Day 101 - Close Encounters Of The Snake Kind
Trip Start
May 19, 2008
1
103
161
Trip End
Nov 08, 2008
Where I stayed
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Key Largo, Florida
Key Largo,
Florida,
United States
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
From Koreshan it was more of the long sprawl of shops and merging towns that we had seen yesterday. We experienced one of things that you see on TV but don't really expect to see in real life when we drove past a "chain gang". They weren't actually wearing chains, probably electronic tags instead, but they were "armed" with some mean looking strimmers which they were using to tidy up the grass verges by the side of the road
Caution! Prisoners At Work!
. As it was so unexpected we didn't manage to get a photo of the sign which said "State Prisoners Working Ahead"! Once we got just south of Naples, we left behind the urban sprawl and entered the swamps of The Everglades. Highway 41 took us through the Big Cypress National Preserve where we saw our first alligator of the trip close up. Unfortunately he was dead by the side of the road. We stopped at the visitor centre to enquire about camping. Due to the higher than usual water level as a result of Fay, there was only one site open in Big Cypress and the sites in the Everglades National Park didn't have electricity, which is a must for us now that we have our electric fan! We also learned that air boats weren't allowed to operate within the boundary of the Everglades N.P. so if we wanted to take a ride on one we needed to back-track to somewhere like Everglades City about 30 miles away. So around we turned.
On the way back we managed to get a photo of the dead gator and a lung-full of him too! Not pleasant! Neil thought he may have seen another dead one earlier but we couldn't see him. As we approached Everglades City, the heavens opened and we had a real downpour. . We could also see where the water line had been across the road a few days previously as a result of the storm
Everglade Swamps
. Although the rain had stopped by the time we reached the "city", it remained overcast, and Everglades City was deserted and puddle-ridden. It had the feel of a place struggling to survive, maybe it was just the weather. But most of the businesses offering air-boat rides seemed to be closed down with just one company having a monopoly over the available customers and there wasn't even a lot of activity there either. We pulled in to check it out and discovered that they were asking $37.50 each which seemed a bit pricey to us. Mel's done it before and so could take it or leave it, and although Neil would have liked to have done it, he didn't think it would be worth the money, so back through Big Cypress we went. This time we saw both dead gators and also a live one in a river by a rest area. Once through Big Cypress the 41 runs along the northern boundary of Everglades N.P. until just a few miles outside of Miami. Here we turned off the 41 and went south on the 997 so as not to get caught up in the Miami mess. While we were stopped for fuel, Mel heard on the radio that south Floridians were being told to pay close attention to the development and course of Hurricane Gustav which could make landfall in the Keys by next Monday. Maybe we won't be getting 3 or 4 days chilling out on a beach down there as we had hoped.
About an hour and a half later we arrived at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park on Key Largo where we were told that they only had availability for one night because of the upcoming Labour Day holiday weekend
Road Through Big Cypress National Preserve
. We hadn't realised what the date was! It's hard enough knowing what day it is sometimes. So as soon as we had got set up on our pitch, we phoned the Florida State Parks reservations line. We're now booked into Bahia Honda S.P. on Big Pine Key for tomorrow night and then Long Key S.P. on Long Key for three nights after that (hurricane permitting!). A bit of a beach holiday for us to chill out before tackling the more populated eastern states on the final phase of our journey. Miles travelled: 214
Total miles travelled: 10152
Days on road: 81
States visited: 18
National Parks visited: 11
