Big Cypress National Preserve - 12/30/2016

This will be the last blog post of 2016, which brings me to our last park of the National Park Service's Centennial year.  We ended our Florida trip by briefly returning to the Everglades for an airboat ride.  This has been a bucket list item for me, and it was fun!  Initially I was let down because I was expecting a narrated tour, which our company didn't do (although there are some that do that).  But after we went 40 miles an hour and did a couple 180-degree and 360-degree turns I stopped being let down and enjoyed the ride!  When our boat captain gunned it for the first time, it felt like we were flying and we were going into the wind so fast that I literally could not breathe or contain my laughter!  The bonus was, we actually did two airboat rides - one was through the mangrove trees (which we learned a lot about at Biscayne) and the second ride was through the sawgrass (which is what I think of when I think of airboats in the Everglades).  We didn't see much wildlife on the first ride because it was quite chilly (low 60's) and the gators don't really find that to be comfortable, being cold-blooded and all.  The second ride, we did see a few gators.  I highly recommend doing an airboat ride if you are ever in the Everglades, and there are companies all over the place there, so you can really take your pick.

Airboat Ride

On the first airboat ride through the mangroves (we were flying here!)

Parts of the airboat ride were through curvy parts of the water - they still went pretty fast while navigating all the twists and turns!

Gator while on the sawgrass airboat ride

We caught this gator eating breakfast on the sawgrass airboat ride

After the airboat ride, we headed over to Big Cypress National Preserve, which brings our total park count to 226.  This park is a lot like Congaree in South Carolina or Big Thicket in Texas - it's basically a swamp.  If you have never been to a swamp, you probably have the same assumption I did about swamps - they're brown, ugly, smelly, etc.  Well, the smelly part is sometimes true, but swamps really are pretty!  I was blown away by Congaree and we were there in the winter when the leaves had already fallen, so everything really was brown - but it's one of my favorite parks.  Big Cypress was just as pretty as Congaree and this time, there was a lot more green to look at since it's Florida in wintertime.  My only complaint about this park is that on the scenic drives, which are dirt roads, there aren't really any places to stop and see it.  If you're like us, you make spaces on the side of the road to stop occasionally, but I'm not sure how frowned upon that is.

Us at Big Cypress (see the gator in the background?)

While driving to a different part of the park, we stumbled upon the smallest post office in the US!

Another Purple Gallinule

See, swamps are pretty!  (Actually, the pictures don't really do it justice)

How many gators do you see?

And that's a wrap on 2016 parks for us!  I hope the first year of our blog has inspired you to find your park in 2017!  Happy New Year to our readers!

Dry Tortugas National Park

We had a lot of fun today exploring Dry Tortugas.  In order to get there, you need to board a ferry in Key West, FL and spend 2 and a half hours on this ferry going through the 70 miles of open water before arriving at Fort Jefferson.  Fort Jefferson was built on Garden Key between the 1840's and 1870's and was actually never completed.  What's amazing about this fort is that it is built with over 16 million bricks - which are not found on the island - they were brought there!

Fort Jefferson as we entered Dry Tortugas

Walking around the moat

Inside the fort

When we first got to the park, we walked the .6 mile moat walk loop.  This takes you around the perimeter of the fort, where the water is clear enough that you can see some of the plants and fish.  After the moat walk, we had a 20-minute intro to the fort and then we walked around it ourselves.  We found Dr. Mudd's cell, which was neat to see.  Dr. Mudd is the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth's leg after he broke it from jumping from the balcony at the theater where he assassinated President Lincoln.  He was sentenced to life in prison at Fort Jefferson, but because of his help with the yellow fever epidemic, Andrew Jackson pardoned him after four years.

Dr. Mudd's cell

After the fort, we grabbed lunch on the boat and then Steve snorkeled around the fort and I caught some rays on the beach, taking a dip in the water to cool off every once in a while.

Snorkeling

Of course he takes a snorkeling selfie (I asked Steve to add the pictures tonight, so of course this one is chosen)

Snorkeling

The way back to Key West turns into a booze cruise!

Biscayne National Park - 12/28/2016

We spent all day today in Biscayne National Park.  I had high hopes that we would see a manatee here, but we didn’t.  We got to the Visitor Center just before 9:00 when they opened.  There is a ¼-mile trail that walks along the marina and the bay that we strolled along before the VC opened.  We spent a little bit of time in the VC and then boarded a boat through Island Dreamer to head over to Adams Key.  Biscayne is a unique park in that when you get to the VC on the mainland, that’s really all you can do on the mainland.  In order to see the park, you need to go across the bay to the islands, which are really the start to the Florida Keys.  We did the boat ride that takes you out all day.  Once we docked at Adams Key, we had a little bit of time to eat lunch and then the group of us from the boat either got in a kayak (us) or on a paddle board.  Captain Hans took us through a loop of the bay through the mangroves to a lagoon and then a small place to snorkel.  Steve snorkeled, but there was so much dirt kicked up from the other people swimming that he really didn’t see anything.  At one point while I was alone in the kayak, I crashed into a mangrove and found a land crab which was neat to see.  Neither of us got a picture of it though, oops.  While heading back into the boat, we just missed sightings of a sea turtle and a 3-foot shark.

Kayak selfie!

Kayaking through mangroves

Baby mangrove tree

Even though our water adventures didn’t give us a good showing of wildlife, we did find something interesting at Adams Key.  As we were docking, Captain Hans pointed out two rafts of Cuban refugees.  They were only about half a football field away from where we docked, so we went to check them out.  Steve and I agreed this had a creepy vibe to it, because these refugees made these rafts out of whatever material they could find.  The more interesting of the two was made out of newspaper and resin.  We asked how long they have been there and I was fully expecting him to tell me these were from decades ago, but one was from October and the other one was from two weeks ago!  He said people are still attempting to come over from Cuba in record numbers!

After our boat ride, we worked our way down to Key West.  Along the way we stopped at Florida Keys Brewing Company (recommended by Captain Hans) and we were very impressed with their beers!

Everglades National Park

Today was our first day in Florida and we spent it in Everglades National Park.  We got to the Shark Valley area around 11:00 am and the soonest tram tour we could get on was the noon tour.  While waiting for the tour to start, we did the quick .2 mile boardwalk loop near the Visitor Center.  When we first started out, we spotted several juvenile alligators.  Juveniles are about 3 or more years old and that's when the mother separates from them so that they don't eat her new hatchlings each year.  Fun fact that I learned today - the sex of alligators are determined by the temperature of the eggs while in the nest.  If the eggs are 90 degrees or warmer, they will be males.  If the eggs are less than 90 degrees, then they will be females.

Juvenile alligators

The Tram Tour is a two-hour tour that goes through a 15-mile loop through the Shark Valley area of the Everglades.  This tour was awesome!  It was a great introduction to the park, the ecosystem, and the abundant wildlife.  The Everglades isn't exactly what I would call a scenic park, unless you enjoy looking at sawgrass for miles, but what makes this park awesome are all the birds and gators!  I'm not even a bird person, but the birds here are much more interesting than what you can find in Maryland and we even had a few rare sightings today.

Sleepy gator

Great Blue Heron

I think this is a Tri-Colored Heron

Wood Stork - these were close to extinction in the early 2000's, but they've made a significant comeback.  They've been downgraded to a threatened species.

Rare sighting, because these guys are usually only seen at night (Black-Crowned Night Heron)

 

Anhinga

Super tiny baby gators - not pictured was the mother next to them

Another rare sighting - a Purple Gallinule - these are nicknamed the "Jewel of the Everglades."

Fresh kill!

After the tour, we drove to two other Visitor Centers in the park so we could get our stamps.  At the Flamingo Visitor Center, we stopped to walk around the marina where there usually are manatee sightings, however we were not so lucky.  I keep telling Steve I'm not leaving Florida until I see a manatee.  Hopefully we have some luck tomorrow while we are in Biscayne National Park.

We ended the night with dinner at Titanic Brewing.  Both the food and the beer were mediocre, with their Nut Brown being their best beer.

Titanic Brewing Company Sampler