Chop Chop Billy Goat

We only spent five days at Everglades National Park, but those days were extremely awesome. On our first day, we just got settled in and explored the visitor center. The next day we did two short hikes called the Anhinga Trail and the Gumbo Limbo trail. In case you are wondering what the heck Gumbo Limbo is, it is a type of tree. The Gumbo Limbo tree is also called the tourist tree because the red peeling bark looks like a sunburn! The trail went through a thick forest that looked like it belonged in the tropics. We also did the Anhinga Trail, which was cool in a very different way than the Gumbo Limbo trail. Most of the way, it followed a canal with lots of gators and water birds. That night, Ma and I did the trail in the dark on a ranger led hike. The night hike was a lot of fun. Many times, when we shone our lights into the canal, we saw the orange reflection of gators’ eyes. At the end, their were so many gators. I was sure I heard one eating something!

The next day, we figured out a loop on the road and some trails. The first part was on the road and it was very lovely. When we got to the trail part, there were some mosquitoes, but not that bad. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes just kept getting worse. At the end, we were wondering why the heck the mosquito level (yes, at the entrance they have a sign showing the mosquito level) was recorded as moderate, not high. Fortunately, we got out of mosquito hell once we were back on the road. From there, it was only a short walk back to the campground.

Since we knew we had to do errands, we chose a rainy day to go to Miami. The whole day was spent shopping. The only fun thing was that I got an iPad mini. I had been saving for a very long time for it. It was so exciting to finally get it! Later we spent a few hours at the Apple Store to get it set up. Ma and Pa also got me a Smart Cover.

One day we went to a place in the park called Flamingo, which was on Florida Bay. When we first got there, we saw a huge osprey nest. After I got my junior ranger badge, we decided to go look for crocodiles. As we were walking, an osprey with a fish landed in a tree above us. A minute later, all the ospreys began calling and the osprey took off. Suddenly we realized why. Right behind it was a huge hawk trying to steal the fish! All the other ospreys were trying to chase off the hawk, swooping and squawking. The chase continued for about five minutes until the other ospreys drove off the hawk. The osprey returned to the tree to eat the fish.

For our last day, we did a short hike across the sawgrass prairie. We had a lot of fun. The next day, we drove to the Florida Keys.