We had a wonderful time in Marathon and only regret that we had to leave so soon. We spent yesterday doing more of the same things we did the days prior. We rode our bikes to Pigeon Key again and got several more coconuts. There is nothing like eating fresh coconut straight from the tree.
The kids and Dave rode their bikes at the skate park. We saw several iguanas and Camden was blessed to see a dolphin up close. We had stone crabs for dinner. They are an expensive, delicious treat!
We left early this morning to head back to the mainland. It only took about 2 hours to get our planned destination. This was another moment of great revelation. Apparently city parks are not even in the same ballpark as State Parks. We were not comfortable staying at the campground we were suppose to so we did some scrambling and quickly came up with an alternative.
After having breakfast for lunch at Denny's we drove 45 minutes further and found a hook-ups at Gator Park. There are no amenities here like a bath house, but it far beats the first place we stopped. We just need to be a little careful because we are right in the Everglades and there is swamp a few feet behind our camper. No letting our dog Dempsey out around here. He would potential be gator food if he'd make it past the otters or burmese pythons that have come to inhabit the area. Geeesh...I am sort of wondering why we left the Keys.
Once we set up camp, we took a drive to see what things were around us. We stopped at Shark Valley which is one of the entrances into Everglade National Park. We saw an alligator and snake before we even got to the parking lot!
We spent some time talking to a ranger at the park. He was very informative. We learned about the invasion of the pythons as well as anaconda and other exotic snakes over the years. We thought he was joking until he showed us pictures of the pythons found within the park. It was definitely a little creepy!
We also got advice about encountering the alligators and he shared information about the poisonous snakes in the area.
All that being said, we decided to take a nice friendly stroll down their walking path. Dorothy has nothing on us; lions and tigers and bears ha! We had the potential for gators, pythons, and panthers...ohhhh my! Yes, I said panthers. Apparently there are about 150 American panthers left in the Everglades. Not a likely threat as they are nocturnal, but still a presence.
So, we began our walk down the paved path beside the swampy canal wondering what we might see. Not even a hundred yards into the walk, Dave and the kids noticed an alligator to our right. As they cautiously backed away from the large gator, Grace managed to squeak out that there was another gator on the other side. After we all realized that they were not remotely interested in us, we continued on our walk.
We saw numerous gators and a variety of birds on our walk. We went down a side trail that took us through a thick overgrowth of trees. That was pretty freaky and again had us remembering Dorothy in the forest before she met the lion only we saw a gator and were ready to get back to the paved path.
I still can't believe we are here in the Everglades experiencing these things first hand. I am excited to see what tomorrow has in store for us. Stay tuned!
Visit our facebook page or website http://meilemiles.shutterfly.com/ to see pictures of our day.
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