Florida 2015: Everglades National Park

We stayed at the Flamingo campground which is at the end of the only road in the National Park, about 45 miles from the entrance. It is a rather large campground, but not well developed. The sites are huge, they could easily put twice as many RVs in, but I am glad they didn’t. It was so quiet at night and with the great weather we had, the stars were amazing.

The first evening, we walked down to the amphitheater to watch the sunset. There is an osprey nest very close to the campground and the parents were busy feeding their young. They didn’t seem to mind humans walking just below their nest. There were some dolphins frolicking in the water just off the point and kayakers were out chasing them. The dolphins were having fun making the kayakers go in circles.

We spent Valentine’s Day visiting several boardwalks along the main road. The first one is right by the visitor’s center and we had visited it two years ago when we were in Florida after our Panama cruise. We enjoyed the walk along the slough just as much as before. Lots of birds, fish, turtles and alligators. We could not have asked for better weather; mid-70s and clear blue skies.

Other boardwalks brought us through hardwood hammocks, sawgrass prairie and an old growth mahogany island. I found the interpretations along the walks to be interesting and just enough detail. The park was more crowded than when we were here before, but it is President’s weekend after all.

On the way back to the campground, we stopped by the marina (which is about a mile walk from the campground), and watched more ospreys in their nests. I counted four different nests. Then we noticed some movement in the mangroves across the channel from where we were sitting. I saw my first manatees! The huge creatures were pulling down the foliage from the mangroves so they could get at them for dinner. Those animals are giant! They can get as big as 15 feet and 1500 pounds. Related to elephants and aardvarks, they have a definitely unique look.

I fixed a nice Valentine’s Day dinner of steak, veggies, and cherry dump cake. Yum! So glad that we got this last minute reservation – a very cool place to stay.

I think this is a Blue Heron.

This is the only road in the Everglades. A pretty isolated road, you saw an occasional car, most people don't seem to go beyond the visitor's center.

The rig is holding up pretty well. Sure enjoy having the comforts of home on the road.

Sunset at the bottom of the Everglades National Park.

One of the many Anhingas we saw. They spread their wings to dry them after diving into water for fish.

These large birds seemed to have little fear of humans.

Lots of alligators liked this particular part of the slough. And the vultures seemed to like the company.

The waters weren't quite as clear as they were when we were here a couple of years ago, but you could still see the fish.

I don't know what kind of turtle this is, but it had a very leathery looking shallow shell.

We had a nice walk through a hardwood hammock. These hammocks are like islands in the sawgrass river and harbor lots of birds and animals.

The truck had a hard time getting up this pass and we had to downshift to get down the other side. The Everglades literature makes a big point of this pass because the plants that grow on this pass are different from the rest of the Everglades. Apparently, in a state where the tallest point is 300 feet high, a pass of 3 feet is significant.

We kept thinking that these bare grey trees had fallen prey to some bore or disease. But it turns out that these are Dwarf Cypress and they look like this during winter.