The Everglades and Points Further North

The Everglades are immense, and we decided we’d either have to devote several days or limit ourselves to one quick stop. Due in large part to my paralyzing fear of snakes, we chose the latter option.

Sunrise over the Overseas Highway, from Key West back to the mainland

A Great Blue Heron greets us at the entrance to the park

I spent hours searching Dry Tortugas for the salt water crocodile but spotted a gator within the first ten feet of the path.

This one stayed so still I joked it could be fake to encourage us tourists

Baby alligators look so cute before they grow into dinosaur-adjacent monsters! A couple on the trail with us pointed out a nest; there were more in the nest but we didn’t want to get close because mama was lurking somewhere nearby.

Perhaps this is the lurking mama, keeping an eye on us

So many birds we’d never seen before, and all different from the birds we saw on Dry Tortugas.

 

We took the short Otter Cave path, which led us through a hammock (Florida seems to have repurposed “hammock” to mean a shaded area).

Solution holes, created by erosion, fill with water during the rainy season

One more alligator, for good measure.

After a long drive up the Florida coast, we camped at Manatee Springs State Park, where I saw my first armadillo but unfortunately no manatees.

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