Homestead to Fort Meyers through the Everglades
The park engulfs the southern section of Florida and extends into the barrier islands
Adam and Derek learn about fires in the Everglades
Neat exhibit with all the stakeholders in the ongoing water control debate voicing their side
Rain makes its way from urban areas in north and flows south through everglades (slow moving rivers of grass) to the ocean
Water looks black, but it's actually crystal clear and you can easily see the wildlife
Endless sawgrass prairies interspersed with hardwood hammocks
Looking for alligators
There's one!
Snakes!
Little
Bigger
Biggest
Feeding time - dead rats!
Air Boat Ride
Our driver
Snake Show
Who needs cucumbers when you have Ritz crackers?
Every kind of fruit you could ever want
Naples SunsetFriday June 5, 2009
We spent the night in Homestead, a gateway city to Everglades National Park, so it was just a short drive to the park in the morning. We started at the Ernest F. Coe visitor center (map) where there are all kinds of neat exhibits. We learned that the Everglades is huge, the 3rd largest national park in the continental US, but the park still only represents a small portion (about 20%) of the Lake Okeechobee-Everglades Basin. We learned that people have been trying to tame the Everglades for a long time by draining it and redirecting its water for farming and urban development, so that now it is nothing like it was when James Audubon visited in the late 1800's and there were so many birds that they darkened the sky. We had kind of expected the Everglades to be more "swampy" and maybe it was in other areas that we didn't visit, but the areas we visited looked more like the Midwest plains with grassy fields that seemed to extend forever.
I had downloaded a car audio tour podcast of the Everglades and we listened to the podcast as we traveled through the park. After spending some time in the park, we drove back out of the park and went to nearby Everglades Alligator Farm to ride an air boat. The place was a definite tourist trap, but it was still a lot of fun. Touristy or not...riding an air boat through the Everglades is a blast! The boat ride was very loud and you couldn't hear the person next to you even if they were yelling. Good thing we had ear protection. The kids loved the 360 degree turns that our driver did and how everyone got wet. The alligator farm also had other exhibits like alligator feeding and snake handling. The kids loved the place.
After the alligator farm we drove to nearby Robert Is Here Fruit Stand where we sampled various fruits, checked out all kinds of other fun things they had, and got some delicious fresh fruit smoothies. The smoothies were so good that we got a couple more for the road.
We took Hwy 41, which runs east\west and goes through the Everglades to Naples on the western coast of Florida. We saw plenty of deer and enjoyed the scenic drive, but never saw one of the elusive Florida panthers we were were on the lookout for. We arrived in Naples around sundown and were treated to a beautiful sunset. We drove around Naples and thought it was very nice and tidy. We then headed north to Fort Myers where we found a hotel to stay for the night.
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