9-January-2024 TWO National Parks in one day!

I was fortunate today to be able to visit 2 different National Parks: Biscayne and Everglades.

First I went to Biscayne National Park which is on the East Coast of Florida just south of Miami. The lure of Biscayne is the underwater environment: lots of snorkeling, scuba, glass bottom boats, kayaking and paddle boarding. Unfortunately, today there were extremely high winds so going on or in the water was not possible. The rest of the park is just a small visitor center area with a nice boardwalk out to a small peninsula. It was only 1 mile round-trip and was like a walk along the beach. Nothing too spectacular.

BISCAYNE:

From there I headed northwest back to Everglades National Park. I had tried to go there on my way down to Key West but it was over-capacity with all the Christmas week tourists. I returned today because I had heard there is a 12 mile loop that you can bike which sounded intriguing.

Unfortunately, when I pulled my bike out of my car and went to attach the front tire the washer that holds the axle in place was missing. Tore the car apart but didn't find it. Had to do some MacGyver-ing and determined that a clamp would hold the axle in place long enough for me to get to the visitor center where they rent bikes and might be able to help with a repair. The good news is the tire didn't fall off although the ride was definitely perilous with a loud and wobbly tire (see last pic in gallery below). Bike repair technician looked through several buckets of nuts and bolts but couldn't find what I needed – the bikes they have there are very different from mine so that parts could not be scavenged. Because of the extremely high winds (40 MPH gusts!) the tech suggested that instead of biking that I take a tram tour around the same loop instead of biking. So I did!

The excitement started when I walked up the trail a bit while waiting for the team tour to begin .... and found gators just lounging in the sun on the side of the road. They are very lethargic and are used to people walking by and it was amazing how close you could be to them. For safety sake I always make sure there was one person closer than me to the gator. 😝

The tram tour took 2 hours with one stop at an observation tower midway through. The scenery didn't change much over those 2 hours – lots of Sawgrass and marshland but the park ranger provided lots of information and made for a very interesting tour. In addition to over 30 gators we also saw a crocodile – apparently the Everglades is one of only a very few places where alligators and crocodiles can both cohabitate. I took so many gator pictures .... 🙄

EVERGLADES: