When you open yourself up to life, Life opens up to you!: Everglades!

January 15 – 19, 2020

Sugarcane Burning

As we continue our Florida adventures we head southward, to the furthest point south one go on mainland Florida, The Everglades National Park! On the way we saw quite sight, the area was home to sugarcane fields and after harvesting the cane the fields are burned. We just happened to go through at the right time to catch it. After traveling several hours, we get to the southern entrance (there are three entrances into the park) Ernest F Coe Visitor Center and Park Headquarters. Beautiful visitor center with many displays telling the story of the Everglades, the plants and trees, as well as the multitude of wildlife. We think, ah, we are there... Well, almost, Flamingo Campground is 38 miles further south, southwest, deeper yet in the park. Driving along you can't help but appreciate the diversity of the environments in the Park. From forests of pine, cypress, and trees I have yet to identify, through grasslands, marshes, swamps; ever changing from one to the other. Looking across the “grasslands” with the hammocks of trees is an incredible sight. (A hammock is a stand of trees growing on elevated area surrounded by wetlands).

While staying there the awe we experienced watching the incredible variety of birds we knew and those we had never seen. Incredible. Flocks of Ibis, Egrets of many sizes, Hummingbirds, several different types of Herons, Pelicans, Wood Storks, beautiful Roseate Spoonbills, we even saw one day off in the distance, a flock of Great White Pelicans! Words fail me. Add to that seeing crocodiles, manatees, and even raccoons. The abundance of wildlife, I am in my glory.

Manatee!!

Yes Manatees, I saw manatees, watching them roll and well, play in the shallows of the marina area fascinated us, and yes made me giggle each time one would surface with a snout full of mud.

Mr Crocodile!

Oh bit of interest: The Everglades is the only place in the world you can find both alligators and crocodiles in nature, being a place where fresh water meets and mixing with salt water. Alligators prefer fresh water where as crocodiles exist in both.

It's interesting that ever place we go I get to learn about something new and fall in love. Here was no different, while I was truly awed by so much it was the Mahogany Tree that caught my special attention. So you can look to a bit of a write up on that soon.

Everglades National Park has two campgrounds available to RVs. Long Pine Key and Flamingo. Long Pine Key has no amenities and only cold showers. Flamingo has a combination of some sites with electric and some without. There is a dump station and water available for filling one's fresh tank, no water at the sites. There are several bathhouses with showers though only a couple have hot water heated through solar power. We had a site with no electric, so we got to “Rough it” for the time we were there, that's is if you considering living in an RV with a large fresh water tank, onboard generator, kitchen, and bathroom roughing it, LOL.

While there we had fun hiking, biking and being. While we didn't get to go on an airboat (airboats are only available at the northern entrance which is almost three hours away.), we did do a boat tour that was interesting, educational, and a whole lot of fun. Our tour guides were quite informative and quick to point out things of interest as they told the story of the everglades.

This is one of the many of my “Bucket List” places. I am so thrilled to have the opportunity to experience this wondrous place as well as all the many others I have seen and will be seeing as we travel. The beauty to be found in this great country of ours is so incredibly diverse and amazing, I will never be able to fully express the feelings and emotions, just seeing it, invokes in me.

The Everglades is a fragile environment found no where else. It depends on fresh water to survive and periods of severe drought can cause upset that could take years to rebalance. The Tribes that became the Seminoles called it Pahokee or Pa-hai-okee, Grassy Water, Early Surveyors called it River Glades, which later became Ever Glades. To see it, you understand both. When looking across it's vastness one might think of the great prairie lands with acres upon acres of Saw Grass, That is until one gets close and starts walking through it and find that grass is living in the water. We almost lost the Everglades to the ignorance of people wanting to develop more and more space for agricultural use as the area was considered wasteland, nothing but “abominable pestilence-ridden swamp”, good for nothing. UGH. As it is, with the draining that did occur thousands of acres have been lost. Fortunately, Nature has it's own ideas, and two catastrophic hurricanes caused the levees and dikes built around Lake Okeechobee at the north end of the Glades to go down, flooding the area once again. It was then that flood control became the focus, instead of drainage. In return, the freshwaters once again flowed into the Glades and slowly, nature was able to begin to restore the damage done. Of course, man once again decided they know best and built a dam to “Control” the waters of the great Lake Okeechobee. When a devastating drought hit in the 1930s, the Everglades and surrounding areas began to dry up allowing the salt waters in to the wells and waters of towns including Miami. With the Everglades becoming parched, came the fires, a million acres of the glades burned in 1939, causing smoke, ash, and black clouds of soot to cover Florida. It was after this that government started to realize the fragility and importance of this great area. In 1947, it achieved National Park status, though an area much smaller than it had once been. An uphill battle continued and continues as people want to claim more and more space for “progress” ignoring just what the consequences of said progress will bring for the future. Trying to find balance of the needs/wants of people with the needs of nature is a tough and difficult issue, not only in the Everglades but everywhere in the world.