Two Plus a Handful: Nomad Southeast Trip, Day 10: Everglades National Park

December 30, 2018

Morning breakfast picture and wondering what on earth is blocking my lens. My pop socket. It moved in the night...

{Tommy, Katie, Shad, Samson, Dancy}

Granola bars and fruit for a simple camping breakfast on Florida Bay.

The kids loved waking up and we were right by the water!

We went to the ranger station, which was sort of still open (government still being shutdown). At least we were able to get our national parks cancellations. I still don't understand why it's called a cancellation when it's the "I was here" brag stamp. But if you ask for a stamp, that's something different.

My heart cries for this!

We drove to the marina where we opted for the backcountry boat tour over the Florida Bay tour. Florida Bay had a greater chance of dolphin sighting, but seeing the backcountry and getting deeper into the park sounded more exciting to me and Shad. We saw so much wildlife just standing on the dock! We saw an alligator, manatee, pelican, and ospreys!

Never got a good picture of the manatee, but she hung out here in the water and kept bobbing up for air. We watched her for a good 10 minutes.

{Samson, me, (Thora in front of Dancy), Dancy, Katie, Tommy}

Pelican!

Pelican watching

{Tommy, Dancy, me, Katie, Samson}

Then we heard loud, obnoxious calling and followed the crowd to investigate. It was osprey mating season and they were being vocal about it!

We had everyone go to the bathroom one last time before our tour. The bathroom lines were crazy and we were the last ones to get on the boat. We were less impressed with this boat tour than the bayou tour in Louisiana. This boat had siding that you couldn't see through, which meant that visibility from the center of the boat where we, the last passengers, had to sit was very minimal. We all got bored and restless because we couldn't see. The little kids got cranky and the parents had to spend their time and energy trying to keep them happy rather than listening to what little the tour guide said and trying to see it.

The water is naturally reddish due to the mandrake roots. The mandrake trees are what holds in the shoreline.

Always such a relief to see this girl smiling instead of pouting. She's in Florida, her new favorite state since her bff Aunt Lori moved here.

{Thora}

Oh! This canal we were boating down was manmade (definition of canal versus bayou) by the National Park Service to provide a path to Coot Bay and the backcountry. BUUUUUUUUT what happened was that seawater rushed in and turned the water brackish (a mix of seawater and fresh water) and subsequently killed much of the plant and wildlife, including the Coot ducks for which the bay is named!

Coot Bay

{Shad and Samson}

{Katie}

{Dancy & Katie}

More mandrake roots.

There is a tiny alligator on the central log.

Thora made friends with this lady, who was very kind and happy to talk with her after spending years working in Montessori preschools and kindergartens. Thora wasn't so fond of her husband, though.

Samson wanted to come to the back of the boat to see me, but tripped on the way. I worked to cheer him up.

Fun wake.

Katie made friends with this girl who couldn't speak English and to this day it drives me nuts that I didn't get to try to ask where she and her parents were from. That would've enriched the experience for Katie so much!

Driving back to the campground from the marina, we pulled over when we saw a snake slithering across the road. That was fun!

We went for a hike, one of few we could do because most of the trails got ravaged in Hurricane Irma. Just a short one mile loop around a pond. My kids can handle up to 3 miles. We're not new to hiking. But we got maybe 100 yards into this FLAT GROUND WALK, and Dancy just started complaining and complaining and complaining. So that pissed me off and I ended up just not taking many pictures.

But there was this anole on a wood post.

And this grass tied up in a spider's web.

We got back to the tent, heard less complaining, and Samson was just soooooo happy to be back to his camping.

Getting the aloe ready. Some of us got lightly burned in Ormond Beach.

In the evening, we decided to try another walk...this time following a paved trail from the campground to the ranger station. We didn't make it far because we kept stopping for sand, shells, and birds!

It's a cypress!

See the cool root system?!

And then right there where we were stopped for the cypress, we heard an osprey calling.

And then we made it a little further to this beach spot and found that it wasn't sand at all, but crushed shells!

We realized sunset was fast approaching and that that might be a great spot to watch the sun melt into the water. We wanted to grab our dinner stuff and chairs and come back to watch, but there wasn't time at our slow pace. Instead, we just enjoyed the show at the congregation area. We got there just in time for the sunset to start.

We had tuna salad cups and fruit cups for dinner. It tasted soooo good after so many car sandwiches we'd had lately. Oh! That reminds me: One big issue we had with this road trip was ice for our cooler. The hotel in New Orleans had a fridge in it, but no ice box. The hotel in Ormond Beach had a fridge...that leaked water everywhere and was unplugged when we got checked in. Great. So starting from Day 4, we were out of ice for all our fruits and veggies. We even bought a cutting board and a knife at Walmart in Ormond Beach so that we could cut up more for the Everglades. We did get a bag of ice, but then that meant everything in the cooler got watery. So many struggles with this road trip!