Bryan, Carl, and the rest of the "Usual Suspects," generally go to Bad Luck in the late afternoon and stay until the early morning hours. That being the case, we decided to start our day with an early morning drive.

I took the kids south of Naples on US Hwy 41 that morning because everything we now know as Collier County got its start there. I wanted to tell them a little bit about John Weeks, Ed Watson, William Scott Allen, how the Allen River became the Barron River, and how Everglades City was born.

I was looking forward to playing in the mud with my kids, but first, I wanted to tell them what I knew about Barron G. Collier, motor cars, canals, unkept Presidential promises, mercury, the price of sugar, and environmental mayhem.

Unfortunately, I am neither an historian, nor an environmentalist. I'm sure that the childrens' intellectual best interests would be better served if I were a little more of both, but I know something about the history of this area, and I felt that we could enjoy our morning sight-seeing, and talking about what humanity has done with the gifts we were entrusted with.

As we approached the end of our Memorial Day weekend, I felt like I should share with them some things about the development of SW Florida that I believe to be worthy of remembering. It's a story about hard work, development, greed, ignorance, generosity, corruption, good intentions, and people at their best and worst. I wanted to impress upon my children that if Mother Nature was a sentient being, if the Earth manifested conscious awareness, and if they had the collective capacity to act, they would be likely to eradicate humanity as the consumptive plague that we are.

Standing on the highway constructed to connect Tampa with Miami, and looking out over the prairie, I wondered how much things had changed over the last eighty years. What happened to Florida Bay, what killed 100,000 acres sea grass, why is the coral that makes up our barrier reef system dying, what can be done to correct it, and what's going to happen if we don't?

The Everglades Forever Act was not the answer, and it was obvious from its inception that it wouldn't be, as evidenced by the fact that environmental activist Marjory Stoneman Douglas declined to have it named after her.

How many Floridians remember what historians may one day call the "Barley-Buker War," where the US Sugar Corp. managed to defeat the penny-a-pound tax on sugar, intended to fund an effort to clean up the damage done consequent to its production?

How about the "Hole in the Donut" fiasco of thirty years ago, where land management experts demonstrated to the satisfaction of all concerned that they truly had no clue. Claiming that their pesticides and fertilizers polluted the swamp, lawyers and legalese successfully shut down the tomato farm that had been in existence there for generations, thereby allowing it to become infested with Brazilian Peppers.

As we continued south towards Everglades City, we approached the sign for the Port of the Islands Resort, a landmark known for various things, by various people. Out in the middle of nowhere, it once offered a remote, secluded landing strip that some found useful.

Others used the lights atop the facility as a navigation aid when flying in over the Gulf of Mexico, allowing them to land drug laden aircraft on Desoto Blvd., in the area we call, "the Blocks."

I recalled working one such case, where the pilot had evidently misjudged and inadvertently flown his plane into the ground, scattering himself, and hundreds of carefully wrapped packages of cocaine, all over the place. I remember that the largest piece of him was wearing an inflatable life vest - that struck me as being a bizarre irony at the time.

"Imagine," I told them, "that guy had a family that loved him and friends that liked and trusted him, but he wound up scattered all over an acre or so of swamp, with people cracking jokes about his life vest." That sounds harsh and hard, and I suppose it is, but we have all seen too many people's lives destroyed by lines of white powder, and too many kids who will never have a life, prostituting themselves for a puff of smoke. The likes of me have no sympathy whatsoever for the likes of him; I think it is important that my kids understand how I feel about that.

Anyway, it certainly is a beautiful hotel.

Once we got to the flashing light that marks the turn to Everglades City, we turned right and drove down thru the town that once served as the County seat. In photographing the court house, I found myself wondering what stories they would tell if those walls could speak.

From the airport, we drove on down to Chokoloskee. The kids were fascinated by the story of "Bloody Watson," the man alleged to have been so evil that he was murdered by the town.

Although I would have liked to have taken the children on down the coast to Flamingo, they were anxious to meet up with our friends and go Jeeping.

One day, we will have another boat of our own, and I will show them what the Gulf of Mexico and SW Florida's Ten Thousand Islands have to offer, but our morning was about used up, and we had to hurry to meet our friends.

Carl and Colleen arrived at our house in their blue Jeep shortly after we did, followed by Bryan and Molly in their black Jeep a few minutes later. In looking at this picture, I realize that my front yard looks much like the prairie, except for the asphalt and curb stones.

I climbed back into our Rubicon and made my way thru the first real hole. Once I was on the other side, I climbed out to get some pictures. Bryan didn't disappoint me - he hit that hole with enthusiasm.

Personally, I think it's a very small investment to make in a young man.

A lot of guys do this sort of thing with their Jeeps, but there are many who insist on doing all the driving, never letting anyone including their wives or girlfriends take a turn. They are the guys you hear saying, "Did you see me climb that rock," "I can't believe I crawled thru that mud hole" or, "I can pull you out."

It makes you want to say, "Yo Dude, you pushed down on a little plastic pedal for Heaven's sake - you having a little testosterone induced confusion?" Maybe some guys need that delusion, and it could be that letting their wife, or their children do it, would reveal some little guy behind the curtain that they don't want to see.

"Tell you what Dude, how about you guys just sort of split the difference -- suppose Momma lets you go right on clingin to that other delusion you're so fond of, if you let her and the kids have a turn with the Jeep."

Yepper, natural born mediator -- that would be me.

If you encourage your children to do things when they are young, they grow up to be more capable and self confidant. Most folks might find this a little anxiety provoking.

The way Jeremy manages to follow us wherever we go, it's hard to imagine that his Jeep is a base model 6 cylinder automatic Wrangler Sport, without a posi-traction rear end. Without a suspension lift, or a body lift, he manages to keep up with us running on a set of wheels and tires that came standard on the Rubicon.

I am not sure what to attribute his success to, but I suspect that it might be related to weight. He weighs significantly less than most adults, he usually has no more than one child as passenger, and his Jeep isn't loaded down with accessories.

Carl's blue Sport has a 4 inch Fabtec suspension lift, a 3 inch body lift and significantly larger tires, but he sometimes hangs up in places Jeremy drives through. Carl made it thru this hole on his second try after Dook pulled him out -- can you imagine how exciting that is for nine year-old?

Naturally, Dook couldn't leave him standing there so he had to go back and get him.

Clever how Dook pulled around in a circle so Bryan could get back in the Jeep on the passenger side.

Okay, I apologize - that isn't what happened. I just felt like I had to add something for those who are demanding that access to this prairie be shut down. I suppose that there will always be those who disapprove of activities that do no make sense to them, and cannot abide that which they cannot control.

If you look closely at the band of "bad boys" in the photo above, you could identify this young lady's parents and her grandfather. This was a family affair and the young lady involved was very young.

Grandparents spending quality time with children, and grandchildren, while teenagers wrestled in the mud. I wish I had taken a better picture of this young lady - Sandy Sue is as pretty as a model, as tough as the most of the guys and makes straight A's at Gulf Coast. She's single too!

In thirty years as a detective, meddling about in other people's business, I have seen a lot of life and I've tried to pay attention. Gangs, drugs, senseless violence, sexually transmitted fatal diseases . . . as parents, we have much to fear and contend with.

I'm getting old, a little awkward, and I suppose it's odd for a man my age to have so many friends half his age, but as long as there's one young person on the planet who wants to go play in the mud, I'll try to be, "down for that."

Jeremy kept up in his yellow Jeep but lacking the ride height enjoyed by the rest of us, deep water was a challenge even with a snorkel.

At one point, we realized that we had left him behind, so we went back to our last water crossing to wait for him.

When Jeremy caught up, he attempted the crossing, but before he had gone more than a few feet, the water threatened to break over his hood. Although the snorkel would protect him from hydro locking his motor, alternators and electronics do not do well under water.

That's his Jeep, he makes the payments and he is responsible for repairs. Since he hadn't seen us negotiate the crossing, he was unable to tell how deep the water might be; as we talked about it via CB Radios, I honestly couldn't remember exactly where I'd gone thru.

I was glad to see that he had the sense to back out and rethink his plan.

I found the whole thing wonderfully remarkable. My nine year-old saw a problem, recognized that he could help and just did it, without soliciting opinions or permission from anyone.

I know these guys, I love them, and as I sat there watching him supervise his brother's crossing, I realized how Dook had to feel.

I also knew how Jeremy must have felt, and as has always been the case with that young man, he didn't disappoint me. When he got thru the crossing, he keyed the mic and just said, "Thank you Dook," in precisely the same way as he would address any other adult.

If you don't know people, especially young people, you may not see the potential here for a braggart's bravado, or sarcastic praise born of childish resentment. This whole event may seem to you to be a very small thing.

I'm in the parenting business and I'll share with you a truth that you can take to the bank - Parental victories lie in the day-to-day minutia; diligently attend to the little things, and the big things will take care of themselves.

For his return trip, Dook chose a slightly different path that took them into water that was just a little deeper.

Anxious to help, Jeremy waded in to spool some line out of the winch - "Hey Dad, will this thing work under water?"

They tried a couple of options before using my high/dry winch to pull him out. We learned an important lesson here - although we usually take turns pulling each other out, in the future, we will not waste time when dealing with submerged vehicles. Whomever can get to it first should get it out as fast as they can.

It wasn't as if getting him out did a lot of good; as soon as Bryan was unstuck, he found another treacherous crossing to jump into.

He's doing pretty good in this picture - the wave of water shows that he is making forward progress.

Brian and Julie used their four-wheeler to check out the trail and search for shallow water crossings.

Julie had rescued Dook when he drowned out Cara's four-wheeler the night before - Frankly, I think he just wanted to be rescued by Julie!

Dook has always been that way; when he was three, his mom and I could not believe that he invited the young ladies from day care home to swim in the pool - and they came.

Whereas Dook's a charming little flirt, Ryan is serious, quiet and shy. Watching them grow up will be fun.

I need to add a photo of Cara, the young lady who has been sharing her four-wheeler Dook, but she never seems to show up until after dark. She's a sweetheart - they say she has the temper to go with all that red hair, but you couldn't prove that by me.

Jeremy solved that problem by tying off to Eddie's bumper. Once a vehicle breaks thru and settles down into the goo, it "sticks." A suction seems to form between the under carriage and the mud that is very hard to break. Unfortunately, the portable winch didn't appear to have the pulling power necessary to break Bryan free - it might have been able to do it, but Eddie and Jeremy continued to slide toward Bryan.

We ultimately extricated him by parking my Jeep significantly further away where the ground was much less slippery. Eddie tied off as an anchor point for my Jeep, and we doubled the power of my winch by running it thru an industrial strength snatch block to pull him free.

By the time we freed him, it was getting dark.

We continued Jeepin' on thru the night, getting people stuck, and getting people unstuck, until the kids finally had all they could stand. My Megs was in charge of the winch controls to the very end.

I don't think Jeremy ever gets tired.