Dave'n'Kathy's Vagabond Blog: Gumbo Limbo Everglades

Hi Blog! Today is Wednesday, February 11, 2015. It is our first full day near the Everglades National Park in southern Florida. This time we are located on the east end of the park, near Miami. Two years ago, we spent a couple weeks near the west entrance by Everglades City. We are excited to be back near the Everglades and are looking forward to exploring this side of the park.

Today we visited the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center located on the east side of the park. We have plans to go camping in the park next week and thought it would be a good idea to stop at the Visitor's Center ahead of time and pick up maps and trail guides. We also watched a fantastic video on what makes the Everglades the Everglades.

Everglades National Park was established in 1934 to protect the quickly vanishing Everglades, and dedicated in 1947 as massive canal building projects were initiated across South Florida. The ecosystems in Everglades National Park have suffered significantly from human activity, and restoration of the Everglades is a politically charged issue in South Florida.

After finishing up at the Visitor's Center, we drove over to Long Pine Key to have our picnic lunch. This small pond separates the camping area from the picnic area.

Once we finished lunch, we took a short hike on Long Pine Key. The South Florida pinelands are islands of higher ground. These islands are surrounded by thousands of acres of open wet prairies. Thus, these islands, or keys, support pine forests that are not sustainable in the lower, wet areas of the Everglades. Fortunate for us, this is the dry season and we were able to hike across the prairie onto Long Pine Key. Here is a sample of the saw grass and thistle we hiked through.

It was easy to understand why they called this island Long Pine Key, because it is a long island of pine trees stretching roughly east-to-west across the large river flowing through grasslands that is the Everglades. We had to really crane our necks to see all the way up these long straight pine trees. These trees are relatively young. Most of the original pine trees were logged off prior to the creation of the park in 1947. However, the roads built by logging have created a 43 mile network of paved and primitive trails through the pinelands. We are looking forward to getting out on some of these trails.

From Long Pine Key, we drove over to the Royal Palm Visitor Center, which is located on a large hardwood hammock. The towering live oaks and royal palms that grace hardwood hammocks in the middle of the endless prairie embrace a number of ferns, orchids and scores of other plants. Most interesting for scientists were how rare and tropical plants existed in the small patch in the Everglades. The slough that surrounded the hammock also provided protection against fires, leaving much of the vegetation well preserved. The establishment of Royal Palm State Park in 1916 began the greater conservation efforts that would lead to the designation of the Everglades as a National Park. Here is Kathy at the trailhead for the Gumbo-Limbo Trail.

Here is an up close look at the famous Gumbo-Limbo Tree. The gumbo-limbo is comically referred to as the "Tourist Tree" because the tree's bark is red and peeling, like the skin of sunburnt tourists, who are a common sight in the plant's range. This photo highlights the reddish tinge of the peeling bark by showing its transluscence and the sun shining through it:

In addition, gumbo-limbo is also considered one of the most wind-tolerant trees, and it is recommended as a rugged, hurricane-resistant species in south Florida. Because it is resistant to rot and decay, gumbo-limbo is the traditional wood used for the manufacture of carousel horses in the United States. Here's another look at the peeling red bark, this time from the sunny side.

Next we took a stroll on the Anhinga Trail. The trail is a paved walkway and a boardwalk over Taylor Slough, a freshwater sawgrass marsh. We saw lots wildlife, including alligators, turtles, anhingas, herons, and egrets. This is one of the most popular trails in the Park. On November 5, 1996, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The Anhingas love to use the railings along the boardwalk as their personal drying stand.

This big guy was just sunning himself right next the boardwalk.

Here is a view of the Taylor Slough looking back toward a viewing platform.

The blue herons in this part of the park are so used to seeing tourists stroll by, it appears as if they are posing for photos. Normally, herons are extremely shy and skittish and will fly off if a human even approaches as close as 100 yards.

The highlight of the trail was the big pool of alligators next to the last viewing platform. After several attempts at trying to count them all, we decided we would just take our last count, and report that there were over 20 gators in the pool.