I still haven't learned my lesson from Death Valley because there I was, waiting for a flight to south Florida, wondering who in their right mind would vacation at a malarial swamp?
Well, of course I had it all wrong. Everglades National Park, far from being a swamp, is a one-of-a-kind body of very shallow fresh water flowing slowly through a huge expanse of grass -- the forever glades. And while they do have 40 varieties of mosquitoes, late January isn't mosquito season but breeding season for just about everything else. In fact, this was the first National Park dedicated not for its vistas but for its wildlife.
Royal Palm was the original state park. When we started down the trail we almost immediately saw our first alligator and stopped to take a dozen pictures. By the time we finished the walk we had seen three dozen more--sleeping, swimming, feeding and fighting. This is a major feeding spot not just for alligators, but also turtles and birds and it's a nesting ground for the Anhinga, one of the cormorants. We saw five of their huge nests with hungry chicks and four of the nests were in the same tree. It's probably a very old joke to observe that this may well have been Florida's first condominium.
Shark Valley, named after the river whose mouth is a major shark breeding area, isn't much of a valley and the river at this spot actually just seems part of the wetlands. The appeal is a tram ride that goes deep into the Everglades to a viewing tower that is the heart of the park. If there were a few dozen alligators on the Anhinga trail, there were twice as many here and we saw five different sets of baby alligators on the two-hour trip. The birds were literally countless. At one point the guide pointed out an endangered white stork and we all dutifully snapped our pictures but, like the alligators, we then couldn't get away from them, including one stop where six were all feeding together. The guide did say she had never seen so many.
After exploring the area a little more, we then drove south into the Everglades as far as we could to see what was left of the community of Flamingo after hurricane Andrew. We didn't see any flamingos there, despite a six mile hike based on a reported sighting, but we did see a nesting osprey and her chick as well as three American crocodiles.
If you ask a naturalist how to tell the difference between an alligator and a crocodile, she will start telling you about snout shape, jaw hinges and fresh-water versus salt-water, but after you have actually seen them, it's really a lot simpler than that. They're a different color. In the Everglades, alligators are greenish black and crocodiles are ghostly white like dried mud.
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Biscayne National Park is a strange one. When you arrive at the Visitor Center and look out, you see a nuclear power plant to the southwest, a modern day midden, Mount Trashmore as it's called, to the northwest and the Miami skyline to the northeast. But the park is 99% water and it isn't until you get out on the water that you begin to appreciate the place. The channel leading out is a slow zone because of the feeding manatees, although they apparently prefer the warmer water by the power plant. Once out on the bay I noticed unusual activity beside a nearby boat and I only had to look for a moment before I saw the dolphins leaping out of the water as they raced the boat through the clear water.
At Elliott Key we talked to a couple who had been camping and kayaking out over the coral reef. They said that it was really quite beautiful but they also admitted the temperatures in January were actually too cool for this kind of activity.
Boca Chita Key is a favorite camping spot for local boaters and has what remains of a rich man's fantasy, including stone fences, concrete foundations and a decorative, non-working lighthouse on the wrong side of the island. The Ranger told us to watch our step as we explored because the original owner abandoned the place after his wife died from injuries she received from stepping into a crab hole. . . . like they say, you can't make this stuff up.
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We drove down U.S. 1 through the coral islands from Key Largo to Key West where we took the ferry boat to Fort Jefferson at Dry Tortugas National Park. The seaplane wasn't in operation so a boat was all that was available that day but on any future trip I would definitely opt for the seaplane even if does have only one engine. The catamaran ride was a very long two hour trip over some very rough waters and at the two-thirds point the crew was passing out vomit bags to those who needed them.
But the rough trip was put into perspective for us as we approached the landing and the captain pointed out an object sitting on the beach. After we landed, we examined it up close and were amazed that 15 Cuban refugees had fit into such a small, hand-made vessel and crossed even rougher waters just the previous week to seek asylum and freedom in the United States. GBA.
The roiling waters did have one major benefit for our visit. The shoreline was covered with coral reef specimens and we saw several queen conch, jellyfish with still-inflated sacs, lots of coral and shells and coral reef plants still living in the open air. It looked like the sea had just pulled out.
From the sea-wall which creates a moat around the fort, you could look directly down through the clear water to the coral reef itself. The fort is a massive brick structure that was never completed before being abandoned after the Civil War. Its major claim to fame is that it held Dr. Samuel Mudd of Lincoln assassination notoriety.
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I can't end this without just one quick note about Key West. It may not be a National Park but it certainly is a national treasure. Where else can you see the places where Hemingway wrote his stories, Audubon painted his pictures and Jimmy Buffet sang his songs? On this two mile by four mile island you can see part of the fabulous Spanish treasure recovered from the Atocha shipwreck or visit Truman's elegantly simple Little White House with its Navy-issued furnishings. You can join the raucous crowd at Sloppy Joe's and then do the pub crawl up Duval Street to Margaritaville. And even if you do none of these things, you can still wait your turn to pose with the famous marker for the southern-most point in the continental United States and stroll down to Mallory Square and join the crowd saluting the sunset. It all makes a fine welcome to the Conch Republic and we are already planning a return visit.
To see photos from this trip, go to
Florida 2009
Florida 2009
