BACK TO EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK.

Today we went back to the park, the Northern end. As I mentioned there are few roads in the park, so you have to travel some to get to the visitor centers. Here at the northern end is where the slough is widest, about 40 miles or so. Remember that is a body of slow-moving water in a channel. It is restricted quite a bit here by the canals and roadway going east to west. We went to Shark valley visitor center.

Here there is a small roadway out 7 miles into the Everglades itself. It was built by an oil company for exploring for oil back in the 1950’s. You cannot drive this road, you walk, ride a bike which you can rent here, or take the tram ride. We arrived to late for the tram ride, which was a bummer. At the end of the road there is a large observation tower, it would have been neat to see the view from there. Anyway we took a 3 mile hike down the road, 1-1/2 miles each way. Along the way there is a 20 foot wide channel or so , Which was dug out to form the road. As it was sunny we were told there will be alligators sunning themselves. Yep there was, we saw about 17 gators all toll and a few nice birds, no snakes which a few people said they saw. All of the gators were no more than 10- 15 feet away right there. There also were a good number of people on bikes. After we did that we drove back to Key Largo and had a nice early supper at Evelyn’s restaurant

We each had a Mahi, Mahi (Dolphinfish, no relation to a dolphin) sandwich with fries. Mine was grilled and Melissa had her’s Blackened. It was mild and good. After that we picked up Cooper from Day care and came back home. It was a nice day all together, below are pics of the gators and other wildlife we saw. We also learned this fact the other day, you only find alligators, which have a rounded snout in fresh water, like the Everglades ,and crocodiles with a pointy snout are in salt water closer to the ocean.

The road we traveled.