Gatored community: The Miccosukee Indian Village alligator wrestling statue

We saw the real deal just down the road apiece.

Route 41 is the old highway that runs east and west along the very most southern part of Florida. It's also known as the Tamiami Trail (that name being a Desilu-type smashup of Tampa and Miami) and runs right through the Everglades. A good deal of this land is owned and run by Native Americans and the Miccosukee tribe has a large development that includes dining, gaming, nightlife, entertainment and other resort-like whatnot. They also have the Miccosukee Indian Village, that features a museum, airboat rides and an old-time Florida tourist staple throwback, alligator demonstrations. We're glad to see them using the word "demonstrations" and not "wrestling" because we're not huge fans of poking at animals mercilessly until they snap at you. We also understand, though, that Native Americans get shafted a lot of the time and need to make a living, so we're happy their website says "no harm or pain is inflicted on the alligators during The Alligator Encounter," an event where visitors are taught "how to respectfully touch and mount a Florida alligator." This is good to know -- if I was going to be touched and mounted by a tourist, I'd want it to be done with respect. The statue depicts a young, husky tribesman with his hand under a frisky-looking alligator's chin, and not in a "coochy-coochy-coo" sort of way. The signature reads that of Chris Dixon of Chris Dixon Studios and 2009. The statue can be seen as you whiz down Route 41 at 60 mph and does cause a double take because of its size and folk-art style, a reaction we get when we see other huge roadside giants. Nice for us eccentric roadside attraction fans that such a recent work of promotion was done in such a retro sort of way. See you later, alligator!

Are the Everglades eccentric? Does a bear ride an airboat on a Coke can?

As far as national parks go, Florida's Everglades are more subtle and don't scream crazy-eccentric like Yellowstone or Bryce Canyon, but they are not without their kooky charms. Take, for instance, the sign that beckons travelers to the Gator Park restaurant/gift shop/airboat depot on Route 41 near Shark Valley. An approximately 8-foot tall Coke can sits atop a 4-foot pedestal. But wait, there's more. Cruising the top of the Coke can is a decommissioned airboat driven by a life-sized artificial bear. This is particularly eccentric, since the place is called Gator Park and not Bear Park. It's just the tacky ticket to greet you or bid you farewell to this one-of-a-kind region and must have taken some doing to assemble.

Kudos to you Gator Park. This place floats my (air) boat and to not "pop" in would have been more than I could bear. You really know how to gator done.

Please stand by for station identification: the vintage Flamingo gas station of the Everglades

 Back in the 1960s...

 ...and the '70s.

 It's now home to a friendly swarm of bees...

 ...and this Florida Tourism Ambassador is just down the road apiece.

You never know where you'll find a great example of mid-century architecture. Take the Everglades National Park, for example. All swamps, great blue herons and mighty alligators, you think? Well, yeah, but they've also got what's left of a 1958 filling station next to the visitors' center in the Flamingo section of the park. And what's cool is they recognized it as something worth keeping, even though it stopped pumping gas back some time ago. It was part of Mission 66, a nationwide program to upgrade the National Park visitor centers that were overflowing with car-driving enthusiasts post World War II. This station was considered ideal for all the roadtrippers who had made it all the way down to the 'glades, and there are pictures of it being used up through the seventies. At some point, the pumps were moved to a nearby marina and the station was then a post office. Not sure exactly how long it remained empty, but in 2012 it was given a makeover and done-up in a luscious shade of Googie pink to offset the beige stonework on its facade. It would be awesome if this place could get the full museum treatment of looking like a real 1950s-60s station, with pumps, rotating sign, triangular flags, and an interior featuring oil cans stacked in a pyramid, maps, a Coke machine and a hose that rang a bell if you ran over it. Oh, and don't forget the guy in the white coveralls, policeman's hat and bow tie, ready to fill 'er up and wash your windshield. Happy motoring!

A little something to keep you posted: The country's smallest post office of Ochopee, Florida

 Postmaster Shannon Mitchell, at your service

 It really is a living, breathing post office

 One of the friendly neighbors along the mail route

 There is a glorious 264-mile stretch of Florida's old Highway 41 that runs from Tampa to Miami that is, appropriately enough, known as the Tamiami Trail. Predating the Interstate, it's still dotted with old fashioned tourist attractions and the kinds of oddities we eccentric roadside attraction fans pine for, not the least of which are real, live alligators you can see from your car window along the roadside canals. The Everglades stretch of the Tamiami is also the home of a magnificently unexpected roadside treat: the smallest post office building in the entire USA. In the early 1930s, the tiny town of Ochopee, about 36 miles southeast of Naples (Florida, not Italy, silly) was settled as a tomato farming community and once had a general store with a post office inside it on Route 41. In 1953, a fire destroyed the building, but quick-thinking postmaster Sidney Brown removed the postal records before they were damaged and set up shop in a nearby undamaged 7 x 8-foot shed formerly used to store irrigation pipes and hoses and the post office has remained there to this day. It's just large enough for one postal employee to sit and tend to the postal matters at hand, which include processing mail for a 132-mile mail route across three counties, and taking care of walk-up customers and curiosity seekers. We were lucky enough to catch postmaster Shannon Mitchell hard at work. She cheerfully answered our inane questions (Where do you use the rest room? Across the street at Joanie's Blue Crab Restaurant. How long have you worked here? Nine years. You must like all your coworkers, don't you? nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.)  She sold us a commemorative postcard with a one-of-a-kind cancellation for the low, low price of a dollar, too. Lots of tourists drop by to take pictures to make their friends back home envious, which does our hearts good and just goes to show you that good things really do come in small (postal) packages.