Blogs from Everglades National Park, Florida, United States, North America - page 3

Chokoloskee Island was man made by shell deposits by Calusa Indians over centuries of time. They created "high ground" for protection in the event of storms. The island was only accessible by boat until 1956 when the causeway was constructed. From the air it looks like a stingray with the causeway as the tail. Chokoloskee, isn't even in the AAA travel book! There is one restaurant, the Havana Cafe, with wonderful Cuban food, and a funky gallery of local art and local authors' books that does double duty as a kayak outfitter business. There is a wonderful little museum "Smallwoods Store," once a trading post and post office. We're adjacent to a marina and a very modest motel here at the ultra luxe Chokoloskee Outdoor Resort (RV Park) which takes up about 1/4 of the island's ... read more

After a teeny tiny visit with the fam and some furious cuddling with my gorgeous niece and nephew (mwa mwa mwa, your Auntie adores you), we took off from Cleawater and headed south along the Gulf Coast. With a cooler packed full of snacks and drinks (why we thought we’d need a case of Gatorade I do not know. Perhaps some residual fear from a few unfortunate de-hydration incidents on previous travels) off we were! Our mission was to invade the Everglades National Park via all four visitor centres over the next few days…here’s the low-down on each one: Gulf Coast Visitor Center: Nestled unassumingly on the (you guessed it) gulf side. We took an insanely fun airboat ride through the mangroves, but for us, there wasn’t a whole lot more that compelled us to stay ... read more

Geo: 25.3945, -80.5818Won't add much information here. Just click on the first picture to see all of the pictures on this page in an album with comments. When you finish with the ones in this album click on "Close" at the top right of the screen to be returned to this page. Then click "Next entry" at the botom of this page to go to pictures of the next park. This page has pictures from Everglades National Park. I'll add additional pages for Biscayne and Dry Tortugas.A note of special appreciation to my sister-in-law, Cherrie Sneed, birder extraordinaire, for identifying all the bird pictures for me.Hope you enjoy the pictures!Lee... read more

We awoke to a cloudy, rainy day. First stop was the Fruit and Spice Park (http://miamifruitandspicepark.com). We were able to taste some of the different fruits (some that I’d never heard of), including the sapote, which comes in different varieties, and this one tasted like chocolate. However, overall, the park didn’t live up to my expectations. Upon leaving the park, we drove on to a nearby fruit stand (which is more like a small market) called “Robert Is Here” (http://www.robertishere.com). We got some mango, grapefruit, and sapote (this particular kind tastes a lot like pumpkin pie). If you have the time, it’s definitely worth your while to spend a few minutes here. Our next stop was the Everglades Alligator Farm (http://www.everglades.com) where we planned to go on an airboat tour of the Everglades. You may want ... read more

Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009 Woke up without alarm at 8:00 a.m. Breakfast in unit, then headed out to go to Everglades NP. Started at Shark Valley; arrived a few minutes before 11, close to when the tram was loading up; had to have bathroom break and get my backpack, so the tram was just pulling out when I got back to the window (I think it was $11.00). They tried to stop it, but it kept going, so they rushed me into a pickup with a driver to catch up with it -- rather unusual (next tram was at 1:00 p.m.). So I jumped onto the tram (open-sided bus) and a few minutes later, the driver spotted an alligator (this group probably would have missed it if they hadn’t paused to load me up). Tour almost ... read more