For years Jenna and I have wanted to visit Everglades National Park. The idea of canoeing through mangrove canals and slogging through ankle deep backcountry trails just seemed out of this world. So on this trip we decided to make the trek down to the glades. We found a great campground 20 miles outside the glades and parked for 3 days. Our first trip to the Everglades started in the Shark Valley on a 15 mile trail deep into the Shark Valley Slough. This area is home to many different kinds of birds, alligators and turtles. All of which we saw many of.
It was a hot ride and while we gave it a good push we did not make it to the observation tower at the end of the trail but the kids, Jenna and I made it 9 miles. The weather during June was very hot and humid. This created the perfect conditions for thunderstorms to develop out of nowhere. While the rain was welcome as it cools you off it brings with it a great danger in lighting strikes. After talking with a park ranger for a bit we were told there are more lighting strikes in the everglades then anywhere else in Florida. This makes sense giving the flora in the area being sparse (mostly grasslands) everything over 4 feet tall becomes a lighting rod. The rain also brings a large amount of mosquitos. Surprisingly we made it out of the slough with very few bites.
After the slough we headed for Flamingo Bay an hour and a half away. We stopped at several different areas on the way down checking out the interpretive sites. Flamingo Bay’s visitors center was destroyed in 2017 by a hurricane so we got to finish up our junior ranger badges at a makeshift center in the parking lot. The area down by the visitors center was fun and we got to see a crocodile swimming in the river and a manatee drinking fresh rain water from a floating dock. It was interesting to learn that manatees are mammals that live in the salt water but drink fresh water and have to breath oxygen from the surface.
Needless to say the Everglades were are great experience for our family and the bio-diversity in the area is vast. However, the wetness experienced while down in the area is something we will never forget. Us leaving the area was just in time to avoid a large tropical storm which resulted in flooding.
