Website: https://www.nps.gov/ever/index.htm
Accessibility Features: https://www.nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/accessibility.htm
Park Map: https://www.nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/maps.htm
Flamingo Visitor Center 239-695-2945
The Everglades is a massive national park in the vein of Yellowstone, with several visitor stations spread many miles apart. For instance, from our entrance at Ernest S. Coe Visitor Center some 30 miles southwest of Miami, it took an hour's drive southwest to reach Flamingo Campground inside of the park. Most of the terrain on the way looked like tallgrass prairie, not the marshes we expected after driving this way over the coastland bayous on I-10. During our stay we learned that the Everglades was the first park established not for its physical beauty but to preserve the area's plant and animal life. Its success in that regard is argued forever but I'd wager it's good it's here.
Flamingo Campground
We spent two nights in the Everglades Flamingo Campground. Pull-through, level pad, 30 amp, with water and dump station. Ours was an ADA site and easy to get around. It came with a really cool picnic table with one side extended out so that I could drive underneath. Huge site, and surprisingly not a lot of campers considering that the rest of Florida was jampacked. The campground is ringed by trees and we saw a beautiful sunset here, but of itself not much to look at. Only a few hundred yards behind us was Florida Bay, which is basically the entire submerged tip of Florida, and a few hundred yards away from that, the Flamingo Visitor Center. It's always a delight, the air is just different, staying inside a national park. I get the night-before-Disney-World flutters in my stomach!
Flamingo Visitor Center
The next morning at Flamingo VC, five minutes away, right off the bat we made the first big mark on our checklist: a hulking crocodile lay 40 feet away across the water from the visitor center. He was so large we could not even see the whole of him in the tall grass, and of course a couple of kayakers poked their noses in until someone at the center called a warning. Then right overhead in a light fixture a family of ospreys kept their nest, with the little ones just visible. Nearby on the other side of a footbridge, a large croc floated eerilt still below. Now you're reading that right: these were crocodiles, not alligators, because at Flamingo the water is saltwater. Further north and east you'll find freshwater and the alligators that the Everglades is known for. But according to a ranger, this area of the Everglades is one of the few places you can see this type of crocodile in the lower 48.
Also at the same visitor center swim the manatees. All day people tried to glimpse these shy mammals, but at 3:30 PM they really turned out and we got to see them up close. A ranger said it happens daily. The manatees surface right up to the marina looking for food, algae. Mab was the first to see one. We wondered aloud if we might, and she looked down and she and the manatee were staring eye-to-eye! Then of course the rest of us ran over and scared it away. But now there was no shortage of sightings, near and far. The rangers said they're as friendly and shy as they look. They're definitely chill. Mab just brought me a vodka and tonic as I write this up, and the olives floating around in the bubbles remind me of how the manatees would pop up and just kind of drift down again out of sight.
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| Flamingo VC |
A big disappointment was the charter boat run by a concessionaire that was not wheelchair accessible. We never got an explanation why, but another concessionaire at Gulf Islands Visitor Center the next day was mighty surprised to hear - because they do offer accessible boat tours at Gulf Islands. At Gulf Islands there are concerns about the tide and the weather affecting the boarding of the vessel. Think you crossing a ramp between the peer and the boat, which is what this is, and the angle has to be doable. But at Gulf Islands, most of the time they get it done. We and the Gulf Islands concessionaire let park officials know our feelings.
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| Accessible trail along Florida Bay |
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| Florida Bay |
Also at Flamingo we heard a talk by a ranger about gators and manatees. We could pick his brain about finding manatees and flamingos (Mrazek, below). We also enjoyed a traveling exhibit table with skull and wood specimens, as well as the knowledge and people skills of the parks worker (I don't think she was a ranger) who not only spooled out her expertise but also handled a couple of rude characters and still left smiles on everyone's faces. She just impressed me and was fun to talk to, which is a common experience with NPS staff.
Mrazek Pond
To reach Mrazek Pond was a half-hour drive. Mrazek is a unique site, the pond lined with birds, scores of them, probably hundreds, including ibises, pelicans, anhingas, egrets, turkey vultures and roseate spoonbills (flamingos). The sights and sounds filled us, and the dozen or so birders who were there in full kit (outdoor wear and chairs, photographic equipment, telescopes, video, computers, etc.), with a thrill that we did not want to end. But the afternoon was getting late.
We learned late in the day about the Anhinga Trail. It was must-see. The daylight was ticking away.
Anhinga Trail
Turns out that the trail is part of Royal Palm Visitor Center, which is all the way back a couple of miles from the park entrance at Ernest S. Coe VC. It was spontaneous: we were making this up as we went along. The drive did not seem that long, but yes, by the time we arrived it was the last minutes before dark. In that light, Royal Palm and its parking lot with spacious ADA slots looked like new, but we headed straight back to the trail, which also was in outstanding shape.
Anhinga really is must-see, especially from a wheelchair. It was a joy taking this thing, a boardwalk built just above a grassy swamp, smooth and straight and flush, with high railings for folks to lean on safely as you look all around you. When we were there the rapidly fading daylight severely compromised what we could see, so we were taking this thing pretty darned fast yet I felt nothing but secure. With the sounds and smells and sensations, it felt like we were in nature here. There were things splashing out there, animals calling, insects waking up to do the night shift. On the next night was a scheduled nighttime flashlight trail program with a ranger to show you exactly what's out there. Wish we could have done it. But we couldn't and we didn't care, we loved it anyway. Anyway, the boardwalk looked and felt new and sturdy and seemed to be built with almost a CCC-type quality, if you know what I mean. Definitely do this during the daytime though.
By the way, Off! repellent totally works. We'd heard there were mosquitos here, and that's no lie. Duh, swamp, right? Anhinga Trail was maybe the second time in my life I'd ever asked for Off! It's hard for me to wash it off, and the critters usually don't fool with me too much: if they do, they get MS. Bah! But on the Anhinga Trail at night, no, mosquitos are another kind of crazy. At least three were eating my face when Mab sprayed me. Saved! It was strange feeling them everywhere around me even if they weren't sinking their fangs. At one point Mab flicked on the mini-flashlight so we could read a sign, and we both gasped. Swirling around my head like a halo was a constellation of frenzied skeeters, trying to break through the force-field. Wow, the things we do in the dark.
And get this: as we were leaving, a minivan was unloading. It was two elderly couples, with both guys in push wheelchairs. They told us it was their second time to Anhinga, it was so good. But they didn't bring bug spray! What?
Anyway, we let them use ours, and then we drove to the camper in the dark. We were going to sleep hard. It was a great day.
Next, Shark Valley and the Ten Thousand Islands.
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