long, $80 million dollar bridge, which recently opened this year. It's only 22 feet tall making it an important step in restoring some of the natural flow of water through the region. More bridges are planned that will help shape the future for an healthier Everglades. The old Tamiami Trail, known as Alligator Alley dates back to the 1920s. It has the Old Florida vibe with lots of offbeat roadside attractions that we visited on our return trip to the Gulf Coast. (Staff Photo by Thomas Bender)