“The Everglades is a test. If we pass, we may get to keep the planet.” This quote, from renowned conservationist, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, tells the still in-progress tale of the Everglades. About half of the original Everglades has been taken over for agriculture and development (aka Miami), but work is now focused on preservation and slowly restoring portions of the ecosystem. It’s not a beautiful park like most of the western National Parks, but it has amazing wildlife and an even better story.
We visited the Everglades in September 2019
Getting There
The Everglades is a huge park, taking up most of the southern tip of Florida. Most people arrive from the Miami side, just west of Homestead. We wanted to see several parts of the park, so we came down from Ft Myers to Everglades City where our first campsite was just outside entrance to the park. We noticed that several of the local spots had Bigfoot statues, so there’s likely plenty of local Sasquatch legends. Anyway, it’s an easy park to get to, but once you enter, you’ll likely need to find your way onto the water to get the essence of the place. We knew that arriving in September was not great for bugs or heat. Since the focus of our eastern trip was fall foliage in Great Smoky Mountains, we expected to sacrifice a bit on the Everglades experience. We made sure that our campsites, both outside and inside the park had power to run our A/C. Still, despite the bugs and the heat, we found that getting around the park was easy and especially fun on Ruby Sue. Oh yeah, and the sunsets are spectacular.
Shark
Valley
What? Sharks in the Everglades? Nope. Shark Valley gets its name from the Shark River which feeds the Everglades from Lake Okeechobee. Although sharks would be quite the addition to the alligators, crocodiles, pythons, and panthers in this lively park, you won’t find them here. Shark Valley was our favorite spot in the park becuase of the tram tour they run there. You can also ride bikes, but you’d have to pick a cooler day or it would be miserable. Anyway, our late September day was pretty warm, but not crowded. Literally, we shared our tram tour with zero other visitors. There was the driver and the tour narrator, so it was awesome. They didn’t mind at all and they were both good. We learned a lot about the “river of grass” and they knew right where the animals would be. They found several gators and even babies that were great photo subjects. Anyway, if you get to the Everglades, get on Alligator Alley and hit Shark Valley.
Wildlife
While most visitors will think of alligators when they head to the Everglades, you have to look for all the different varieties of birds here too. When conservationists originally sought to protect the Everglades, it was mostly to save the birds that were being hunted for their plumage. We saw lots of vultures, egrets, blue herons, and ibis, plus a few roseate spoonbills, anhingas, and several we couldn’t identify. One time, we were riding away from our campground in search of hiking trails and birds when we saw a beautiful hawk along the road. We would typically douse ourselves in bug spray as soon as we parked Ruby, but this time, Rainy was on a mission to photograph this hawk before it disappeared. Mistake. Remember the Indiana Jones scene where his guide gets his back covered in tarantulas? Multiply that by 1000 and that’s how many mosquitoes were on her within seconds. Still, she dealt with the pests and still pulled of a great shot or two. The Everglades must be where all the repellent companies do their testing and I think the critters down there have built up a resistance to Deet.
End of the Road
at Flamingo
Flamingo sits at the far southern tip of the Everglades and has a decent sized campground. They had a big storm right before we arrived which knocked out the power. It had come back on the day we arrived and everyone else was gone. It was so hot, we couldn’t imagine anyone sticking around. Since the campground had sites with electricity, we were fine as Eddie’s A/C was heroic. A majority of the campground was tent sites and that’s just not appealing. It could be that our recent experience at Dry Tortugas was so fresh in our minds. Still, we’re not big fans of heat and humidity. We took a boat tour at Flamingo which was ok (not as much wildlife as we would have hoped) and at least we got to see a few manatees around the dock.
Overall, the Everglades is a great example of what our National Park System was designed to do. Preservation. The alligators and birds are excellent, but be ready to perspire. Set your expectations accordingly and you’ll enjoy your time there. I’m still optimistic that we pass the Everglades test.
