Some were napping on their
own~
And this is just a close-up
of their very sharp claws – ouch!
We then want to the 1-mile
boardwalk hike at the Kirby
Storter Roadside
Park – it’s a nice walk
that takes one from the grasslands to the slightly lower elevation of the
cypress. Here is where we saw a couple baby alligators.
It’s interesting that the
cypress needles grow straight up~
A cool thing we learned
while we were here, which we saw on this stroll, is that many species of
orchids and bromeliads grow on the branches of the cypress, such as this one~
It was at this point that we
got a call from Andrew – he’s a ranger we knew when we worked at Mt. Rushmore National Monument last summer that works
here at Big Cypress during the winter. (Well, actually yesterday was his last
day.) We left him a message when we stopped at the Visitor
Center and he called us back. We decided the three of us
would meet for lunch in Everglades
City, just a few minutes
down the road. This is one of the coolest things, we think, about RV’ing –
seeing people down the road at another time.
Andrew suggested Camellia’s – a restaurant where the locals go. We enjoyed our lunches (Brad especially liked his pulled smoked chicken sandwich) and we chatted for a while and caught up on our lives since last fall.
On the way there we passed
the so-called smallest US
post office. However……we also saw the smallest US
post office in the Crystal
River area while we were,
so it seems as if one of these is a fake. :-) In our opinion, the Crystal River
post office was much smaller – it was a telephone booth!
After lunch, we tooled
around Everglades City and went to the Gulf
Coast Visitor
Center (part of Everglades National Park).
Ironically, this is where we had a job opportunity this past winter (the one we
passed on so we could go to Su-n-Fun). Although quaint, after seeing the
building and housing, we are even more sure we made the right decision. Don’t
get us wrong, one or two months there would be fabulous, but not five!
On the way back to the
campground, we stopped at the Big
Cypress Swamp
Welcome Center
and enjoyed their 22-minute movie on the area. We also passed by this sign a
couple times – not sure how a campground can be day-use only!
So all-in-all, a good
day-and-a-half of touring Big Cypress!
Easy and affordable - no matter where you are!
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