Today we left Key West and drove north on Overseas Highway through Big Pine Keys, Marathon, Islamorada and Key Largo to Homestead. We only took a couple of pics - trying to capture the blue and green colors of the water, but the camera just doesn't do it justice. Even Sammy tried to point out the color and clarity.
At Homestead we turned west and headed into lower part of the Everglades. At the Coe Visitor Center, we watched an 18 minute video to learn about the Everglades and the ecosystem that defines the park.
We then drove down Main Park Road to the Royal Palm Visitor Center and walked the half mile Anhinga Trail. The first half of the trail was all about the different species of birds (and there are a lot of different kinds - if I had paid more attention during the video I could tell you how many - but here are a few pics).
About half way through the Royal Palm it began pouring down rain, causing us to scurry to find a shelter. Rain only lasted 10 minutes so we moved on to find some 'gators. We found several and spent a lot time just watching them lie around. One did open his mouth to show us his tonsils - not sure if he was trying to scare us or it was big yawn.
It was starting to get late (and started raining again), so we decided not to drive on down to the town of Flamingo - visited Pa-hay-okee Overlook and Mahogany Hammock and head to the hotel. By the way when the elevation of increases, the trees grow and create an island. The elevation of Mahogany Hammock was 4 feet as compared to the elevation of 3 feet at Pa-hay-okee. See, I did learn something.
We arrived at our hotel in Miami (Kendall) around 5:00 and had a great dinner at the Bahama Breeze. Tomorrow we plan on driving Hwy 41 across the Everglades and visit Uncle Phillip in Coral Gables.
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