Coot Bay Pond

Florida Bay at Flamingo

Couple of Osprey in Flamingo campground

Mon, 12/10/07

Everglades: Made a big breakfast this morning and then we filled the water tank. Drove down to Flamingo which is about 34 miles from our campground. It’s right on Florida Bay and the campground there is more accommodating for the big rigs. And they have a shower house there. But the lodge and restaurant are still closed. We walked the Eco Pond trail. Stopped at the marina at Flamingo. They restored that right away after the last hurricane. Going to take a boat tour tomorrow through one of the mangrove waterways at Flamingo. I’d love to canoe the wilderness trail. It starts at Everglades City and goes 99 miles south to Flamingo through the 10,000 islands. It takes about 7 days in a canoe and there are all these chikees along the route where you can put up a tent. I guess they’re platforms of some kind. We headed back north and stopped at several ponds along the way to see the wildlife. Also stopped at Mahogany Hammock which is a beautiful, tropical paradise in the middle of the saw grass. Met a ranger there on the boardwalk. She just got hired and we were talking about all the Burmese pythons here in the park. Turns out that most of the road crossings where they see them are in the Piney Woods area—which is where our campground is. Jeeze, just when you think you’re safe. And I thought they were more prevalent in the water areas. Wrong again—they feel more comfortable on land…according to her anyway. Fired up the generator when we got back so we could watch the news and we see there’s a tropical storm heading this way. What next?