Goodbye Key West, Hello Everglades National Park

 Wow, our 4 month stay in Key West was over, we had a great time, met and made a lot of good friends. However, it was time to leave and see different sights, We'll miss it here, but will be back again one day.

 The first stop on our trek northward was Everglades National Park and the Flamingo Campground. Even though I was brought up in Florida, I never was able to visit the Everglades themselves so I didn't want to miss this chance since we were so close. Now growing up in the Central Florida area (when it was still pretty rural and wild) there were and still are areas similar to the Everglades, but not as expansive, so this was a place I just had to see.

 We made reservations at the Flamingo Campground 40 miles inside the park for 6 days. We were able to get an electric only site (it's either elec only or dry camp) for our stay, so water conservation was still going to be needed. Luckily, with our vast dry camping experience in Key West, it was a piece of cake doing 6 days.

We camped in the "T Loop" the sites are very large, level and paved, each come with a picnic table and fire ring. The only down side was the shower house, while very clean, they are cold showers only, burrrrr. I tried one day and just couldn't do it, call me a wimp, but  the ice cold water was just too much!!! Now the other other loops A, B, and C have solar heated showers, but we just did good ole Navy showers and baby wipes to stay clean, which worked out very well. Now, there is a small store here in the Flamingo area but it is very expensive and not well stocked so make sure you stock up before heading down to spend any time at all here. We also found mosquito spray and lots of it is a life saver! With the mild winter down in south Florida this year, they were out in force earlier than normal and especially down here at the end of the world. All in all we enjoyed our stay here, Sheryl stayed inside most of the time, as she seems to be a mosquito magnet!!! I, on the other hand, don't seem to be bothered as much by the little critters, of course a good dosing of repellent helps. One of my main reasons for wanting to come to the park, was to photograph the wildlife and try and capture the expansiveness of the place, which I found difficult as you really have to experience it to understand.
That will do it for this post, I'll save some of our outing for the next one, just wanted to give you an idea of the RV Park and our trip here. So until next time...............................