I have been dreaming about the Everglades National Park for a while. I don’t know why – it’s just been this foreign looking park with wildlife I had never seen outside of a zoo. I imagined beautiful clear water teeming with animal life and winding canals thru the mangroves. And in reality, it probably does have aspects of that. But that’s not what we saw.
I should start by saying that I try not to think too much about the next destination before arriving and attempt to do my best to live in the moment (I’m still working on that). Whether a good thing or not, I don’t do much or any research on a place other than where we are going to stay. In Florida, all I focused on was where we were staying. Before leaving on this trip, I had taken a look at booking campsites but was discouraged by how few availabilities there were and because we did not know our timeline, I shrugged it off and made no reservations. Once we made it across the country and decided on our timeline for our drive south, I started working on campsite bookings.
There was no clear route we were taking but we knew we wanted to make it to Everglades National Park and the Florida Keys. We’ve been in Florida now for almost three weeks and have been bouncing around from campground to campground – in a not at all linear progression. We have finally made it to the Keys and it is a dream come true down here.
But let me rewind a little bit.
A week ago, we arrived at Everglades National Park. It was a hot, humid and muggy day. We arrived mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the evening getting our bearings and studying the park’s map and information. With no cell service, we did our best to figure out what we wanted to see once we got to our final destination in the park, Flamingo (although we saw no flamingos) at the tip of the park. We woke up early the next morning, visited the Information Center and went to purchase a fishing license (Florida has a super weird fishing license situation, by the way).
We arrived at our campsite for the evening, Flamingo Campground, as it started to rain again. We decided to enjoy the rain with our books and prepared for adventures the following day. Along the road through the park, there are lots of canoe launches and “Interpretive Walks” (usually a boardwalk out to a viewpoint with informational signs along the way. They’re very common at National Parks). As we began exploring the following morning, we realized that the majority of the way people see the park was only through the “Interpretive Walks” and the occasional Alligator sighting on the side of the road. The campground ended up being pretty much an RV park, with little wildlife to be seen other than the Turkey Vultures surrounding each dumpster. There was one “nature walk” from the campground to the marina and visitor center, which was a paved sidewalk thru the mangroves. We had hoped to arrive and not have to drive to see anything, but that plan was thwarted upon arrival.
So we did the “nature walk” and the “Interpretive Walks” until we decided to check out the marina. They offered tours of the bay and the backcountry, which we decided to do, hoping we would be able to cover more ground that we could on a canoe. And while we did cover more ground, the tour ended up feeling like being stuck with a bunch of tourists on a tour bus and racing through the canals and around the bay in search of wildlife – with very little luck. I mean we did see things on the tour but we saw more wildlife in the marina than from the boat. The marina was home to multiple crocodiles and manatees in water that was so murky you could only see the animals when they came up to breath.
On the bright side, John did have some excellent fishing and the stars at night were out of this world beautiful. But what I had come for, I did not find. I blame my lack of research and that’s alright because I ended up learning my lesson. If you ever do come to Everglades National Park, I highly recommend looking into backcountry camping – that is what I was expecting.
At the end of our time in the park, I started to worry that my expectations were too high for our next destination – the Florida Keys. I had heard so many amazing things about this place and John and I had been talking about coming here since our first road trip over three years ago. This road trip was planned around wanting to finally reach this destination. But the thought came into my head: what if it is nothing like what I am expecting? What if my expectations are too high? I prepared myself for the worst: hurricanes had ruined everything, the water would be murky and brown, and it would rain the entire time we were there.
But luckily, my worries were washed away in clear, warm blue water. At the first site of the ocean, it feels like you are in the Caribbean – driving on bridges over pristine waters and under vibrant blue skies. The breeze is familiar, warm and humid, though not the overpowering humidity of inland Florida. As you pass from island to island, over bridges, it feels like you have arrived in a new place. Every other store along the road is either a tackle shop or a dive shop and the excitement builds as you get further south.
We have been in the Keys for two nights now and it has been magical. We have finally set up our camping chairs and our hammock (although it may rain in a bit, so who knows how long they’ll last). We have been in swimsuits for 48 hours now and it feels so good. We went snorkeling three times already and we hoping to get a dive in later before we have to head back north. We still have over a week here and we cannot wait for the adventures ahead.
In conclusion, this week we learned something: sometimes things are not what you thought they were going to be and sometimes they are. And when your expectations are not met in reality, it makes the times that reality exceeds expectations that much better.
Until next time,
Emma
Emma and John by Van 