On Sunday we didn’t make it very far into the Everglades at all, just a couple miles.  So today we went back in with the goal of making it all the way down the 38 mile (I think) drive and back. 

The first trail that we stopped to take was the West Lake Trail, a nice boardwalk through more mangrove forests.  There was little chance of seeing fish, manatees, crocodiles, or anything else in the deep green water around this trail.  One thing we could definitely see  was the water line.  In March, we are toward the end of the dry season in the Everglades.  The dry season is from about November through April.  You can see that the water level gets much higher in the rainy season of the summer.

We made it all the way down to Flamingo, a spot at the end of the road on Florida Bay.  There we walked beside the clear water of the bay for a little while and went to the visitor center where we learned more about the differences between crocodiles and alligators.  This is supposedly the best place to see the American Crocodile, but we didn’t spot any.  Evidently, they are more scared of people than the alligator, so they tend to stay away.  We looked for manatees again too, but no luck. 

When we started the drive back (the road into the park and down to Flamingo is an out-and-back road), we stopped at Coot Bay Pond for a shady lunch.  I was really wishing that we had kayaks or canoes to hop into and go explore the ponds, mangroves, canals, etc.  I guess we could have rented some, but we’re trying to be choosy as to how we spend our money, so we are letting some opportunities go.

We weren’t up to doing long trails, so we were opting to stop for just about every short trail that we saw.  The Mahogany Hammock Trail took us into a shady hardwood forest.  As we were walking along the boardwalk, a couple showed us some owls that they had found.  What fun that was!  I have seen very few owls in the wild and seeing a mom with two younger owls was a real treat!  We gazed at them for quite a while and watched some of them fly from tree to tree.  The owls were definitely the highlight of my day!  After we got back to the car, we pulled out the bird book to identify them and discovered that they were Barred Owls. 

Next was the Pa-hay-okee Trail.  This trail gave us an opportunity to have an idea of what the area appeared to the native inhabitants many years ago.  It’s hard to imagine living in this wilderness, especially during the wet season.  This must have been a very challenging environment for the natives to survive in.  We took the boardwalk trail and hopped back into the car to drive to the next one. 

For our final trail, we took Pinelands Trail.  Pines are definitely a tree that we are familiar with in the Carolinas!  You can tell that the kids are done for the day when a few stay in the car and the rest jump out, run the trail, and jump right back in.  Charlie and I were the only ones who stopped to read the signs and see the pines.  Actually, it seems the only picture I took was of an unusual (to me) butterfly. 

We made it back to the campground at a decent time for once.  We tend to stay out late doing touristy things and get back to the campground exhausted and not wanting to make dinner.  Tonight, though, we sat down at the picnic table to eat dinner together, cleaned it all up, and then a few kids and I went to find a Michaels store so that I could pick up more yarn for my hands to stay busy.  We drove through a neat tunnel of trees. 

I found my yarn and went back to turn in early for the next day.

Rebecca

After attending Mass we drove to the Everglades.  This was another bucket-list park for Annette.  She’s been begging to go to the Everglades for at least the last six years. 

Of course the first thing we did was go to the visitor center.  Here, I quickly learned that the Everglades are NOT a swamp (the way I described it to the kids while we were on the drive down here).  They aren’t a swamp because the Everglades are made up of moving water as opposed to a swamp whose water is stagnant.

Next we went to hike the Anhinga Trail.  We were immediately caught up in the wildlife there.  There was a small body of water where we saw birds, fish, turtles, and alligators galore.  The kids were enthralled watching an alligator swim around.  Dominic spotted a ton of lizards and fish (he seems to have an eye for finding the hard-to-find wildlife). 

Next we took the Gumbo Limbo Trail.  Gumbo Limbo is a tree that grows in the area that we learned had two nicknames: the Tourist Tree and the Naked Indian tree.  It gets its nickname because tourists get red skin that peels.  The Gumbo Limbo tree has a red bark that peels.  Dominic was absolutely in love with the nicknames and pointed them out to me everywhere.

This trail was nice because it was in the shade!  (The sun is relentless here.) 

We hiked through what is called a hardwood hammock.  This area was full of live oaks, gumbo limbos, and royal palms. 

In the parking lot, I found a tree that I thought looked a decent amount like a live oak, but when I looked up into it, I saw some kind of fruit on it that I knew didn’t grow on a live oak.  I eventually asked a ranger and was told that it was a mahogany tree. 

I didn’t even realize that mahogany trees grew in the U.S.  I thought they grew more in the jungles of South America.  Anyway, I loved being able to see a mahogany tree.  It definitely had me wondering if I could find a sawmill that sells mahogany and bring some home.  Maybe I could talk my husband or father into making me something special with a beautiful piece of mahogany wood!

Driving back to the campground, we were greeted to several peacocks crossing the road.  None of them had the long tail, so I’m assuming that they were all female.  Although they didn’t have the gorgeous tail, they did have a gorgeous blue neck.

We’ll definitely be back in the Everglades tomorrow.  There is still a lot to see!

Rebecca

We started today out by going to Biscayne National Park. 

Once we arrived at the visitor center, we were immediately drawn to the trail beside the water.  After walking beside the water and admiring some of the coral and birds that we were able to see along the edge, we went into the visitor center to learn about what we were seeing.  In there, we watched some of the movie and learned a great deal about the coral and fish that live in the area. 

I’ve seen a lot in the news over the years about coral “bleaching”, and I finally understand what is going on.  There is an algae that lives inside the coral that is beneficial to the coral and gives it its color.  When the temperature of the water around the coral gets too warm, the algae abandons the coral to find a more comfortable home.  If algae does not return to the coral quickly, the coral dies and turns white in color. 

After seeing the movie, we joined a volunteer-led tour up the jetty walk and learned about the three different types of mangroves: red, black, and white.  Biscayne is at least one of the few, if not the only, national park that allows people to fish and bring their fish home.  We saw lots of people fishing and catching things like Gray (Mangrove) Snapper.

We heard a lot about the necessity to embrace the local culture that plays loud music and learn to just enjoy the music because it will drive you crazy otherwise.  Fortunately, no one was playing loud music, and we had a very enjoyable walk along the jetty.  I went back into the visitor center to request other hikes, only to find out that without a boat, we had already taken the only hike.  I asked about the remaining area along the shoreline that is highlighted in green on the map as being part of the park hoping that maybe we could walk through there but was told that it is all overgrown with mangroves. 

Biscayne NP is 95% water.  Several Keys also make up the park, but a boat is necessary to get out to the Keys.  We may or may not do something along those lines some time while we are here.  There are so many opportunities for fun excursions; we have to decide which ones are the most important to us. 

After finishing our walk, we decided we needed some sunscreen and some lunch.  We fixed our picnic, and I went to get the sunscreen, only to determine that we left the bag with the sunscreen, bugspray, snacks, hiking shoes, etc at the RV.  Needless to say, we stopped to get some sunscreen and determined that most of us fair-skinned people already had some damage done, but it wasn’t too bad. 

Lots of demands were being made to go to the beach (we thought we would have beach at Biscayne, but no luck.)  A ranger recommended that we could find some swimming areas in a state park in Key Largo, so we headed out that way (after getting the sunscreen). 

On our drive to Key Largo, I was disappointed that we weren’t able to see more of the water.  We finally made it to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park and headed to the visitor center to find out what we wanted to see and do.  They have lots of boating excursions out to the coral reef as well as kayak/canoe excursions into the canals lined with mangroves.  We took a hike on a boardwalk through the mangroves but saw very little wildlife. 

Next we went down to the water and discovered, again, that there wasn’t really much beach.  The “beach” was covered in old coral pieces and not comfortable to walk on, even for my kids who go barefoot constantly.  They waded into the water with shoes a bit, but in the end we decided not to do any swimming there.  I think I’m just going to have to suck it up and go to Miami Beach one day so that the kids can actually get some “beach” time. 

We drove further up into the keys and spotted a large nest that we watched for while because we thought it may be an eagle nest.  We can see a large bird in it but couldn’t tell if it was an eagle.  After a little more driving, we decided to stop at a Starbucks for a treat.  After going into the store and seeing that a small latte was going to run us $9.75, we left. 

We headed back to the RV thinking that we will have to go back to the Keys with more time (not just late in the afternoon one day) and contemplate a snorkeling trip around John Pennekamp State Park.  We were all tired of being in the car with each other!

Rebecca

Friday was a typical travel day.  Usually at the beginning of a trip, we have to have some kind of RV store to stop in and purchase some replacement for a broken part. 

This time we needed to replace the latch on the screen door.  For Charlie, it was a fairly easy fix, and the door is now operating much better.  If you have any kind of camper and you have kids, please encourage them to be VERY gentle with the RV.  It is EXTREMELY fragile given that they are made to be light-weight for easier traveling.  Some child of ours, who will remain unnamed, in a fit of anger, yanked on the door too hard or slammed it or something causing the latch to break. 

Also, if you are parents who own a camper of any kind, please be prepared to be VERY patient with your children and expect that things will get broken and get broken easily.  At least we bought this one used, unlike the last camper.

It was a 6ish hour drive to the Miami Everglades campground from our campground in Jacksonville.  We didn’t really stop to do anything exciting, so it was a rather boring day as far as reading and writing a blog goes.  We do have lots of good discussion in the RV with whomever is traveling with Charlie and I, but oftentimes the kids want to travel in the car because I stay on them about getting some of their math done.  As a matter of fact, I need to remind some of them about math as I am writing this!

The GPS took us off I-95 quite a ways outside of Miami, for which I am always grateful.  We drove by Lake Okeechobee, which I thought would be beautiful, but it turns out that we weren’t able to see it most of the time due to the high sides of the lake built up around it. 

In some ways, driving through southern Florida reminded me of driving through Kansas and eastern Colorado.  It is FLAT, and you can see for many miles. 

I was really quite nervous about staying in a campground with a “Miami” address since I am really not a big city person.  Fortunately, this campground doesn’t seem like it is in Miami at all.  We are in a very agricultural area.  Anywhere we drive around the campground we see farms growing trees and shrubs for nurseries.  What I struggle with is that I have no idea what many of the plants are that are growing around here.  We see orchards of many kinds of trees that I don’t recognize.  I have yet to be successful talking Charlie into stopping to let me out to take a picture of a tree so that I can try to identify it. 

We’re looking forward to exploring the area!  Our campground is only 30 minutes away from Biscayne National Park, 30 minutes away from Everglades National Park, and less than an hour away from Key Largo, so we’re really excited to venture out and check out the natural beauty that south Florida has to offer!

Rebecca

I should have played the “On the Road Again” song when we left for our latest trip on Wednesday, but for some reason I didn’t even think of it until now. But here we go again…Traveling! We’re on the way to Miami with visiting two different national parks in mind. We left Chester about 6:20p.m. on Wednesday.

It was late, but that was ok because at least we’re on the road. Annette didn’t get off work with her after-school care job until 6:00, and 2 kids had dentist appointments that afternoon. We were only trying to make it to Yemasee, SC since we still have our campground membership and could stay there for free. After our requisite first night meal at Cracker Barrel, we made it to our campground around 10:45p.m. We were definitely a little rusty in our setting up routines, but we only hooked up to power that night, so it was fine. Following the chaos of getting 8 people ready for bed in a tight space, we finally settled in and had a great night’s sleep.

Our reservations in Miami didn’t start until Friday, so we had some time to get there. Still studying American history, I wanted to finally make it to St. Augustine, FL, the site of the first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States. We booked the same campground in Jacksonville that we stayed in last year, but unfortunately it was a good one hour drive to St. Augustine from there. After dropping off the RV and driving to St. Augustine, we arrived about 3:30p.m. That didn’t give us much time to see museums and such, so we prioritized going to El Nombre de Dios mission site.

Admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles first sighted his landing spot on August 28, 1565, the feast of St. Augustine of Hippo.

Although he didn’t make landfall for a few days, he resolved to name the new settlement after this saint. Formal landfall was made on September 8, 1565, the birthday of The Virgin Mary, Mother of God. The first Mass at the first permanent settlement in the US was offered on the same day on a quickly constructed altar.

Since our family is Catholic, walking around the grounds of this mission and learning of the history here made by the Spanish was extremely powerful.

We first walked into the modern chapel of the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche.

The statues in the chapel were beautiful. Annette and AnaClaire both had their pictures taken with their chosen Confirmation saints: St. Kateri and St. Francis of Assisi respectively.

Next we visited the gift shop and then had about 10 minutes in the museum before they closed. The historian who took us through some of the museum was excellent! She showed us an artist’s model rendering of the landing and first Mass at St. Augustine.

She also pointed out the outer coffin in which Pedro Martinez was buried and discussed with us about how coffins at this point in history were only used for people of a certain societal stature.

Because his coffin was so short, it is surmised that he was only about 4’5″, which was evidently around the average height of a Spanish man at the time. It was also very interesting to find out that the native men that were encountered after making landfall were around 6 feet tall and mostly unclothed due to the hot Florida weather. I can’t imagine what the Spanish had going through their minds when they encountered these first natives, the Timucua. They were a peaceful people who dined with the Spanish on that first day of landfall.

After our too-short visit to the museum, we went outside to walk around the grounds, which were fortunately open until dusk. There were many things to see on the grounds including an earlier chapel of Our Lady of La Leche built in 1918.

There were two different sets of the Stations of the Cross that we were able to see, a rustic altar built to give visitors an idea of what an early altar may have looked like, an extremely tall cross, and a rosary garden in which we recited the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

We left Nombre de Dios mission in awe of its beauty and the history that occurred there. Our next stop was the beach – well after a quick run into Publix for ear drops for AnaClaire (she’s had a cold and now was struggling with an ear ache). We found a public beach access and walked down the boardwalk. According to Annette, she, “loves the beach but hates sand,” so she and AnaClaire decided to stay on the boardwalk while the rest of us took a walk on the beach and waded into the too-cold water of the Atlantic Ocean. I am also not a “sand person” (I have too many memories of sleeping in a bed full of sand as a kid), but I do want to experience things with my family, so I put up with the sand present in my shoes later. It was a beautiful evening on the beach and day at St. Augustine.

Back to the RV at the Jacksonville Equestrian Center for down-time, dinner, showers, and sleep. What a great day with Charlie and 6 of our kids. I sure do wish the other 4 were with us though. I do miss traveling with all of them.

Rebecca