Time to move on down the road and we’re headed for the Everglades NP. I’ve seen it on maps of Florida all my life but it never occurred to me that I’d get there. We’ve planned to stop before we get to the Everglades and fill up o diesel and propane - just in case it gets colder than the mid 60’s. We’ve got some warm temperatures ahead of us for the next week or so. Should be a great time.
Gary and I get along great - in this small box that we live in. The only time that we seem to spit at each other is when we get lost. Gary’s driving this massive thing down the road and somehow we get off track and I’m supposed to find the new route - while we’re still moving - it’s a moving target. I just want him to stop somewhere so I can get my bearings and then we can go ahead.
Today, we wanted to find some donuts and the only choice in southern Florida is Dunkin’ Donuts. We used to like DD lots when we lived in New England but we’ve been exposed to others by now and the bloom is off the rose - or maybe I should say: the glaze is off the donut. But that’s all available around here so we found one that we could get to, circle around the block and get back on our route. Oops, the driveway into DD is blocked by construction - there is no way we’re going to get in there: too narrow, too twisty, too much construction, too much traffic. So we drive on down a busy street with construction on each side, 3 lanes of traffic and narrow roads off of the main road. Now, we’re moving and I’ve got to find a way out. Let’s go down this road - no, we just passed it. This one, nope, we just passed it.
Just get into the left lane so we can turn when we need to. Finally, we find a road, turn and get back onto our route.
Spit.
Spit.
Spit.
But we get over it fast and are back in sync. Of course, donuts in our hands and confectioners sugar all over our mouths would have made it sweeter.
Very cool trip along the border of the Big Cypress Preserve, a state forest and the Everglades NP. We saw several campgrounds we’d like to stay in - the next time. We also saw lot of alligators in the ditches on the sides on the road. Ooh - pity a poor hitchhiker. The road was smooth, the views were awesome and we rolled along. We came to the turnoff to head south and stopped for gas and lunch at a Pilot. Small Pilot and we had to eat our lunch in the casino parking lot across the street. But, hey, we can stop here when we leave the Keys (our next stop after the Everglades) and heading north.
We got to the park and our campsite. We were pleasantly surprised to find that it was 50 Amps. No water or sewer but 50 A electricity. We can easily go a week on this before we have to dump on our way out of the park. We actually thought we might take a shower or two in the campground showers but found out that they were cold showers, except for the solar-heated showers about 1/2 mi away. And, today it rained all day - how warm are those showers now - with everyone hoping to get in?
As I was going though my inside tasks after we arrive at at a campground, I thought about the TV antenna. Oh, yeah, right. As if. We’re at the end of Florida: no TV, no cell phone service, no wi-fi. How ever in the world will we cope? But, no, I did not put up our antenna. But I did notice that some of our neighbors had their antennas up. When we asked them if they were getting any reception over their antenna, they admitted that they did not but put it up just because they always put it up.
Butterflies. I have never seen so many butterflies flitting around. In fact, we hardly ever see butterflies. What ever happened to them? I remember when I was a kid running around trying to catch those little white butterflies i our hands.
Dinner and then a moonlit walk around the campground.
So, what are the Everglades? Well, I don’t know right off hand: it’s a National Park at the southern tip of Florida. There you have it - the sum total of my knowledge. The words ‘alligator’ and ‘swamp’ might also come into my thoughts. I have learned that the ‘alligator’ is ok when describing the Everglades but swamp it is not. A swamp is stagnant water while the Everglades is one vast river of water flowing from the Kissimmee Basin (around Orlando) to Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf. Called the ‘River of Grass’ it is a shallow, 50-mile wide river and, though it looks stagnant, is is not. It is flowing, all be it slowly at 100’ per day, losing only 2” of elevation for every mile as it flows towards the Gulf. It is the 3rd largest National Park in the continental US and, because it is so large, there is a great diversity of ecosystems throughout it. You can find sawgrass prairies, treed islands, wetlands, mangrove swamps, pine forests and estuaries on the Bay of Florida: a vast system of diversified interconnected ecosystems. (While Gary and I were in the Biscayne VC, some young girl with a local group of school kids turned to me and asked what an ecosystem was. Ooh, put on the spot.)
Here’s a map of the southern tip of Florida with the Everglades in the far southwestern corner. All the other competing groups for the water in the area are pictures: big cities, suburbs, and agriculture. Dividing the water here is like dividing up the water in the Colorado. A finite resource but infinite groups competing for that water.
It all depends upon the rain which falls in spring and summer, flows through this system and into the Gulf and enables the Everglades to last through the dry season which this is. But all that rainwater is coveted by cities and agricultural interests which are building canals, dikes and vast farm fields to divert the water from the Everglades. Roads build through the Everglades such as the Tamiami Trail, linking Miami and Tampa, cut off the flow of water and seriously impede the water flow necessary to keep the Everglades running to the Florida Gulf.
Here’s a picture showing this area before 1880 and today.
800 people move to Florida each day, 39 million vacation here some years and 12 million come during the dry season (many of them snowbirds like Gary and I) and this puts terrible strains on the water supplies, especially during the dry season. The Everglades supply the Biscayne Aquifer which supplies most of the water for Miami and it suburbs and, when the Everglades run dry, so will the aquifer. Many residents of Florida’s west coast drink desalinated water now since fresh water supplies are not enough.
Invasive species from pythons let loose by pet owners who didn’t realize how big a cute little snake could get to Melaleuca trees brought here from Australia for yard plantings, one acre of which suck up the area’s water a the rate of 2100 gallons per hour. An annual 200 tons of agricultural runoff filled with fertilizers and pesticides also threaten to damage the delicate ecosystem. Finally, there’s Mother Nature herself who has leashed hurricanes such as Andrew in 1992, Wilma and Katrina in 2005 to ravage this area.
However, not all is lost since many have realized the how vital the Everglades is to the area and are working to try to restore the water flow and keep the Everglades vital. One way this was done was to establish the Everglades NP, the first national park established to protect and preserve a portion of this huge ecosystem. However, it protects only 1/5 of the total Everglades. In 2000 a plan was approved, but not yet funded, to build new reservoirs, filter marshes, bridges and dismantle canals to try to restore the Everglades to what it should be.
But we’re here to enjoy this great National Park and tomorrow we begin to explore. But given the facts above, we are terribly cognizant of our water use.
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