"Revisit to the Everglades 38 years Later" Top 5 Page for this destination Everglades National Park Travelogue by grandmaR

In about 1967, we visited Everglades National Park from Key West. I wanted to return and see if things were as I remembered.

Male Anhinga in breeding plummage

From Miami, we went to the visitor's center at the Everglades, which is outside the park and is new since Andrew I think As we entered a fellow visitor lady pointed out a snake in the leaves near the entrance, and I took a photo. Saw a video tape there. Then entered the park (free with our Golden Age pass) and went to the Royal Palm center where the Anhinga Trail was. I remembered this trail, and particularly wanted to visit it.

We waited for the ranger talk there at 3:30 - they added an extra one in addition to the 10:30 one. While we waited we took pictures of the alligators, and a big iguana that someone dropped off there. The Anhinga trail was terrific, but I didn't think that this particular ranger was especially good.

We did see alligators, anhingas, coots, moorhens, wood storks, cormorants, egrets and herons. And also what I think was a mangrove cuckoo.

Then we drove quickly down to Flamingo (because it was after 5 by now) and checked in to the lodge. Here it is 50 cents for a local call, and I get almost no service on my cell phone. I called my son to tell him that I would get him a ticket to the races for his birthday, and he couldn't hear me until I shouted "Happy Birthday".

We had dinner at the Visitor's Center restaurant. We had a waiter with an accent named Ivan. Bob got an appetizer and the soup of the day (beef noodle), and I got a cup of conch chowder and the beef stroganoff which was $9.95. The whole bill was $24.59 including the tip.

Travel-lift with osprey nest

Bob tells me that he doesn't want to drive the car today so that he can change the last piece of hose which the guy who did the work in Miami didn't replace. He wants the car to get really cold so it will be easier to work on. So we went out to the car and got juice and bagels, and had breakfast. After I tried to log on to get my email (which I found extremely frustrating and slow, and I eventually just deleted the suspect spam without ever looking at it), we walked from the Flamingo Lodge over to the visitor's center and the marina.

I talked to the ranger at the visitor's center (and got a stamp for my passport) about various options for tours. I do not think I want to do a 4.5 hour canoe trip. He suggested we rent a canoe at 9 Mile Pond, and see whether we like it or not, and then take the ranger guided trip if all goes well with an hour rental. They keep canoes both at the marina and at 9 Mile Pond - otherwise if we want to rent canoes to do some other trip, they charge us $20 to take them there in a truck.

The Flamingo Visitor's center has the canoe and hiking paths, but does not keep track or post about the ranger programs from the eastern end of the park (Royal Palm and Long Key). There is a ranger talk at 3:30 at the Flamingo Visitor's Center and I'd like to attend that.

I also do not have appropriate shoes (even if I had the stamina) for a four hour swamp trip. Or rather I have the shoes, but I don't want to sacrifice them to the swamp. I thought I might be able to do the early morning bird walk at Eco-Pond (which is the catchement for the sewage treatment plant), but it turns out they don't do that on Wednesday.

Bob thought he might be able to get a loaf of bread for sandwiches at the marina store, but all they had was hamburger rolls. So we got sandwiches already made, and something to drink ($11.95).

There is a dam in the marina to keep salt water intrusion out of the fresh water canals. They lift small boats over the dam in a small travel-lift. On the top of the travel-lift is an osprey nest with little ones in it. We watched them lift a boat across the dam. The ospreys didn't seem to mind.

Flocks of birds flying from sandbars

There are also two boat trips, which I think I remember from before. I am sure we did the back-country trip which goes into the canal and to the interior lakes, and I think we saw a bald eagle on that trip. The other trip is on a boat called the Bald Eagle which goes out into Florida Bay. They no longer have the tram trip from Flamingo - that is only at the Shark Valley location which is not accessible from Flamingo without going out and back to Miami and across Alligator Alley.

The back country trip takes 2 hours, and will not quite get back in time for the ranger talk at 3:30, so we take the Florida Bay trip ($12 each) which I don't think is as good. They are changing the oil in the engine, plus they have to wait for the tide to come up so they can get out of the channel - we leave a bit after 12:30.

We see large flocks of white and brown pelicans, skimmers, laughing gulls, terns and even a couple of dolphins.

After we got back, I walked across the dam and took a picture of the crocodilian that was there under the no trespassing sign with his mouth open. I was told it was a crocodile, but I don't know for sure - I can't really tell if the mouth isn't shut. Also took some of the ospreys and some herons around the marina. The marina is 50 cents a foot without electricity and 75 cents with. The entrance channel from Cape Sable is only about 4 feet.

The ranger talk was on tides, and he basically said Florida Bay doesn't have any moon tides because by the time the tide comes all the way in, it is going out again. Afterwards Bob changed the hose in the car to stop the last bit of leaking.

We had dinner in the restaurant again, and this time we were going to try Max and Lucette's trick. I had a half roasted chicken dinner, and Bob had the coconut shrimp appetizer. He gave me two of the 6 shrimp, and I gave him the split pea soup-of-the-day (which I don't like but he loves), and half the chicken and half of the huge baked potato, and half of the asparagus with hollandaise (which is the vegetable of the day), and then we shared a piece of carrot cake. This came to $34.36 including tip.

We saw a couple of trawlers come into the marina from the restaurant window, and also the Bald Eagle and the big schooner coming back from their sunset cruises.

Bob has walked over 5,000 steps today which is less than his target of 10,000, but still a substantial amount.

Nine Mile Pond with canoers

Now that Bob has replaced the hoses, we have the car, so after I finish struggling with email, we drove over to the Eco-Pond and take the walk around it. There were signs that said "Do Not Approach the Water" (remember it is the outfall for the sewage treatment plant). There was a path around it and a viewing platform. We saw alligators, ducks, a snowy egret walking across the path, a purple gallinule and a number of butterflies including a bright burnt orange one.

We drove out through the Flamingo campground and saw people sitting out in the sun getting warm. The weather is getting a little warmer and there is supposed to be less wind today. We went to the marina and Bob bought a loaf of bread and sunscreen and mosquito repellant.

I decided that since we had not taken the back country boat trip, we should rent a canoe at the visitor's center and paddle along the Buttonwood Canal. So we did that. (It cost $8 for and hour, plus a $50 deposit which we got back.) The guy who gave us the instruction and helped us board told us not to stand up unless we wanted to go swimming.

We canoed past the place where there was a large alligator or crocodile on a bunch of sticks, but other than that and some ospreys (one eating a fish), we didn't see much wildlife. I had hoped to see a kingfisher, but didn't. There was a road alongside the canal. We saw a sign that said it was a single lane only. I took only my film camera in the canoe - didn't want to risk the digital.

We drove half way back to US 1, and walked the Mahogany Hammock Trail, part of which was a boardwalk. There was a poison wood tree (suitably labeled), and we saw a small blue bird. We drove back to Flamingo, with a stop-off at Nine Mile Pond which is the other place where you can rent canoes without having a way to transport them.

Tonight at dinner, I had caeser salad, and Bob had mahi mahi with sweet potato (which he shared) and various vegetables which he ate. The soup of the day was mulligatawny which was a cream soup and I ate that. We shared a chocolate fudge cake for dessert and the bill with tip came to $43.71. Not so many steps today for Bob because of the hour in the canoe.

Mosquitoey Bear Lake trail

I decided not to get up for the Eco-Pond ranger walk, but I wanted to go back to the Anhinga Trail and do the Gumbo Limbo trail and also go to the ranger talk there at 1:30. So Bob went to the store and got sandwiches and drinks for lunch ($11.79), and then we drove down the road (unpaved) that we saw alongside of Buttonwood Canal yesterday. There is both a canoe trail and a hiking trail to Bear Lake at the end of this narrow road. We tried to hike a bit of this trail, but in spite of the fact that we doused ourselves with OFF, the mosquitoes were unbearable. So we left.

We drove on up to West Lake, which has a short boardwalk through the mangroves and out over the lake - saw some tiny transparent fingerling type fish in the water and also a swarm of baby spiders on the surface. I tried to take photos of some of the spider webs without much success. There were warning signs - maximum motor size 6 hp and no motors allowed beyond West Lake.

Great Blue Heron warbling

We drove on up to the Royal Palm center and I got a third Everglades stamp in my book. I don't like the exhibits in the Royal Palm center because they are abstract drawings of the plants and animals and not realistic. We ate lunch on the benches where the rangers give their talk, right in front of the sign that said not to picnic there (which Bob didn't see until I pointed it out and we were already doing it). We didn't litter or feed any animals though.

We walked down the Gumbo Limbo trail, although we had to pick our way through a school group (probably between 5th and 7th grade) that was apparently doing soil sampling and worksheets. They were taking all the seats and also were blocking the path. We found that the palm we saw at Mahogany was a paurotis palm.

The ranger talk at 1:30 was very interesting - mostly about the birds and wildlife in the gator holes. We did the Anhinga trail again, and in addition to many gators, and cormorants, we saw ibis, turtles, wood stork and a great blue heron behaving somewhat peculiarly. I failed for the second time to get a good picture of the water plant flower.

Cormorant eating fish

Twice we saw a cormorant catch and eat a fish. We also saw some of the fish at the top of the water gulping air.

There was a cormorant sitting on the railing along the trail, and I said to him, "You know you smell of fish".

Then we went and did the Pinelands trail which was the one we had not yet done -we saw a red bellied woodpecker, but I screwed up and didn't get a photo. We didn't see any tree snails although I remember seeing them before.

Then we left the park and went out to US 1 and got fuel at the Hess station ($2.159/gal) and had a very early dinner at Rosita's. It was $15.07 including tip. I had 3 cheese quesadillas with beans and rice and a salad for $4.99, and Bob had 3 beef tacos (also with beans and rice and a tiny salad) for $5.25. Bobs tacos had only meat in them, no cheese (which is good because he doesn't care for cheese) and no sauce or lettuce or tomato. So he used the salad and the sauce for the chips to add spice to his tacos.

They didn't have any fried ice cream, and I thought we had agreed to get a key lime milkshake at "Robert Is Here" which is a fruit stand on the corner of 9336
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But Bob didn't stop. He eventually turned around and came back for me to get the milkshake.

Then we went to Long Pine Key campground arriving about 6, and waited about a hour in the car for the 7:30 ranger talk, which turned out to be about the Florida panther. She also explained to the people who came early about how she got to be a ranger. (She asked if we had any questions and someone asked that.) We weren't too bothered by mosquitoes as it had cooled off quite a bit.

Then we drove all the way back to Flamingo and got there about 9:15. I tried to take a picture of the almost full moon. Bob has over 6500 steps today.

Next: January 28th Down the Keys