Thursday March 17th 2022

It was a foggy morning. The overnight humidity and still conditions allowed all the moisture from the last couple of days of rain to produced a layer of ground fog that lasted until about 10AM. Under the bright sun the temperature reached the upper eighties, but the afternoon was dominated by clouds. All around the campground dark clouds arrived with some rumbling of thunder and an occasional flash of lightening. Somehow it never rained here at the campground, but the National Weather Service did issue a severe storm warning.

This is my last full day here at the Big Cypress Preserve Midway Campground. I’ll be back again for five night later in the month. Tomorrow I’m traveling to the Flamingo Campground in the Everglades National Park. It is located about fifty miles south of here, but you’d get stuck in the water, grass and muck of the glades if you tried to go straight there. The land route is over one hundred miles long. It is necessary to travel east into the Miami suburbs, south to Homestead and then back to the west through the National Park. Flamingo is really in the middle of nowhere. I know I will not have Verizon Cell service. Hopefully, I’ll have internet access via AT&T.

Supplies and services are fifty miles east of the Flamingo campground in Homestead. I don’t want to make that run if I don’t have to, so I set out to fill up on provisions today. My choice for shopping was the Walmart forty eight miles west in Naples. The Walmart to the east in Miami is nearer, but harder to access if I recall my visit a few years ago. I also wanted to stop at a few more of the roadside stops west of here on the Tamiami trail. There were a few alligators to check up on.

I’m all set with supplies and I have most of the outside preparation tasks complete. Checkout time here is noon and check in time at the Flamingo campground is 3PM. I’ve read that they enforce the check in time, so I’ll need to find a place along the park road in the Everglades to stop and see the sights. The trick will be finding a place with enough room to park.

Just a reminder. If I don’t have internet access this blog will be delayed. My intent is to continue to write my daily blog and take a set of pictures every day. Every couple of days I’ll drive back to the east side of the Everglades National Park and post the blog while in the area advertised to have Verizon access. There is plenty of trails to hike and things to see in that area as well.