Monday March 28th 2022

Today was a good day to travel. The temperature stayed in the seventies while I got packed and ready to travel. The wind was also much calmer than the last couple of days.

I left my site right at the early 10AM checkout time. With no competition for the dump station, I took my time dumping and even flushing the tanks. It was about 10:20AM when I pulled out of the campground. I drove the thirty eight miles back to the park entrance at 50MPH, five miles below the speed limit. Killing time was the operative word for the day. I only had one hundred miles to travel and needed to give the site I was destine for to empty out.

My one stop was for gas in the Miami suburbs. The only station I could get in and out of easily was expensive. I paid $4.70 a gallon for gas. The average in the area is $4.20 and closer to $4.00 on the next leg of my journey. I didn’t fill the tank, but put in enough to give me options when I leave here on Saturday.

I arrived at the Big Cypress Preserve Midway campground just before 1PM. The camp hosts were not around to check me in. The official check in time is 2PM. This is the same campground I stayed at on my way to the Everglades. I am on the same exact site for this stay, so I continued to my site and got setup. About 3PM I went back to the front of the campground and checked in.

The cell service isn’t very good here. During my stay ten days ago I had very limited Verizon service and no AT&T data service. This time around I don’t seem to have any Verizon service and I have limited AT&T data service for internet access. What’s different? I’m parked within 2 feet of my location ten days ago.

Sunday March 27th 2022

My last full day in Everglades national park was another great weather day. The breeze out of the north kept the humidity in check and the temperature in the mid eighties. I was able to get in an extensive amount of walking today.

I have enjoyed my stay in the Flamingo area of Everglades National Park. It has a lot of trails and opportunities in a concentrated area along Florida Bay. There is also a lot of areas closed or abandon because of previous hurricanes and significant areas like the visitors center and lodge under reconstruction. That tends to make the atmosphere a little depressing.

The volume of visitors in the area never comes close to filling all of the parking spaces in the area. During the week the visitor level is very low. The marina isn’t very active and the tent camping area is only partially full. The “B” and “C” tent camping loops have been abandon since one of the past hurricanes. The roads and sites are filled with weeds and the restrooms are abandoned. The trailer area I’m in averaged nine campers most nights. The road construction in this camping area is a valid excuse for the low numbers. The concessionaire has been actively discouraging and even canceling some reservations to make room for the road work.

The reasons for the low number of visitors in the rest of the Flamingo area are more complicated. The eastern area of the park, near Miami, is very busy. The parking lots at the Royal Palm area and the Long Pine Key area were close to full. Most of those people don’t travel the extra thirty plus miles to the Flamingo area. Does a low visitor count to the Flamingo area lower the priority on funding to complete the maintenance? Do the people stay away because of the low maintenance? What is the priority for maintenance and repair at this National Park?

The wildlife doesn’t care about the state of the national park. It is readily available for viewing. I’ve had fun wandering around taking pictures of birds and crocodiles. I will be back again, but it will not be a regular winter stop. It is at the end of a long road from civilization.

Tomorrow I’m reversing the route I took ten days ago to get here. I’m returning to the Midway campground in the Big Cypress National Preserve. Tomorrow’s complication is the early checkout time here. They want you off the site by 10AM.

Saturday March 26th 2022

Today’s weather was close to perfect. The temperature got into the mid eighties under a bright sun. A nice breeze off the ocean kept things comfortable.

My day was very routine. I took my time over my breakfast coffee this morning. Basically, I squandered the morning away. My first walk of the day didn’t start until about the noon hour. This walk to the marina and back with a few detours is over four miles. Since it is a weekend there are a lot more people in the park today. Places that were quiet during the week had people exploring or otherwise disturbing the quiet. Even the marina seemed to have a few boats tied up at the docks that were empty all week.

Before my second walk of the day I took time to prepare and eat lunch and complete a few tasks around my RV home. There seemed to be even more people in the camping and beach day use areas of the park just before sunset. The marina, however, was back to its empty state.

Thursday March 24th 2022

The weather is getting hot in south Florida. I had to run the AC last night to make it comfortable to sleep and will probably have to run it again tonight. Today’s daytime high was in the upper eighties with high humidity and a clear sky above my campsite. The breeze off the ocean kept things comfortable as long as you were shaded from the direct sun.

I drove back on the main park road to the east entrance to the national park. I went back to the Royal Palm area and walked the Anhinga trail again. The 0.8 mile paved and boardwalk lined trail has a heavy wildlife concentration. In addition to lots of Anhinga birds and Alligators there are turtles, egrets, herons and other random animals to see. This is a very popular place. The parking lot has cars from all over North America and there is a wide selection of languages from visitors to this country to overhear along the trail.

Wild Flowers

Birds

Alligators

Wednesday March 23rd 2022

My day began early so I could make another attempt at booking a Florida State Park stay for next winter. Much to my amazement I was successful. It was a different state park than the one I’ve been trying to book for the last two weeks, but it is a good park I’ve been to before. I will attempt to fill the two weeks at an Army Corp of Engineers park when the booking window opens in August or else I’ll reserve a commercial park somewhere in the state.

The major activity for the day was a ninety minute boat tour into the Everglades back country. They use a relatively small pontoon boat for the task. There are only a total of six passengers with the captain. In my case the other five passengers were a family of five from a Spanish speaking country visiting the United States. The mom and dad spoke reasonable English, but the three kids under five years old barely communicated in any language. They were good kids. All they seemed to care about was the boat ride not the scenery.

The kids had it right. The scenery and wildlife on the tour were not that remarkable. The tour starts by heading north along the man made dredged canal. This is the area all of the American Crocodiles and manatees can usually be spotted. The boat captain tried to talk up all of the crocodiles that are along the canal, but only managed to find three on the journey. The ones that are out of the water are well back in the mangroves that line the banks. We didn’t see any manatee and only saw a couple of egrets.

The canal empties into a large body of salt water. The tour boat cut right across Coot Bay to a natural channel lined with more mangroves. We didn’t see any wildlife on this part of the trip. The natural channel empties into Whitewater Bay an even bigger body of water that is open directly to the Gulf of Mexico. The captain took the boat in a big loop in Whitewater Bay and returned to the marina the way we came. On the trip back through the canal we stopped to see the same crocodiles we saw on the way out.

I really don’t think I was the right audience for the Back Country Boat Tour. The fact that we didn’t see a lot of wildlife can’t be controlled, but I’ve seen mangroves in other areas with easier access. The wildlife around the marina is better than what I saw on the tour today. I got more entertainment watching the two of the little kids running around the boat. The third one only crawled.

This evening I walked back over to the marina area. I saw a crocodile and all kinds of osprey. It was better wildlife viewing than on the 90 minute tour. Here are some of the pictures I took on my walk to the marina.

Tuesday March 22nd 2022

Yesterday was windy. Today was WINDY. During the night the wind picked up and started to howl out of the east. It continued all day. The temperature peaked around eighty degrees, but the wind out of the east was brutal. It seemed to be much cooler.

I hung around my RV home most of the day. It was an opportunity get a few chores done between my morning and late afternoon walks. The wind made the walks difficult. Between having to hold onto my hat to keep it on my head and leaning into the wind to keep from getting blown away, it was tough walking. Taking pictures was also difficult. The difficulty keeping my hand steady on one end and the subject moving on the other end doesn’t make for sharp pictures. It is still better than a cold day with snow in the north.

Monday March 21st 2022

After yesterday’s cold front cleared the area, today was very windy and a lot less humid. The high temperature was around eighty while the sun dominated the sky. By late in the afternoon clouds took over the sky until a little before sunset. Overall it was a nice weather day.

Today I toured the roadside turnoffs along the main park road. I drove about thirty five of the thirty eight miles east toward the park entrance stopping at nearly all of the named scenic areas along the way. If walked five of the short loop trails. I may return later in the week for some of the longer trails. Adding up all the distances, I walked about three miles. Most of the loop trails were on boardwalks over the slow moving water of the everglades.

As I got closer to the east entrance and civilization the number of people and the amount of wildlife increased. At my first few stops near my campsite in the Flamingo area there were any birds or people at the pull offs. At the Royal Palm area near the east entrance there was a full parking lot and plenty of wildlife to see.

Plant Life

Birds

Fish

Alligators

Soft Shell Turtle

American Crocodile

Sunset

Sunday March 20th 2022

Happy First Day of Spring.

The weather forecast called for another cold front to pass through the area today. For most of the winter the weather pattern has called for a cold front to pass through every few days. The trick was knowing how much rain and wind came with the front. It sounded like today’s front was going to be one of the weaker variety, but none of the forecasts are for this immediate area. They are either for Miami, Key West or the Naples area. All of those areas are at least fifty miles away. It turned out to be a mild weather day, but I planned for the worst.

I got my first walk in early. The temperature was in the mid eighties and it was very humid at 9:30AM. By noon the sky to the north was looking threatening, so I retreated inside my RV home. It looked like it would rain at any minute for most of the afternoon. Around 4PM it finally started to rain. For the next half hour the area was subject to a couple of minutes of downpour followed by a few minutes break before repeating the pattern. The sun was back out by 5PM reflecting off all the puddles left by the rain. I took my second walk of the day after the rain.

Last night there were lots of tent campers in the various sections of the camping area, but there were still vacancies. I am very surprised at how empty the Flamingo area seems. The prime season is from November to April, but in many ways it seems more like the off season. In the visitors center and marina area there are more empty parking spaces than there are occupied spots. Perhaps the issue is all the reconstruction going on after the last few hurricanes. I don’t know if it is funding or the pandemic, but the rebuilding seems to be taking forever. The marina area, run by a concessionaire, is operational, but most of the boat slips are empty. The sign at the construction site for the visitors center says it will be opening in 2021. I doubt they will make it by the end of 2022. The temporary visitor center building will have to function for another year.

The new Flamingo Lodge construction is the only thing that seems to have any urgency associated with it. There were construction workers on site both Saturday and Sunday. The rebuilt lodge will be very modern and potentially more resistant to water and wind in a hurricane. They are building it out of recycled shipping containers. Once again it is associated with the concessionaire, so it may be easier to spend money on a revenue generating structure as opposed to the visitors center of other infrastructure.

On my walks today I continued to be drawn to the two Osprey nests. Watching the young wait for their next meal to arrive is fascinating. Tonight there were about five people with fancy cameras setup to get pictures at the nest in the marina. I like my pictures with my less than fancy camera.

Saturday March 19th 2022

Today was a mostly dry hot and humid day with a high temperature in the mid to upper eighties. The wet part of the day came as a ten minute burst of very heavy rain about 9:30 this morning. It created puddles around the campground that remained most of the day. More rain is in the forecast for tomorrow. Another cold front is moving through the area.

I spent the day wandering around the campground and the Flamingo area of Everglades National Park. The Flamingo visitors center and marina area is about a mile away from my campsite. A combination of park roads and trails makes it easy to get there. There is also a loop trail nearby called the Eco pond trail. The half mile loop around a small freshwater pond was the most disappointing part of the day. I expected to see a few water birds, but I didn’t even see one.

The Osprey nest on the trail to the visitors center area and the second nest at the marina made up for the lack of birds on the other trail. Each nest contains a nesting pair with almost full grown young. The nest at the marina has three young Osprey that are probably only days from leaving the nest. They seem to be very comfortable with all the people hanging around below the nest taking pictures.

The Florida Bay side of the marina has a family of manatee that call it home. I saw at least one today, but only got a picture of its brown back while it was near the surface. The American Crocodiles that live in the brackish waters on the other side of the marina were not visible while I was there today. A park ranger indicated there are at least three that usually hang around that area. There are ninety minute boat excursions from the marina into the bay and another into the back waters. I plan to take them during my week here.