Miami Continued and the Everglades

Take a walk on the wild side

Turns out, the RV Park was actually fantastic. After the initial shock of squeezing into a tight spot like barely making it through a narrow alley, we woke in the morning with a new outlook. Looks can be deceiving, and after a day we realized we were happy to be there. The amenities were amazing – Ben and I had room outside to get our work out routine (well, a new version) back on track. The put-put course lived up to its hype, as did the pool and hot tub. The kiddos were very happy. We played mini golf as a family and changed the rules to suit us and make it more fun. Sloan was a ringer for hole #9 and got a hole in one every single time. I am not joking, she and Jax played every day, and it was a hole in one without fail! The park even had a resident good samaritan, Mr. Tom. Every Wednesday he would buy out Public’s Supermarket baked goods and deliver them to all of the family sites. It was such a nice and selfless thing to do and the children were truly awed by the kind act.

My favorite part about this stay was our two trips to the Everglades National Park. I can not say enough about how much I loved visiting this park! A nice man at the RV park recommended visiting the Anhinga Trail first to look for gators. So off we went. As we were pulling into the parking lot, there was a gator crossing the street. Crazy! Crazier still were the family (including toddlers) that decided to get just 2 feet behind the gator for pictures. Um, it’s not fake, your child is snack size. Needless to say, we stayed far away.

The trail is short and flat and takes you over the Slough (pronounced slew) which is a slow moving river. Never knew the Everglades consisted mostly of river. I have told you I’m a science geek right? This walk was beautiful. We did not see any more alligators, but we did see see these beautiful birds, called Anhingas, drying their wings on the limbs of trees, looking like sunbathing beauty’s on the beach. There was another short hike through the “Gumbo Limbo” nature trail that brought us to the “sunburned tourist” tree (aka Gumbo Limbo). It truly looks like overly sunburned skin! We had time, so we decided to drive down to the Flamingo trail. This is the furthest point you can drive into the Everglades, and it allows you to cut across the entire park (the drive is about 40 minutes). You watch the landscape change as you go – from mangroves that like brackish water, to sawgrass that needs only fresh. When we arrived, we went on the hunt for manatee’s in the marina. No sighting in the beginning – but we did see two salt water crocodiles swimming upstream. Then, to what do our wondering eyes appear, a great pink manatee! It was not really pink, just the reflection of the water of course. As we watched the Manatee fearlessly swim with the crocodiles, Sloan looked at me and said, “My life is complete now.” Jackson reached for my hand as we left and said, “Thank you for taking us on this adventure.”

Wow! Worth it! Worth all of it! Bonus – Sunset over the Everglades!