Nike Missile Site

On January 19, we went on a field trip to the Nike Missile Site in Everglades National Park. It is a missile site from the Cold War Era that was set up for defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was fascinating! But, I must say, the most amazing this is that I've lived in South Florida my whole life and never knew this was even here!! So this was a really fun field trip for me!! :-) I didn't get the whole "Nike" thing, like the sneakers, but they explained it to us: The word "Nike" was from some Greek mythological story where the god was strong like fire, but flew (or something like that. I was trying to take pictures, keep the kids wrangled, and listen all at once, so I did my best.) Anyway, the tour guide said that that's where the sneaker got it's name from, too. If you're old enough, do you remember that the Nike logo used to have wings? That's why. Pretty cool, huh? I thought so!! lol

So, here we are at the missile site.

This is one of four hangers that they used to house the missiles in. The base closed down in 1979 and since then, has fallen into disrepair. But, the Everglades Park has acquired it as a historical place and is in the process of refurbishing it to it's original look, at least as best they can do. They said each building housed 4 missiles, which were manually rolled out on tracks and then lifted mechanically to aim and shoot. Isn't it amazing how quickly technology has changed in only 4o or 50 short years!! Now we have the Patriot missiles that are practically unstoppable!!

If you look in the very center of this picture, you see a yellow square thing. That is the escape hatch for the guys under this mound in the bunker. Indy thought that was really cool.

And, this is the bunker for one of the other hangers. We couldn't go in because, like all buildings of that time, it's full of asbestos and lead paint, which is peeling. But, we did get to stand outside and look in. Pretty cool. Not sure I'd like to be in there too long, since it was really, really small, but still neat to look at. They plan to clean all the bunkers out and make them so people can actually walk in. I can't wait to go back when they're done and see it refurbished back to it's original state.

This was the building where they did assembly on the missiles. Someone (the park doesn't know who), painted this missile on the side of the building. We took lots of pictures in front of it. Here, the tour guide is telling the kids all about it. Indy is in red and raising his hand. He loves anything military, so he just had a ball on this field trip!

Here's the boys with the park ranger, who got a kick out of Levi.

Well, since we were in the Park, we decided to stop at one of the boardwalks where they have areas to picnic and have lunch. After lunch, we walked on the boardwalk and saw this.....

and this.....

and this......

and this!!

Indy counted 22 alligators in this one area. There's only about 12 here in this picture. They are all "in" (near land and canals) right now because it's dry as all get out, out in the Everglades. When the rains come in late spring, early summer, they will all head back out into the wild. So, wintertime is a great time to get some close up pix of alligators!!