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Day 22 Sat. 12/18/04 0 miles 2099 Total
Our day began with a slow run along the beach road in the campground. We had a beautiful view across the emerald green ocean. After breakfast he drove to Big Pine Key and the Key Deer NWR. Driving along the refuge road we saw three of these cute but endangered little deer, a relative of the white tail but the adults only grow to 26 to 32 inches high. We stopped for a hike around a small fresh water and were confronted with an interesting sign, “CAUTION-Alligators and poisonous snakes may be on the trail” As you might have guessed, we went on anyway. We saw a gator in the water but no snakes. We took a few short hikes in the refuge but didn’t see anything interesting. Sandy spotted an interesting place for lunch so we stopped at the No Name Pub near the bridge to No Name Key. What a funky place. The walls and ceiling are literally covered with money, mostly one dollar bills with dates and names; thousands of them! The waitress said the tradition began when the fisherman would pin some bills on the wall if they had a good catch. In the future, if the catch was poor, they could buy beer with their bills on the wall. Lunch was huge and delicious. We started with conch fritters. They were delicious and nostalgic, reminding us of the conch fritters at the Cooper Island Beach Club in the British Virgin Islands. Next stop was the Nature Museum in Marathon. Another interesting set of historical displays and a nature trail through the mangroves to the bay. On the way back to the campground we stopped at a Birkenstok store. Sandy couldn’t find anything that fit well but, amazingly, Carl bought a pair. He has never worn sandals and Sandy has urged him to try a pair. His feet will report later ;-). The birding highlight of the day occurred as we left the store. Across the street on a power line was an unusual looking dove. We got our binoculars and identified it as a Eurasian Collared Dove. Fairly common in the Keys in winter but a life bird for us!!
Day 23 Sun. 12/19/04 0 miles 2099 Total
Today was a long and fun filled day. We got an early start to see more Key Deer; we saw about five more and Sandy got some good photos. We then headed into Key West, stopping at the botanical gardens on the way. At 11 AM it was pretty quiet in Key West but with three cruise ships in town, the streets filled with boat people in the afternoon. After a quick lunch of conch fritters we followed part of the historic houses walk including a tour of the Geiger house where J. J. Audubon stayed when he was in the keys. We shopped the length of Duval Street and visited the Butterfly Conservancy. On the way pack we stopped for a margarita then wandered through Mallory Square to see the craft booths and street performers. The real draw of Mallory Square is, of course, the sunset but the sun was hidden behind a bank of clouds. Huge crowds (two cruise ships still in town) but no sunset. Well, yes, of course, the sun set but we couldn’t see it! We picked a restaurant for supper on the way out of town and got back to the campground a little more than 12 hours after we left. This retirement travel is exhausting!
Day 24 Mon. 12/20/04 0 miles 2099 Total
We ran this morning in a strong north wind. Even though the temperature was in the 60’s we both wore jackets. After breakfast we did laundry then headed back to Key West to finish shopping and sightseeing. We visited the Harry Truman Little White House and learned a lot about Harry and his unpretentious style. Then Sandy went shopping and Carl went to the Mel Fisher Treasure Museum. We got together on the dock to watch the sunset then watched a Houdini like street performer escape from a straight jacket and about 50 feet of chain and many padlocks while hanging upside down. As we drove back to the campground we spoke to Jamie. It was seven below zero in Burlington, VT.
Day 25 Tue. 12/21/04 141 miles 2240 Total
From the Florida Keys to Flamingo campground at the southern end of Everglades National Park is about 50 miles as the crow flies. However, since we are driving a motorhome, the trip is about 150 miles. When we turned off of US-1 in Florida City, we saw a building that said Robert is Here on the roof. It turned out to be a farm stand with lots of interesting fruits and vegetables, many we had never seen before. Sandy got a Key Lime milkshake for lunch. The campground is quite large and mostly empty. Their busiest week, between Christmas and New Years, starts the day we leave. After setting up in the campground we checked out the birds at Eco Pond then visited the marina where we got information about naturalist narrated cruises on Florida Bay. Our plan for the next three days is pretty well formed up and it will be wonderful. Down a short trail from the marina we saw two American Crocodiles. This is a wonderful park. We were last here with the boys in about 1982. There were a billion mosquitoes then. Today there were only 100 million!
Day 26 Wed. 12/22/04 0 miles 2240 Total
We were up an hour before sunrise to see the birds at nearby Eco Pond. The good news about winter camping is that the sun rises late, today sunrise was 7:05. Arriving 15 minutes before sunrise, we were not the first ones there. By the time the sun rose there were eight birders marveling at the sights and sounds on the pond. Herons croaking and squawking, coots and moorhens squabbling deep in the grass and Ibis and egrets swooping in to roost in the tree in the pond. In the tree behind us we found several types of warblers and goldfinch. It was marvelous. We stayed for a couple of hours then headed back to the coach for breakfast. There was enough of a breeze that we could eat out at the picnic table. After breakfast we headed to the Royal Palm Visitor Center for a ranger guided walk along the Anhinga Trail. We saw lots of alligators and excellent birds including yellow crowned night heron and purple gallinule. At one point a Red Shouldered Hawk perched on a tree right next to the trail. The ranger gave an interesting narrative interspersed with some really tall tales like a great blue heron puncturing someone’s skull with his bill and killing them and alligators chasing down dogs and eating them (I’m sure alligators eat lots of dogs, the mutts probably stand there and bark at them until it is too late). We think this one is true though. The alligators congregate under the trees where the anhinga nest. These birds typically hatch four eggs but only raise two chicks. The other two are forced out of the nest by the first to hatch older siblings. Alligators know this. Back to the coach for lunch then off on our adventure hike to Snake Bight. The ranger told us the boardwalk at the end of this 2 mile trail was a wonderful place to see birds, perhaps even flamingos. He warned us that the mosquitoes were very bad along this trail. But we were prepared with long pants, long sleeves, lots of repellent and, yes, even head nets. The mosquitoes were indeed awful but we were well protected and didn’t get too badly bitten. If we stopped along the trail, 15-20 mosquitoes would immediately land on the front of the head net. At one point Carl counted about 50 mosquitoes on Sandy’s back. Finally we came to the boardwalk and the breeze off the water blew away most of the bugs. Unfortunately, the wind had been blowing hard for several days and blown all of the water out of the shallow bay. The nearest birds were over a half mile away! Oh well, it was an adventure. We repositioned our headnets and trekked back through the mosquito gauntlet. On the hike back we began to speculate on the mosquito population of the Everglades. Carl took up the challenge and did the following estimate. If there is one mosquito per cubic foot in the five feet closest to the ground and roughly 5000 feet to a mile, there are 125,000,000 mosquitoes per square mile. The Everglades is roughly 30 miles square or roughly 1,000 square miles. The means there are 125 BILLION mosquitoes in the everglades, about 15 for every human on earth. On the way back to the coach we stopped for gas at the marina in the park. Wildlife here gets pretty adapted to people but here it is bizarre. There were two black vultures standing between the gas pumps. They didn’t even fly away when I got out to pump the gas. A pair of osprey are building a nest on top of the marina crane, 12 feet off the ground with people walking by all the time. An eight foot American Crocodile sleeping five feet from the edge of the walkway. Fascinating place. There’s a sand bar about a quarter mile offshore. It was covered with white pelicans, white ibis, snowy egret, hundreds of black skimmers and an assortment of gulls and terns. Some time in the next two days we will rent a canoe and paddle over there if it is not too windy. One more sunset trip to Eco Pond and we called it a day.
Day 27 Thu. 12/23/04 0 miles 2240 Total
Today the wind has died and it is humid. The mosquitoes are even worse. We checked nearby Eco Pond but the tide was out so all of the birds were off eating on the sand banks and mud flats. We then drove to Paurotis Pond where people had reported seeing a vermillion flycatcher and a scissortail flycatcher. I guess one out of two is not bad. We saw the vermillion but not the scissortail. On the way back to the coach for lunch we stopped at Eco Pond again and met a couple from England who had found a large berry bush full of birds. We spotted a house wren, brown thrasher, common yellowthroat, palm warbler and a gray catbird. A very busy bush indeed. After lunch we went on our cruise on Florida Bay. It was eerie; a hazy overcast and flat calm sea. You could not see where the sky ended and the ocean began. It was a disappointment in terms of wildlife sightings (we had hoped to see dolphins and white pelicans up close but we saw neither) but any time you get to spend 90 relaxing minutes slowly cruising on the ocean it is time well spent. Meanwhile, back at Eco Pond the bird population had peaked due to the high tide. The trees in the pond were covered with hundreds of white ibis, snowy egret, great egret, a few turkey and black vultures and one or two roseate spoonbills. What a neat place. We walked around the pond then spent another few minutes on the observation platform so Carl could try to get some pictures of the birds in flight as they headed back to the flats. This is one place digital photography is really great. You can take 30, 40, 50 pictures realizing that very few will be good but the rest just get deleted on the computer. We would never shoot four rolls of film to get three pictures. A quiet evening followed with picture downloading grilled salmon for dinner and a beautiful sunset right out our front window. Life is indeed good and we are very fortunate to be doing this.
Day 28 Fri. 12/24/04 0 miles 2240 Total
Another humid, buggy 80 degree day in paradise. We rented a canoe this morning and paddled out to the sand bar on Florida Bay that was covered with birds including hundreds of Black Skimmers and some magnificent American White Pelican. These beautiful birds have a nine foot wingspan; all white with black wingtips. We then paddled to a mangrove key full of herons and egrets. When we got close, too close for some of the birds, several flew away, then with a high pitched squeal, a bald eagle flew up from inside the tree branches. What a neat sight. We got some good pictures of skimmers and osprey in flight. We paddled for about two and a half hours. Great fun though we never saw any dolphin, sharks or crocodiles. We had lunch in the marina restaurant over looking the bay. We spent the afternoon at our favorite everglades spot, Eco Pond, just outside the campground. High tide was at 2:40 and the trees were again covered with white birds. Carl crawled under the observation platform (after checking for alligators) to get some “eye level” bird photos including a very cooperative Green Heron. He also fed another generation of mosquitoes while under there. The Everglades have been fun but tomorrow we head for the southwest coast of Florida and more wildlife refuges.
