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smittenbyu) wrote2010-01-20 10:00 pm
smittenbyu) wrote2010-01-20 10:00 pm
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Day 5 - Everglades Car Caravan
December 29, 2009
The previous days we were at Everglades Park (from Homestead entrance) we didn't drive all the way down to Flamingo. We had signed up for this Car Caravan that would take a guided tour with the ranger all the way down from the main entrance to Flamingo making many stops.
We started off the day with another view of the alligator. This alligator was sharing a pond with several of the birds we saw. I guess it fed itself and so the birds didn't seem too scared of it!
Again we were glad we were with a ranger. The Car Caravan had a bunch of visitors following the ranger from point to point in respective cars. It was fun! We saw so many things that we probably would have missed completely if we went on our own! Like this little snail. Every hammock has its own unique species of snails.
Could you imagine from the picture below that we were in the Everglades National Park?? The type of habitats change so much! At certain points we could see the distinct differences between them! I forget now what kind of trees they were - a type of pine and at my level are the palms.
We swear that this hawk was following us all along. We stopped so many times along the road to try and get a snap, it just didn't like all the paparazzi. But finally it relented and stayed on the branch long enough for us to get a few shots!
We ended our tour at the Flamingo Visitor Center. We walked around the pond that was there that was completely devastated in the last two major hurricanes - freshwater ponds that were completely saturated with salt water and so changing the ecosystem and its inhabitants completely. Maybe in another ten years if no more big hurricanes come it will be able to recover.
With all the sitting about, we picked another trail on the way back to walk down on. It was almost a 2 mile trail that leads to mangrove forests. Since we didn't have flashlights we had to make sure we were at least half way back before the sun completely set. And so we really did a brisk walk. We didn't see the birds we were expecting to see as it turned out to be low tide. By then though we were a bit done with the whole park thing.
Vegetation was even growing on the path because of the rains that came the previous week! Southern Florida got like 12 inches of rain in a weekend!! That's completely abnormal for this time of the year! But look at that lush green!
So, we headed to another point we really liked, mostly to go to the restrooms there. And it turned out to be a beautiful spot!
The red mangrove trees...
We headed back and had dinner at Quiznos. Shopped for some groceries to make sandwiches for the next day as the park has no food spots in the park. Their restaurant was completely destroyed when Katrina passed through. We were to go for canoeing with the ranger. And ended our night with another round of scrabble.
The previous days we were at Everglades Park (from Homestead entrance) we didn't drive all the way down to Flamingo. We had signed up for this Car Caravan that would take a guided tour with the ranger all the way down from the main entrance to Flamingo making many stops.
We started off the day with another view of the alligator. This alligator was sharing a pond with several of the birds we saw. I guess it fed itself and so the birds didn't seem too scared of it!
Again we were glad we were with a ranger. The Car Caravan had a bunch of visitors following the ranger from point to point in respective cars. It was fun! We saw so many things that we probably would have missed completely if we went on our own! Like this little snail. Every hammock has its own unique species of snails.
Could you imagine from the picture below that we were in the Everglades National Park?? The type of habitats change so much! At certain points we could see the distinct differences between them! I forget now what kind of trees they were - a type of pine and at my level are the palms.
We swear that this hawk was following us all along. We stopped so many times along the road to try and get a snap, it just didn't like all the paparazzi. But finally it relented and stayed on the branch long enough for us to get a few shots!
We ended our tour at the Flamingo Visitor Center. We walked around the pond that was there that was completely devastated in the last two major hurricanes - freshwater ponds that were completely saturated with salt water and so changing the ecosystem and its inhabitants completely. Maybe in another ten years if no more big hurricanes come it will be able to recover.
With all the sitting about, we picked another trail on the way back to walk down on. It was almost a 2 mile trail that leads to mangrove forests. Since we didn't have flashlights we had to make sure we were at least half way back before the sun completely set. And so we really did a brisk walk. We didn't see the birds we were expecting to see as it turned out to be low tide. By then though we were a bit done with the whole park thing.
Vegetation was even growing on the path because of the rains that came the previous week! Southern Florida got like 12 inches of rain in a weekend!! That's completely abnormal for this time of the year! But look at that lush green!
So, we headed to another point we really liked, mostly to go to the restrooms there. And it turned out to be a beautiful spot!
The red mangrove trees...
We headed back and had dinner at Quiznos. Shopped for some groceries to make sandwiches for the next day as the park has no food spots in the park. Their restaurant was completely destroyed when Katrina passed through. We were to go for canoeing with the ranger. And ended our night with another round of scrabble.
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Nice!