Snake Bight Trail

Tue, 12/11/07

Everglades: Drove back to Flamingo this morning and took the 10:00 a.m. boat tour. Saw our first salt water crocs. Went through the mangroves to Coot Bay and through another set of mangroves to White Water Bay and then back. White Water Bay is a huge body of water that provides access to the back country and the 10,000 islands. Interesting tour. On the way back to the campground we walked the Snake Bight trail which was beautiful. Right through the mangroves next to a slough about 20 feet wide. The trail was covered in a canopy of various trees and other vegetation. Vegetation so thick you could only see the water in glimpses. I kept getting the feeling I’d turn around and the trail would have completely grown over behind us. Guess I’ve been reading too many Steven King books. We did see a big gator (12 ft or so) sunning himself. I wore my snake gaiters for the first time. Thought they would be uncomfortable, but they weren’t bad at all. Mike let me lead the way of course. Back to our campsite and something cool to drink. Got pretty sweaty walking the trail. By the way, got talking to the tour guide about the pythons. If you people up north think you’re safe, you’d better think again. They figure by about 2025 they’ll be as far north as Long Island! There’s just no stopping them I guess. Yikes!

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?

Downtown historic Homestead

Sun, 12/9/07
Everglades: Rained at about 4:00 a.m. this morning. Then it cleared off and by the time the sun came up there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Went for a walk and then came back and relaxed for a while. Then tackled cleaning the other half of the camper. Looks pretty good. Put everything away and sat around and read for a while. Then decided to drive into Homestead and have some Mexican food to celebrate getting that lovely cleaning chore done. The little historic downtown area of Homestead is really cute. Our dinner was great. After walking around the little downtown area, we headed back to the park and drove around a little bit trying to find an old road the ranger told us about where we could bike. We finally found it. Looks like it will be a great place to bike—11 miles each way and there are two primitive campgrounds along the way—one of which we could have lunch at. While driving around we started noticing a ditch that was cut out along side the road. Not sure what is was for, but it shows a great cross-section of what the terrain is like here in the Glades. There’s just a little bit of soil and grass on top (maybe an inch or so) and the rest is this porous rock. We’ve been told you can walk anywhere you want in the Glades, but to start out across this vast grassland would be very treacherous walking when you could step into one of those holes in the rock—not to mention all the other stuff that might be out there. I think most of the critters live in the hammocks though. By the time we headed back to our campsite, it was getting dark. I was hoping we’d see a panther. They are all around here apparently. But we didn’t. When we got back there was a little tree frog on the window of the truck. They are so cute!

Our campsite in the Everglades...

Sat, Dec. 8:

Everglades: Our new water pump is doing great. And the solar panels as well. We’re getting a lot of sun and we sure won’t have to use the generator unless we want to. Even though we have no electric, we plug our computer into an inverter and it works like a charm. So, we still can use the computer. Whether or not we can get on the Internet is another story. I did yesterday. But the signal isn’t so great tonight. Forget trying to upload pictures. Walked this morning. Then we went just outside the park to a little restaurant for breakfast. Then checked out a place also just outside the park that offers air boat rides, a snake show and a gator show. Thought this place would be a dump but it was quite pretty. The landscaping was beautiful and exquisitely maintained. A lot of the buildings had thatch roofs—think it is owned by the Micasouke Indians. We’ll go back for the air boat ride. Not sure about the snake and gator show. We see all kinds of wildlife on the Anhinga trail here in the park. After that we came back and kicked back and read for a while. Then we cleaned and washed windows on one side of the camper and loaded some water. After dinner of barbeque pork sandwiches we played Trivial Pursuit (I won) and two games of Rummy (Mike won both)(sigh).

Everglades: The eagle was back this morning. He didn’t stay long tho. I was taking a picture of a limpkin by the water and turned back and he was gone. Went for a walk and then came back and started putting things away. Left there at 11:00 after stopping at the dump station. Took 3 ½ hours to get down to Long Pine Key campground in the Everglades. Thought we’d never get there. Speed limit on the Tamiami Trail is 50 mph and we encountered a lot of traffic around Homestead. We noticed all the U.S. flags at half staff. Guess because it's Pearl Harbor Day. Finally we got into our site and set up. Can’t have any camp fires because fire danger is very high. It is the driest we’ve seen it down here. We have a bunch of fire wood too. Should have had fires at W. P. Franklin I guess. We’ll be here for 9 days with no electric. Love it! At least we’ll get a chance to see how our new water pump works.

View from our camp site.... river is as smooth as glass

Thu, 12/6/07

Ft. Myers: Met a high school friend this morning in Bonita Springs for breakfast. Hadn’t seen her in 40-something years. She looked very good. After that we headed back and stopped at Publix and picked up a few groceries. Back to our pretty camp site and did some laundry and then kicked back and read and enjoyed the scenery. On the way back we saw two coyotes in a field of cattle. Didn't seem to bother the cattle, but there were some calves. We got all ready to watch the shuttle launch at 4:31, but it never happened. Think I saw somewhere on the news that it is rescheduled for Saturday. Leave tomorrow for the Everglades.

Our pretty camp site

Wed, 12/5/07

Ft. Myers: Had breakfast this morning at the Country Café in Alva, FL. Good food and cheap. In the afternoon we headed over to see Ron at work and he gave us a tour. I had no idea of what he was talking about. Mike seemed to, but I’m not sure. He has a lot of responsibility. After leaving there we went back to the Country Café and had dinner. Starting to cloud up and look nasty. A pretty day tho—mid-70s.