QC11-09 The Everglades and back.

February 14, 2011 (Mon) Monument Lake to Flamingo (139/2336 miles) 50/81° - Off at 9:00am (63° clear) and turned East on the Tamiami Trail (US 41) toward Miami. We needed propane and thought we should get gas before going into the wilds of Florida. The service station near the Miccosukee Indian casino seemed like a good place to stop. The propane supply is easy to get to and the gas would be relatively inexpensive. We got in line at the pump behind a car whose driver had apparently decided it was a good place to park while he when off to do something else. We were stuck - can't back up with a car in tow - until the lane beside us cleared. We decided to go on and get propane which meant going back up on the highway in order to get around back where the propane supply point was. There was plenty of room back there to move around but it meant mixing it up with 18 wheelers maneuvering to get their diesel, to get washed, to pick up stored trailers and maybe some just driving around for fun. The fellow helping with the propane had trouble with the pump so that took a while. A half tank full is better that running on empty.

We went back and got our gas then made our way to the laundromat in the Kendall area of Miami where we usually go. Then after a grocery stop we headed for Homestead. We unhooked Lamont in the Walmart parking lot. Homestead is a tight little town with few places for a motor homes to park much less one with a car in tow. A nice policeman (WM security) came over and told us that we were no longer allowed to park there overnight. That was OK with us. We weren't planning to any way. After picking up our mail we tried a new (to us) Mexican restaurant (La Quebradita), found it satisfactory and filling. Then we picked up Q at Walmart and headed for Robert is Here (a farm market) for a long anticipated key lime milkshake. A tour bus had just gotten there and the whole load of tourists was lined up at the milkshake counter. We decided to pass up dessert this time.

The gate keeper at Flamingo asked how long we wanted to stay. We said a week but that would depend on the mosquitoes. He said the mosquitoes are very bad and suggested that we might want to try one night and see if we wanted to stay longer. We decided to go with a two night trial. The mosquitoes saw us coming and descended on us as we unhooked and backed into our chosen site at about 5:30 then followed us inside in a cloud. We spent the evening exterminating them one by one.

February 15, 2011 (Tue) Flamingo CG, Everglade NP (2) 53/72° - The Flamingo area of the Everglades National Park is due for some major changes in the next several years. Some good and, in our opinion, some bad. The whole area will be getting a face lift. The campgrounds will be modernized - they have recently put hot showers in two loops, there are now electrical hookups in many of the sites in the "RV" loop -  there will be a modern hotel/motel, cabins, permanent "eco" tents to rent, and an improved "walk-in" tent area, a shuttle service and what looks to be bicycle/walking trails will meander throughout. These are improvements that they hope will attract more visitors (read income) to the park.

What we find objectionable in the "master plan" is that the vehicle accessible campsites not restricted to big RV rigs (those bigger than we are even with a car in tow apparently) are being reduced to less than a third of what are available now - from 116 sites to 45. Loops B and C will be turned back to nature. This might make sense if loop A could accommodate those using these sites now but it can't. Whenever we have been here loop A as either completely full or very close to it while loop B is often very well occupied. Last year they even opened up normally closed loop C on the weekend to take the extra influx. What is going to happen when loops B and C are no more? And what happens to those who drive the 40 plus miles down here and find the campground full as it very likely often will be?

The prevalence of wildlife has been a bit disappointing this time. Other than some Crow like black birds and a few Vultures there haven't been many other birds in the campground. But on our bike ride over to the marina we did see a couple of Osprey watching for unsuspecting prey and a hawk circling above. And on the way back along the bay there was the expected mix of herons and other water birds. At one point a large flock of White Pelicans flew over, beautiful, and a Red Shouldered Hawk posed for pictures near the current walk-in tenting area. And, of course, the two resident crocodiles lounged by the canal - in the same position as last year. Maybe they're stuffed!

We spent the another evening chasing mosquitoes, gnats and no-see-ums.

Q073473 Flamingo CG, Everglades National Park. #B6 dry $8.00 B (x2)
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February 16, 2011 (Wed) Flamingo to Monument Lake (113/2449 miles) 55/79° - One of the advantages of living like we do down here is that if we don't like our neighbors, we can move. There have been times when we've moved from one site to another, but when the annoying neighbors are mosquitoes, gnats and no-see-ums, it's time to move out of town. Actually they weren't too bad during the day as long as we stayed away from thick foliage and kept moving but at night they were nearly impossible to eradicate. So back to Monument Lake.

We watched the elevation read-out on Hildene as we drove the 38 miles out of the park. We got all the way up to an ear popping 13 feet before we started back down again. At Robert is Here at a few minutes before 10:00, we were only their second customer to order milkshakes - no tour bus this time. We stopped at the new Shell gas station on the road out of Homestead and found that they still don't know how to build stations for big rigs. We're comparatively small for a motor home with a car in tow but we almost needed to unhook to get away from  the gas pump island. Lamont came within 1/2 inch of hitting the trash container! He doesn't follow Q exactly but tends to cut corners in turns. The turns into, then out of the pump islands were almost too tight for even us!

The Everglades is really a very wide "river of grass" that was effectively dammed up when the Tamiami Trail was built across Florida in the early 1900s. Stopping the natural flow of water from Lake Okeechobee has done considerable damage to the Everglades ecosystem over the years. Efforts are being made to reverse this trend. So a section of US 41 a few miles Wast of Miami is being raised up onto pylons to allow the water to flow through the area more naturally. It was interesting to see how far them had come in the two days we'd been in Flamingo.

When we pulled into Monument Lake CG at about 12:30, the sites were about 2/3 occupied. That's about normal for a weekday. Surprisingly the site we had been in was empty so we reclaimed it. What was surprising was how fast the campground filled up after we got here. By 3:00 all the sites had residents and road weary travelers were being turned away. We were very lucky!

Q073586 Monument Lake CG, Big Cypress NP #2 dry $8 B