Wilderness Wandering

January 16-18, 2024

The night of January 15th we stayed in a beach front hotel in Islamorada, 1/2 way up the Keys. The next morning we walked on the boardwalk and were treated to a bunch of lizards sunning themselves. They were all different sizes and colors!

We drove to Everglades National Park and entered through the Ernest P. Coe entrance. Once again we took our picture with the park sign and stamped our passport. We chatted with the Ranger and watched a movie about the park. 

The first thing we did was attend a Ranger talk about the Nike missile site that was located within the park during The Cuban Missile Crisis until 1969. It was an excellent talk. We learned just how close we came to nuclear war with Russia. The sacrifices the soldiers stationed there were very significant.

After the talk, we drove an hour to the southernmost point of the park called Flamingo. We were warned at the Visitor Center that mosquito repellent is VERY necessary in Flamingo. They weren’t kidding!!

We stopped at the visitor center there and checked on the Ranger tours for the next day. They had a 3 hour kayak tour of Florida Bay, which is where fresh water and salt water meet. We signed up for the tour and then drove to the campground and checked into our ECO tent for the night. The ECO tents were very cool. There are 20 tents on platforms with boardwalks connecting them. They are furnished with comfortable beds, directors chairs and a small table, a book shelf and a lamp. There is an electrical outlet so you can charge your phone. The bathroom and showers are a short walk from the tents. You can’t eat in or have any food in the tents and it began to rain, so we had a very basic dinner in the car. It was lovely to fall asleep listening to the rain on the tent, and feeling the ocean breeze!

We slept great! We were up fairly early because we had to get to the visitor center by 8:00 AM for the kayak tour.

We got set up with our two person kayak and about 12 of us headed into the bay. We saw many birds. We learned a lot about the water of the park. Tim and I both were expecting this park to be a lot of swamps. It is really a huge grassy river of fresh water from Lake Okachobee in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. The park is 1.5 million acres making it the 3rd largest park in the lower 48 states. We learned about how some of the birds were almost hunted to extinction for their beautiful plumage and how the first Conservation efforts resulted in the death of the first Everglades game warden.

We returned our kayak and as we exited the kayak a young Manatee surfaced next to us! I was thrilled. She hung out by us for a little while and I got some cute photos! Definitely a highlight of this trip! We also saw a crocodile in the bay. We had a little lunch and drove to The Anhinga Trail. Anhingas are cool water birds. The trail is a .8 mile loop around a pond. We saw alligators, a poisonous snake, anhingas, purple gallinules, egrets, etc.

We also did the .4 mile Gumbo-Limbo Trail from the same trailhead. It was amazing how different this trail was from The Anhinga! Gumbo-Limbo Trail was like a rain forest with unique trees like funny sounding Gumbo-Limbo and The Strangler Fi!

On our way to our hotel, we made a wonderful pit stop at the world’s best fruit stand called Robert is Here! We enjoyed looking at all the unique fruits they have. We couldn’t leave without trying the Key Lime shake! OMG! So amazing! ❤️

We hung out at the hotel for a bit chatting around the pool with other Midwesterners escaping the cold.

We went back into the park to walk the Anhinga Trail after dark. I had heard it was very cool. It was a beautiful night for a stroll, but our cell phone flashlights weren’t strong enough to see much. Tim was almost carried away by the mosquitos!

On Thursday we headed to The Shark Valley area of the park. We rented bikes and headed out on the 15 mile paved trail. We survived the challenging elevation change of a total of 4 feet throughout the ride. We enjoyed this ride very much! We saw many alligators and birds. We came upon an alligator with a large turtle in its mouth seconds after he captured it. It was sad to watch the turtle struggle for its life. We left before the end of the battle.

The Everglades impressed us!