Flamingo Visitor Center, Everglades

Tuesday, June 28 - Today we finished the Everglades.  It was a 12-hour day, and we're tired, but we felt like we saw everything we needed to see, we went for a back country boat ride, and we walked several of the boardwalk trails to see the prairie, cypress domes, hardwood hammocks, campgrounds, ponds, birds and wildlife.

Here are some of the birds we saw:

In addition, we saw at least one osprey.  Most of these birds we were unable to identify, but there are lots and lots of birds here, and some are very pretty.  Our boat guide identified some, but we didn't try to keep up with that.

The Everglades is the only place in the world one can see both crocodiles and alligators.  And we saw both today, but not in the same body of water.  Our back country boat ride took us through the Buttonwood canal, and that's where we saw the crocs.  I think we saw 4 in total.  Here's a few pictures.  The last one was the only big one we saw.

 

This is the boat, and the canal.

He took us out to Whitewater Bay, where the saltwater and freshwater come together.  

We got lucky on the weather today.  It rained on us on the way to the Flamingo Visitor Center, but by the time the boat ride started, it had stopped, and the temperature probably stayed below 90.  Which was good, because Joe and I were in full safari regalia.

It has taken us all this time to get our full wardrobe, and we still need light-weight, long-sleeve shirts, but we finally did get mosquite nets for our heads.  We are both totally riddled with mosquito bites, and here's one of the havens for these little critters.

But today Joe came up with a new strategy.  Since supposedly mosquitoes can only travel up to 3 mph, he decided he would drive at least that, and I would steer, and he would take photos out his window.  We had some success with this, but we need to work on it more, since he got the front of the car in the photo.

This is one of the roads we traveled -- our kind of road.  Since he was safely in his full garb, he braved the elements and actually got out of the car to take these pictures.

We saved the side trips for the drive out, and we walked several boardwalks.  Here is a picture of the prairie here -- which has water flowing through it.  Also, the Everglades is not a swamp, because it does have moving water flowing through it. We learned that today. 

 

We have seen lots of huge grasshoppers in the last few days, and Joe got up close to one on the boardwalk.  He later found a different species of grasshopper, so that adds to today's wildlife.  The big one is the lubber grasshopper.

Our last hike was at the Royal Palm, which had lots of gators and turtles.  The gators here were a little aggressive, and we even heard one "growl" at another one.

 We saw several turtles grazing right next to the bank, and we also saw at least 3 different species of fish in these waters.  But the best was this soft-shelled turtle who decided to cross the sidewalk.

Finally, we left here and headed back to town, stopping on the way at a great fruit stand where we sampled lychee for the first time.  After a quick dinner at Panda Express, we drove out to the Miami-Homestead Motor Speedway (after getting on the wrong road first, heading 20 miles to Key Largo -- Joe made an illegal turnaround in the road construction so we didn't have to make the 20-mile trip just to turn around, since the racetrack was only 4 miles from where we started). 

AND THEN (see, Bridgette and John rubbed off on us), since we were close, we drove over to Biscayne National Park, but it was closed (since it was 8:00 p.m.), so we'll probably go back there tomorrow.  We finally got back to the RV, itching from mosquitoes, hot and tired.  And ready to do it all again tomorrow, just in a different place.  It was another good day.