Long Pine Campground, Everglades, Florida

After we left the Keys we came up to the Everglades and checked into a very nice campsite in the National Park. We have been here two nights and may or may not spend another night here. The weather has been a bit on the warm side, the season here is pretty much over with and there are only 4 or 5 other campers in the campground.

We have a couple of camp mates, these two cardinals are tame enough to land within a few feet of us until Bentley chases them off.

Hmmm, Smugmug seems to be having problems so I can’t get the photos posted right now. My Internet connections is pretty weak out here so that may be the problem.

UPDATE

I think it was operator error on the problem with SmugMug but the connection was too slow out at the campground to be able to mess around with it.

The Everglades are so different from my mental picture formed by watching TV. I had never heard the area called the “River of Grass” before, which it commonly is hereabouts. I had pictured it as very tropical jungle-like but it is mostly pine forests and large grass plains of wetlands.

The park was dedicated by Harry Truman in 1947 but that did not slow down the attempts to drain the “mosquito infested swamp” as it was considered to be by most back then. It is an endangered ecosystem due to draining so much of the water. A 30 year plan is now in place to bring much of the park area back to it’s original condition. Crocodiles are returning after almost disappearing from the park but we have not seen any, only alligators.

We have identified about 10 bird species just sitting in our campsite and there are many more listed that we may see when we go for a hike later today.

There is a small lake or pond bordering the campground and I got this shot of the sunset our first night here.

Full size photos are at the gallery, as usual.

Tomorrow we are planning to go to Orlando and get Bent his kennel cough shot and then do Wild Kingdom at Disneyworld.