A must-see destination in Homestead, FL

You must be joking, right? Homestead?! Yes, Homestead. The town most of us know only for the tragic total destruction it faced during Hurricane Andrew in 1992, is actually pretty interesting.

When we told Jesse we were getting on the road in Miami, he told us to make time to stop at RF Orchids in Homestead. Jesse is an orchid aficionado, and I could sense his enthusiasm, so we dutifully plugged in the coordinates and had made our way to this Orchid shop.

It is not really a shop. It is more like a botanical garden.

The owner lives on site and gives two free walking tours a day of the premises. He is a total character and makes the tour both really interesting and really funny. Most of the plants he shows you have some sort of quirky factoid or story behind them.

Here is the sign at the front gate:

Tour is starting and our guide (the owner, Robert Fuchs) is already bursting with enthusiasm:

At this point in the blog post you should know that I have no idea what the names of these plants are (except for a few) so bear with me:

This is not an orchid. Not sure what it is. He told us, but I forgot:

This is a vanilla vine growing on a palm tree. I learned a lot about vanilla. I didn't know 1) it was a vine 2) each little bulb produces only one seed per year 3) that seed lasts in the bulb only one day 4) that one day seed needs to be harvested by hand on that day 5) you then dry the seed and immerse it in alcohol to extract the vanilla flavor:

This is my favorite palm tree. It is called the "voodoo palm" and is from Haiti. They used the long spikes in their voodoo ceremonies. These spikes have some sort of venom inside so if you get pricked you go to sleep for a few hours:

Check this big mass of orchids growing up this group of palm trees. We are in between blooms, but it is still beautiful and it apparently "blows up" with color when they bloom:

Pretty cool palm species:

Another palm species we don't see a lot of:

This is the fish, turtle, and alligator pond:

He has HUGE catfish in there:

See the alligator in the sunniest spot of the pond catching some rays?

Beautiful bird:

Check how lush his yard is:

Some sort of fragrant white orchid:

Purple orchids:

Purple orchid close up:

Some nice ones:

Yellow orchid:

Pink orchids. I know I know, I am really disappointing our tour guide by only describing these orchids by their color but that is the best I can do a few days after the tour:

Pretty serious commercial operation:

After the hourlong tour, we were hungry. Fortunately there is a classic greasy spoon Mexican restaurant down the road in Florida City that hit the spot:

As we left Florida City, we saw lots of things to remind us we were in South Florida. This picture kind of days it all. An old dude parked in his heinous PT Cruiser selling his prized possessions in front of the trailer park. What is he selling? Oh, a couple of lawn mowers and a few walkers. You know, the kind of thing you typically see for sale on the side of the road:

We are now in Key West. Will update the blog soon. Jesse is keeping us busy and tired which is GREAT for us, not so good for the daily blog.