Sunday May 5th 2019
Day 23
Now this is a place you must wake up early to beat the heat. The sun down here is intense so white long sleeve shirts it was. We were riding the Guy Bradley trail by 9 am in the morning heading for the camp store. The trail was awesome, short and very close to the gulf so we were on the watch for crocs as we were told they will sometimes just be sunbathing on the trail, got that jungle feel again.
Visitor center was open so we stopped in looked around, read all the boards, got Phoenix his junior ranger book and talked with the ranger for quite some time. You could tell she had real passion for her job and I loved that. With our conversation I learned that Dade county a place of almost 3 million people by itself and the surrounding areas are dependent on water from the Everglades for drinking. Also learned the visitor center we were in was a makeshift one as the normal one has yet to fix from the last hurricane. They are working on making Flamingo a destination area again by 2020 with a new and improved hotel and visitor center.
The ranger did voice her concern over the ever growing population of the booming 3 surrounding counties, 7 million people. This made me wonder why the importance of this area was not pushed more let alone just its unique factor. Only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles coexist not to mention it is the only subtropical area in the USA.
We eventually made our way to the camp store and checked for manatee’s hanging around the marina like the ranger said to do, nothing. While there we talked ourselves into signing up for a 1.5 hour pontoon boat tour and chose the latest afternoon time we could in hopes the sun wouldn’t hurt so much lol
We quickly made our way back to the RV to shelter ourselves from the heat. The whole time we were in southern Florida we would not go outside between the hours of 11 am to 3 pm. We chilled out for a couple hours before heading back for the tour.
The boat tour was amazing! Awesome ride, birds, plants and crocodiles! There was a large one basking in the sun with his mouth gaping open showing off the razor sharp line of teeth. I think one of the coolest sights on the trip was watching the mangroves dance in the waves.
After docking we bought the campfire essentials of beer, chocolate and firewood. Phoenix stayed pretty cool on the way back. FYI that 6 pack cost over $10! That’s the price of 12 pack back home.
We made some supper while cooling off in the air once again waiting for sunset to roll around.
The amphitheater was a perfect spot to watch the sunset and this one was so unbelievably gorgeous!
Before the sun went down a young couple from Miami took the time to talk with us a bit. The girl had one of those insta print camera and gave us a pic she took of us. Just a itty bitty picture but the memory is exciting.
Biking back to camp I just had to stop and talk with this couple who had a tank of a vehicle. Turns out they were an European couple who did something similar to us in quitting their jobs and traveling the world. I completely enjoyed our time with them until the bugs started coming out and getting bigger and bigger. I swear Everglade mosquitos are the size of birds.
Smores around the campfire was glorious end to the night!
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Everglades sounds like a place our family would love to visit, well, minus mosquitoes, of course. Thanks for sharing and have a good day
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It’s a wonderful place we wish we would have made it before the heat set in. Thank you for reading and safe travels when adventuring!
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