Johnston

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 81
Weather - Sunny, Pleasantly Cool (high of 72 by late afternoon)
Camped at Long Key State Park, about mid way in the Florida Keys

Narratives:

While there are undoubtedly more things we could find to do in Key West, we had visited the places that were important to us and were ready to move on. I stayed up late writing that long blog entry (we did a lot of things yesterday), so got moving a little slowly this morning - but we finally got back on Hwy 1 heading towards the mainland again.

Since we'd rushed a bit to get down to Key West to our campground reservation, we wanted to head back up the Keys a little slower and see some of the other places along the way. The first of these was the Key Deer NWR on Pine Key. We tried going to the Visitors Center, but they're closed on weekends so we just drove up Key Deer Ln. Key Deer are the smallest subspecies of Virgina White Tailed deer and were amost extinct at one point. They are making a comeback now that they're protected and it is estimated there are between 600 and 700 animals in total, mostly on Pine and No Name Key's. We did see two but weren't able to get a picture.

While trying to find them, we stopped at a place called the blue hole. This is a former limestone quarry that filled with rainwater and now provides habitat for various wildlife species. A volunteer ranger was at the site to assist visitors, so I asked some of the questions that were on my list. One thing we learned is that a lot of the birds we've been calling Great Egrets may not be Egrets at all but Great White Heron, which is just a morph of a Great Blue Heron. We also learned the the smaller white birds we've been seeing in fields a lot are Cattle Egrets, which are not a native species to America but are doing just fine now that they're here.

We also found this rock formed from ancient coral on No Name Key, which is similar to the types of coral blocks used to build the Hemingway house and lighthouse on Key West.

Scientists believe that the Florida Key's started forming about 200,000 years ago when the Earth was in a warmer period. Coral Reefs grew in the warm waters on the Florida Platform along the Continental Shelf. When the climate cooled during the later ice ages, the sea levels dropped and exposed the reef and much of the shallow plateau, killing the coral and exposing a great deal of dry land. Beginning about 15,000 years ago the planet warmed up again and the ice receded, sea levels rose and flooded much of the exposed reef. The small Florida Keys are the hightest elevations of the once exposed coral reef.

There aren't very many beaches on the Key's but there are some. We found one of the nicer ones on Bahia Honda Key State Park and decided to eat lunch there.

There is also a section of old road extending out from the SP, I still don't understand why they leave this thing up but I guess they are very proud of it. They have even had this bridge listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The State Park also has a Butterfly garden. These critters are terribly hard to photograph, I think they just like to tease - sit still until you get the camera turned on, then flitter about madly so you can't ever focus on them again. There was a large, red/orange butterfly I never did capture. These are the ones I could.

On the east end of Bahia Honda Key is the famous "Seven Mile Bridge". I pulled over in a small "Veterans Park" just before the bridge to get some pictures of it, but found it to be a nice little park in it's own right. We loved the little grass roofed picnic shelters. The water was very still here today however, no waves at all, not even little ones.

Then of course, the bridge. It's not as long or scary as I'd expected. You drive across at 55 mph and are across in about 10 minutes.

Now see what you can do if you don't care about sleep... While we drove across the bridge, I set the camera to movie and asked Mom to just point and shoot. Tonight, I tried adding a couple of titles and replaced the wind & road noise with some Windows sample music (after finally figuring out how to do this - yes, I will try to take the tutorial someday), and it's not too shabby (or maybe I'm biased)

We stopped again at Home Depot to get screws to add to the door in between the existing screws. So far, the second patch job is holding but I figure it wouldn't hurt to add a few more preventive steps.

As we drove across Long Key, we saw another State Park. So far, every SP we've checked has been full as far as campsites. In the Key's, folks make reservations for SP Campsites as much as a year in advance. Most are booked up for months, especially for the popular season (Dec - Jan). But just for fun, I stopped at the ranger station here and asked. The Ranger laughed and said that something must have gone wrong, since when he went to lunch there were not sites available - but now there was one site open. It was still a little early to stop for the night but I grabbed it. Then while I was filling out the registration form somebody else stopped in to inquire about a campsite. The ranger promptly informed him that their sites have been booked for months. Perhaps, but if people cancel and you just happen to stop by at the right time, you might get lucky like this also.

(No that's not an optical illusion, the ocean is only about 15 feet from where Mom is sitting).

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 13 (RT)
Weather - Sunny, mid to high 60's and warming
Camped at Boyds RV park again

Musings:

It's hard to believe this is the half way point of our trip! In many ways, it feels like we're just getting underway. In others, I'm also anxious to get home. Odd stuff that. Mom and I were really enjoying the sunshine and beach at lunch and got to discussing Key West vs Everglades: both at southern end of Florida and the US, both very beautiful but in totally different ways. In fact, they're both so different they're hard to compare - but while we're enjoying Key West a lot, we both liked the quiet and solitude of the Everglades better. Guess we're hopelessly not jet-setters.

Narrative:

My plan is to spend today in Key West, then start heading back up Hwy 1 Sunday, maybe taking a little more time to stop along the way and visit some of the other Key's. So I wanted to get as much sightseeing in as possible. I think we succeeded.

We started off driving on the SE side to the Island. Key West is about 4 miles long and 2 miles wide, not very large but maybe larger than some of the other Key's we've driven across. There were no beaches along most of the route, just a seawall. Some folks were out walking or jogging however and it was a lovely drive with the morning sun on the water.

Then we went to the monument to the Southern Most point in the continential US. I'm not sure why this qualifies, since Key West is an Island, but maybe since it's on the Continental Shelf or connected to the continent by Hwy 1, they can make this claim? But this was one of the major targets of our trip - and here we are:

BTW - there was a short line of people waiting to get their pictures taken by the monument, so we each just took turns taking pictures for the next group, then posing ourselves. Later in the day the line was half a block long! It turns out that Dec - Jan are the most popular (crowded) times to visit Key West, since folks want to avoid the really hot, humid months and also the bugs. The worst part of that period is the Christmas/New Years break - when lots of folks are off from work or school.

But it also seems that many folks like to sleep in late when they're on vacation, so between 9 AM and 10 AM, we still found some parking and breathing room downtown. After that, good luck (well, sort of anyway). Most folks rent bikes, scooters or electric carts - which I'd highly recommend (not sure where they park the carts tho).

Anyway, after some circling around I finally found a handicapped spot a couple of blocks away from the home Ernest Hemingway lived in during some of his most prolific years, so we put the RV there for the rest of the day and headed off to tour the Hemingway house.

Actually, this may be misnamed a bit because the house was built by Asa Tift - the richest 'wrecker' in Key West during the 1800's, but more on that later. After "A Farewell to Arms" was published and became a big success, Ernest Hemingway bought the property in 1931 and lived there with his second wife, Pauline, until their divorce in 1939. The house and furnishings are all pretty much as they were when the Hemingways lived there.

Hemingway built a room to write in above a converted carriage house. The museum leaves it set up with his typewriter, table and chairs just as he worked in it.

Of course, throughout the property are cats, 47 of them at present. They are decended from Hemingway's original six toed tomcat. The six toes are a genetic trait, polydactyl, and about half of the museums cats carry this trait. Regardless of how many toes they have, the cats are very well treated.

There is even a special watering trough for the cats. This was actually the urinal at one of Hemingway's favorite bars. Pauline objected to having it in the yard and her gardener tried to hide it's original function by adding tiles and a urn fountian, but the tour guides are happy to share the real secret.

Across the street from the Hemingway home is the Key West Lighthouse - a handy location for someone who often tended to stay out drinking too late. (Just follow the bright light home!)

This isn't the largest or most spectacular lighthouses we've seen - but has one very interesting feature. In addition to the Third Order Fresnel Lens in the lighthouse itself are a First Order, Fourth Order and Fifth Order lens in the Museum - with all their glass pieces intact!

Of course I climbed the ninty or so steps to the top, but even though this wasn't as tall as other lighthouses - the steps were detached from the walls a couple of feet, so were very narrow and almost freestanding - and more scary than most. The views from the top were pretty good however.

Mom didn't climb the lighthouse of course, but enjoyed the sunshine and finding a banana tree in the yard. We also enjoyed finding so many beautiful flowers in bloom in early January down here! She's asked me to print some hard copies of the flower shot for her friends (I may cheat and use a photo printing machine...)

By now it was about time for lunch, so we walked the 4 blocks or so back to the Southernmost area to a cafe we'd seen earlier. The "Southernmost Cafe" is on a small beach and open on the sides so you can enjoy the sea air and carribean ambiance. We somehow got seated right along the open beach side and had a wonderful lunch. We also ordered two slices of Key Lime Pie that were just too good (they make their own)

While we were eating, several things flew by including a biplane. (A helicopter and sailboat also passed by, but I'll spare you pictures of everything we saw, honest!)

Of course, after all that walking Mom was pretty tired - so we ordered a cab to take us to the north side of the island. The NW corner is where the historic waterfront & town were located. The tourist brochures indicated there was a Shipwreck museum there, which I thought might be interesting. As we approached the museum (they call it a "Historeum"), Mom heard music and found her second wind.

However, she also decided that there were too many stairs for her in the Historeum didn't go through it. Maybe there were also too many shops in the area she wanted to visit while I went through the Historeum as she spent the wad for January while I was inside!

It turns out that there were so many shipwrecks along the Florida reefs (in spite of the lighthouses) that in the mid 1800's Key West had the highest per capita wealth in the US! "Wreckers" made their living salvaging goods from shipwrecks. Asa Tift, who built the house later made famous when Hemingway lived there, was the most successful and wealthy "wrecker". The historeum is located in his warehouse, although the tower is a replica. Wreckers built towers and hired folks to watch for ships to founder ("Wreck Ashore"!). The first captain to get his ship to the sight got the salvage rights and could decide which other ships & wreckers to use in the operation. Wreckers also rescued passengers and crew and often risked their own lives. It was such a dangerous occupation that nobody would insure the wreckers vessels, which were almost always sloops.

Asa Tifts also made money in other enterprises. Across the square from his wreckers warehouse was his ice house (now a shell store, the pink building below). His ships brought Ice down from Maine for sale in the Key's as late as 1890.

It was an interesting thing to tour, the exhibits were mostly of items that had been on shipwrecks, so weren't in pristine condition. I think it was more interesting learning a little more about the colorful past than the exhibits themselves. (Who knew there were people who made a legitimate living off of shipwrecks, and a good one at that?)

Anyway, Mom was really worn out after spending all that money (and dancing), so we took a bicycle ride back to the RV for her. Our driver, Sebastian, is actually planning a bicycle tour around the US shortly so was very interested in our trip. I gave him a card of course.

I was also getting pretty tired, but had seen one more museum in the old waterfront area that I had to visit, so after Mom was comfortable back in the rig, I hoofed it the mile back to the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum.

Mel Fisher is a treasure hunter. He and his company have been finding shipwrecks for years and had searched for many, many years for the 'mother load', Spanish Galleons that had sunk during a hurricane in 1622 carrying tons of treasure. In 1980, he found the first one, the Margarita. Then in 1985, they found the flagship - the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. This was carrying 40 tons of treasure, including 24 tons of silver bars and about 200,000 silver coins as well as copper, gold and emeralds. The treasure today is worth about $450 Million dollars. But it is not hidden away in some vault somewhere (at least not all of it). The Fisher's have set up a non profit organization to display some of the treasure and other artifacts in this musuem!

Not only do they display some of the treasure in a museum, they allow you to take pictures (not commercially of course). Here are a picture of one of the wood boxes and silver coins they found. Following that are a couple of the gold bars.

The museum also houses items recovered from other shipwrecks. They don't always yeild treasures in the traditional sense, but offer glimpses into lives from centuries ago which yields a different sort of treasure. These are some crossbows from the 1564 wreck of the Santa Clara.

These are some items from the Henrietta Marie, a slave ship. The cauldron was used to cook a gruel or soup from whatever stock was on hand to feed the 250 slaves on board. Shackles were used mostly on men and when the ship was near enough to shore to worry about rebellion, but some of the pairs Fisher's team found were smaller so may have been used on children or women.

After adding to the treasure haul by visiting the gift shop, I finally headed back to the RV also (another walk across the island). Along the way, I took more pictures of historic homes and things we hadn't taken the time to tour, but that might still be of interest. I'll post these for you to peruse at your leisure (or not as you prefer).

Tomorrow, we'll leave this lovely (but expensive) place and start up Hwy 1 again, and slowly towards home (OK - maybe in 3 or 4 months?)

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 132
Weather - Cool, Partly Sunny, Some Winds but not a problem
Camped at Boyds Campground on Stock Island, just across a short bridge from Key West.

Musings:

Interesting day, things never turn out quite the way you assume they will...

Did you happen to notice the Blog is current again? Of course, it took me until past midnight to get it so. Mom would probably say - 'can it'...

Narrative:

The objective for today was to get to Key West, and we did that. Driving hard, we decided to bypass most of the sightseeing and make sure we got there. We may take more time out for stopping on the way back. So there isn't a lot of blogging to do for today.

However, things didn't get off quite as we planned. On our way south, we again stopped at the Wal-mart in Homestead to get Mom's prescription filled (the Pharmacy was closed on New Years when we stopped by on our way to the Everglades). Nasty surprise, somebody in the government figured they could save money by having Seniors prove their eligibility for low income status every year (or at least this year). Somehow, Mom missed the notification, maybe the trip, maybe the government, who knows. Anyway, she went to pick up the prescription and instead of paying $5, her usual co-pay, they wanted $90!

So instead of leaving for the Keys right away, we sat in the RV in the parking lot for a couple of hours trying to call Social Security. It seems another way they've used to save money is to have a phone system that never lets you through to a live body. "Speak or say...". So using two cell phones, a laptop computer, and two people trying to find someone who can explain this to us, we finally succeeded. She has a phone interview scheduled for next Tuesday that will probably reinstate her status so she can get her prescriptions filled.

So we'll try again next week - and in the meantime will try to put that all behind us and get back to our trip! This got easier to do the further south we headed.

The layout as you go south in Florida is first Miami, which is very built up, endless condo's and apartments and very expensive. Further south you get to Homestead - big Air Force Base, a military town (and not too far south of where we'd been camping). Homestead is also where the Wal-mart was where we'd stopped.

Driving further south from the Wal-mart, it was only a few minutes before we saw wetlands on both sides, Egrets along the swampy fields on the sides of the road, and not much human development other than an occasional marina or seafood restaraunt, and not many of them. Homestead seems to be the southern end of development in Florida. From there south until you cross into Key Largo is wetlands.

Highway 1 runs from Maine (yes Maine, not just Miami) to Key West. This section that we're taking today, from Homestead to Key West, is mostly two lanes and wasn't very busy today. They were working on the road on the first stretch, not surprising since many parts of the road seemed to be adversly affected by erosion (or something, the quality was pretty scary at times).

We crossed a fairly high bridge to Key Largo and back into strip malls - but these with a distinctly Scuba Diving or Shell flavor. At the Visitors Center, we picked up additional information about the Florida Keys. Unlike Barrier Islands as we'd seen farther North along the eastern seaboard, the Keys were formed by Coral Reefs during earlier ice ages/warming cycles. Most of the trip to Key West is actually across Islands, with only short bridges or causeways where you're fairly exposed. The famous stretch I'd seen in movies (and assumed would be how most of the drive would be) is a seven mile long bridge between two of the middle keys. So only seven miles of the whole 125 or so is open ocean - the rest is mostly islands and island hopping (short bridges). The name "Key" is a corruption from the Spainish word "cayo", meaning small island.

There was wind today but it wasn't that bad. In hindsight, I could have probably made it on Jan 2nd as we'd originally scheduled, but it will probably be more fun in Key West tomorrow slightly warmer and less windy.

Once we got past the first couple of keys, they became less populated and more beautiful. The water was esecially lovely, we did pull over once on Indian Key and took a few pictures. Some jelly fish had blown up along the shoreline, which I didn't do a very good job capturing. Believe it or not, these pictures were all taken in the same area at about the same time (color variations due to partly cloudy/partly sunny conditions).

When I went to get back into the RV, the wind again caught the door and pulled it a little, sure enough it again fell apart. I guess my 'patch' job wasn't very good! I gently pushed it together enough to get it closed and locked it to prevent us from accidentially opening the door until I can repair it more effectively (we'll have to climb through the front for the moment). Fortune choosing to smile upon us a bit, one of the larger Key's near the middle actually had a Home Depot. I pulled in and stocked up on Wood Hardener, Wood Putty, and super glues.

Along the drive, we passed some sections where an older road (or something or other) paralleled the main road, but we couldn't quite figure out what it was. There were sections missing in some area's, lots of people fishing off it in others, some sections were clearly too narrow for cars. It turns out that before Hwy 1 was built, a developer built a railroad from Miami to Key West. This was the only way to get there other then by ferry. There were also some bridges built between islands, but no through road as there is today. Then on Labor Day in 1935 a Cat. 5 Hurricane struck the Key's and severly damanged the railroad and road bridges beyond repair. The remaining sections have just been left in place next to the new ones built for Hwy 1. Some are blocked off, but others left open as fishing piers.

We really enjoyed the drive, especially as we got past the more built up Keys. There were still a lot of resorts all along this stretch, a few State Parks, and several RV campgrounds. Having lost so much time on the phone this morning, we just drove by the parks and beaches - but did make note of where they were as we'll be driving back this way Sunday! With so much self-discipline, we actually made it to the campground shortly before 4 PM, plenty of daylight left to play with the door. First however, I took a stroll around the campground and took some pictures. We didn't get a waterfront spot, afterall I just called them a few days ago, but we're only about 40' from the ocean!

By the way, we also have an interesting tree by our site here - of a slightly different sort.

The pioneers had to contend with broken wagon wheels, axles and just about everything else that could break and no local Home Depot for repair supplies. I guess we can deal with an occasional flimsy door.

So I broke out the tools, glues, and bravado to see what I could do about the door. After pounding away for some time, it was clear the hinge pins weren't going to come out (probably rusted solid where they don't turn). I decided to leave the door in the frame (to hold it together) and try removing the screws and fixing the screw holes in place. So with lots of fat matchsticks I'd been able to find at the campground store and fancy expanding glue from Home Base, I screwed the thing back together again. We are leaving it locked until tomorrow - give the glue plenty of time to set up. If it will hold up that long, I finally realized the easiest way to fix this (and probably best) - just drill new screw holes and add more screws. Duh. So Sunday when we head back, I'll stop at Home Depot again and get the necessary materials. The door will probably be stronger then it's been since before I bought the RV.

In the meantime, I think my patch job #2 will hold through the weekend so tomorrow we'll set our sights on conquering the Conch Republic (e.g. Key West for you land lubbers)!

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 0
Weather - Very Cold and Windy, especially in the Morning
Camped at Miami Everglades RV Park

Musings:

I'm beginning to think some of the fancy RV campgrounds are like Cruise ships. They have activities and a sort of community that develops. People travel with the RV park as the destination, not to stay at the park while traveling to other destinations. I'm a different sort of traveller, just using the campground as a base of support while I travel to different destinations. Guess it's just a case of different strokes for different folks. (Anybody want to buy a campground membership?)

Narrative:

Not much to write about today, but Mom had been telling folks about the RV campground (Big Pool, Hot Tub, etc.) so I thought I'd throw in a few pic's. Of course, I didn't think about this until now that a cold storm has come to town, but it was hot and sunny earlier this week, and it probably will be again soon.

Here is the clubhouse and volleyball court. They have parties, movies and pot lucks in the clubhouse and volleyball every afternoon at 2 PM. For some reason, neither of us took advantage of these activities this trip. I normally love volleyball, but guess I was just in need of some visiting (with Mike), chores, and blog updating...

Here is the pool. The guy was cleaning it when I finally remembered to get my camera out, so the gate was locked and this was as close as I could get. I estimate it was about 40 feet across, 3 feet deep at the sides and 6 feet deep in the center. It really was nice. The hot tub is out of view to the left, but just a normal hot tub (no pic available). We both used the pool & hot tub, several times...

Also, this tree was right next to the RV all week. Mom and I both thought it was pretty cool.

My son, Mike came by Thursday evening to join us for dinner. He was tired and didn't feel like driving too far so we tried a rib joint down the road. Mixed reviews I'd say. Maybe I was just down a bit, as I realized I probably wouldn't be able to see him for some time, maybe a couple of years - as I will be going back to work as soon as I get home to pay for the trip, so won't have any more money or time off for travel for a long time...

So we leave Miami on a bit of a sad note, but are also really looking forward to moving on and getting back to sightseeing (and learning) again. Tomorrow - Key West or Bust (wind or no wind).

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 133 (RT)
Weather - Sunny & Warm on Tuesday, Cold and WINDY on Wednesday (but Sunny?)
Camped at Miami Everglades Campground for the most part, but we did stay at Flamingo CG in Everglades National Park last night (Tuesday night) - NO Internet Signal whatsoever (this is truely the end of the Continent!)

Musings:

We decided we both like touring much better than sitting around a campground...
We also definitely like beaches, tree's and grasslands (or Everglades) much better than blacktop, traffic, strip malls and condo's (Miami and Fort Lauderdale). But of course, we're part of the problem as we also need supplies that the malls provide and roads to travel on. Hmm...

Narrative:

Originally, I had planned to spend New Years here in Miami, then head south to Key West Jan 2nd and made reservations at a really nice RV park at Key West. However, while watching the weather forecast the last couple of days, it was clear a major cold front/winter storm was headed this way. I don't mind a little rain or cold weather, but wasn't looking forward to driving 135 miles over long bridges and little key's in a strong & gusting wind. So I called the Key West campground and postponed our reservation for two days, extended my reservation here for two days, and decided to hunker down until the storm passed.

However we were out of a few supplies and the weather Tuesday was still hot and sunny. I figured if the storm hit Tuesday afternoon and we had to drive home through rain & wind, we could handle it - just not 135 miles over the open ocean. So we decided to go shopping Tuesday then visit Everglades National Park, rather then just sit around the campground. (My son, Mike, had other plans for New Years so we had some free time on our hands, which we never seem to have trouble filling.)

Off we went, had a blast, so just kept going. There are a couple of entrances to the park. Because our campground isn't that far from the south entrance, we took that one. It turns out that there is a 36 mile road that goes all the way across the Everglades to the south coast, a place called Flamingo (it used to have Flamingo's before hunters killed them all around 1900). We stopped at the visitors center at the entrance, went to the next stop or two, then just kept going all the way to Flamingo. They had plenty of open campsites (in contrast to what we'd heard about campgrounds in FL this time of year. Could have been the storm though) and only cost $8 with Mom's Golden Age passport - so we elected to just stay there for the night. In case you're like I am and have never heard of this place, a map might help:

But to recap a bit, starting at the Coe Visitors Center, I saw a beautiful & striking butterfly. Of course, it was very difficult to get a sharp picture because he just wouldn't sit still, but this is clear enough that you can see what it looks like. This is a Zebra Longwing Butterfly (I found a sign later with a picture almost exactly like this - saved me untold hours trying to look it up!)

At the visitors center we also learned that the best place to see wildlife is at the Royal Palms Hammock (aka Paradise Key), just a couple miles down the road. This is a slightly elevated area where tree's have a chance to take root and was one of the first area's preserved as a state park before Everglades National Park was established in 1947.

There is a canal and pond in the area where fish tend to congregate in the dry seasons (Dec & Jan) when parts of the Everglades dry out some. Wildlife depend on this cycle and congregate here to take advantage of the dense fishing grounds. Even though there was a nasty winter storm forecast, there were many visitors to the Everglades NP, many speaking languages I couldn't quite identify. The Everglades is the only terrein of this type in the world, south Florida is some of the flattest land in the world and has enough water that the Shark River empties from Lake Okeechobee in a miles wide and inches deep slough. Of all the National Parks in the United States, only the Everglades NP has three major international designatations:

International Biosphere Reserve, World Heritage Site, and Wetland of International Importance

The wildlife here has gotten used to people it seems, as the birds and such pretty much ignored all the people. On the drive back, we stopped at Royal Palms again and Mom took the nature walk (you can tell which day it is by the way Mom is dressed), this is a Cormorant that just sat on the edge of the walk, didn't seem to care how close people got to it.

The 1/2 mile nature walk at Royal Palms is actually named the Anhinga Trail, after the Anhinga birds that are quite common here. I'd never heard of them before (of course), they are related to Cormorants and have similar behavior in terms of diving for fish and then having to dry out their wings before they can fly again. Males are almost all black, but females have a lighter colored neck.

We also saw a turtle taking in some sun. It was surprising how the birds and turtle seemed to ignore the many alligators all around them. I guess there were so many fish, they figured the gaters weren't really hungry for anything but fish - or they were fooled by the big beasts sitting so still most of the time. There was a gator just a few feet further up the canal from this turtle.

There were several Egrets in the park, both Great Egrets and Snow Egrets, but I'm don't think I got any pictures of the Snow Egrets. They have black legs and bills as opposed to the Great Egrets which have yellow bills (and are larger of course). Notice the Alligator tail just to the right...

One of the endangered species that also frequents the Anhinga Trail is the Wood Stork. This is the only Stork native to North America. It feeds by sticking it's beak into the muck to search for food. (I have some video I'll try to upload - a most unusual bird).

We also saw three different kinds of Heron's on this one walk, the Great Blue Heron, a Little Blue Heron, and a Tricolor Heron. The park also has Green Herons, which we didn't see and another that is much more rare (and I forgot the name - not surprising as over 300 different types of birds frequent the park, and I'm not a very good birder).

Since there were many Cormorants as well as Anhinga's, we got a chance to learn how to tell the difference. These are Cormorants.

And swimming or lounging around all of the birds and other animals were Alligators, lots of them. (If these aren't enough, I have more...)

In spite of taking pictures of almost every alligator and bird I could find, we actually did make it back out to the road. Along the way, we saw lots of different types of scenery - the river of grass, yes, but also brush, forests and bald cedars. In these two shots notice how the Everglades looks just like grassland when viewed from across it, but if you get a little higher, you begin to see the water more.

We finally made it to Flamingo about 5 PM and could have driven back to the RV park if we'd wanted - the storm still hadn't hit yet. However, when we found out the NP Campground at Flamingo had plenty of spaces open and only cost $16 ($8 with Mom's Golden Passport), we figured we'd just stay there and have more time to enjoy the Everglades NP in the morning.

The storm did finally hit during the night. Some rain blew through briefly last night, but the cold front brought mostly WIND and cold. The temperature dropped over 25 F between yesterday and today (84 yesterday afternoon, 52 when we got up, high today of 60). The wind continued throughout the day, but other than making the cold seem a little colder, it wasn't a factor. We had to wear jackets & hats, but otherwise were able to enjoy the Everglades again today. It may have been cold, but we still had to check out the beach!

There were vultures all over south Florida, but the Flamingo area seemed to have quite a few around the campground and beach, especially Black Vultures. These are a little smaller than Turkey Vultures and have black heads, instead of red heads. There was one spot that had both types of vultures walking around just a few feet apart.

I may have passed by a couple of brown signs, but very few - I think we stopped at most of them today. At Mrazek Pond about 5 miles east of Flamingo we saw this Alligator at the edge of the pond. I had walked over to get a picture of an Egret on the other side of the pond and just noticed this guy not very far from me, with no obsticals to overcome if he'd wanted to chase me down (unlike the Anhinga Trail, which is a raised boardwalk - quite protected from angry Alligators). I guess I backed up in time since I'm still here writing about this! Just a little reminder that this is a National Park, not a Zoo.

We'll probably hunker down tomorrow (Thursday) again, then head off to Key West Friday - wind or no wind.

ps - one little side note on the wind - it caught the RV door and blew it open a bit more roughly than usual Wednesday morning at the Flamingo campground, and the door fell apart! Turns out I've got some wood rot around the door also (not too surprising with such an old rig) and this was a breakdown just waiting to happen. I removed the screws, stuffed a bunch of matchsticks in the holes, the put the screws back in. This seems to be holding for now, but I think the screws went in a little too easily and am expecting more repairs down the road...