The Everglades!

snowy egret waiting for fish

By the time we can publish this blog on the web, we will have spent almost two weeks in Everglades National Park, utterly deprived of internet connections. The first nine days we've been camping at Flamingo Campground, at the end of the 35-mile park access road and right on the edge of Florida Bay. Although we'd been told that there were neither electricity nor water hookups at the campsites, we found that (if we were willing to pay a bit extra), we could move to sites set up with electricity. Since that made life much simpler, and allowed us to use our air conditioner on occasion, we moved to the premium sites after the first night. On Monday the 12^th of March we're leaving Flamingo and moving a short distance in the park to the Long Pine Key Campground.

red-shouldered hawk in flight

Backing up some, we left Jonathan Dickinson State Park on Saturday, March 3 and headed south, however, there were many errands we needed to do before we could enter the Everglades (seeing that we'd be there for nine days). We tried but failed to find breakfast with wifi anywhere but McDonalds, but made do with McMuffins and McBiscuits! West Palm and Palm Beach don't seem to cater very much to transients like us. We needed to fill the View with propane, find firewood, do laundry, and grocery shop. Our 150 mile trip took longer than anticipated because laundry took forever and we ended up shopping at two grocery stores to get what we wanted. Oh yes, firewood was yet another issue as no one seemed to have it. We were, however, given directions for “Roberts'”, which wanted a mere $12 for a medium-sized bundle of “Minnesota” firewood.

David on the trail

Anyway, we've kept very busy down at Flamingo. The park service offers a wide range of programs, starting in the mornings at 8:00 am and concluding with slide presentations at an outdoor amphitheater after dusk. It has been very windy at Flamingo, and this prevented us from taking our kayaks out on the bay. We did explore the bay on a 1.5-hour cruise, though, and got the kayaks out once to paddle up a freshwater canal that had been dug to allow boat access to some of the Everglades' interior lakes. An interesting point: salt water from the bay began damaging the inland ecosystems, so a few years back the park built a “plug”, a dam to keep the salt and fresh water parts separate.

Following are some of our more memorable activities down in Everglades:

Any write-up has to begin by admitting that we've been eating very well. Marty and Dee jointly plan our menus and split up the major cooking; Paul often prepares a “special breakfast”, and David handles the grilling of chickens. Everything is delicious, augmented by the pleasure of being to eat outside nearly every day. Also, we shouldn't fail to mention our very pleasurable wine and beer social hours before dinner.

roseate spoonbill feeding in Eco Pond

Ok, back to the activities we've done. Nearly every day has included a trip over to Eco Pond for birdwatching and several times to Mrazek Pond both of which are near the campground. We have managed to get to Eco Pond every morning except one. We have seen so many birds, it is hard to know where to begin. We've seen brown and white pelicans, black-necked kites, great blue, little blue and tricolored herons, great and snowy egrets, osprey, roseate spoonbills, white ibis and glossy ibis, wood storks, coots, and others we have yet to identify. There are magnificent red-shouldered hawks too! Some mornings there have been hundreds of birds and other mornings 30-50 depending on the tide (the birds will feed in the pond when the tide is too high for them to feed on the bay). Marty has taken hundreds of photos and some of them she even thinks are pretty darn good!

Marty in biking gear, taking a break 

We have also done the hikes right in the immediate area, all of which have something unique to offer us. We've done some bike riding on trails with so many roots that when you end the ride you think your voice will come out vibrating. And then there have been the paddles. We've gone up Buttonwood Canal and seen crocks or gators as well as having gone on a really nice ranger-led canoe trip on Nine Mile Pond where we saw more gators, coots, herons, and (for the first time) the Glossy Egret.

Although the site we are in has electricity and trees are near by, we don't get the benefit of any kind of shade from them. The trees do, however, attract the song and other birds and we have enjoyed the mockingbirds singing as well as watching the turkey and black-headed vultures. There have also been lots and lots of butterflies.

black-necked stilt

This park is truly a treasure for the US! We have meet wonderful people from all over the US and Canada and have seen every kind of camper/RV rig there is.

Now (Monday, March 12) in Long Pine Key campground we are enjoying a completely different type of camping. There are no lights at night save our own or others. The spaces are large and more private with vegetation between each space and we have tall pine trees through which the wind has sung to us while we ate our dinner. We've explored the Anhinga Trail too, where we saw so many different birds (and very close up), as they are used to seeing people! We got to see many Anhingas as well, these are rather amazing birds which swim with only part of their necks out of the water. Their chicks are now in the nests and, although quite large, are still covered with down. Being in this campground has expanded our experience of the Everglades and made us even more appreciative of what this park has to offer the visitor!