Everglades Part 2

Took a tram tour, one of Nicole's favorite things to do. The guide was really knowledgeable and clearly loved the Everglades, lots of fun facts, beautiful scenery, and lots of gators.

After the tram we made our way across Big Cypress Nature Preserve to a kayak trip, stopped at a couple places along the way.

Paddling on the rivers, in and around the mangroves, passing gators literally a couple feet away, it was really stunning and serene.

The big highlight was going through the mangrove tunnel. It was so quiet and intimate, just magical.

Our last day we rented a canoe and tried to make it into the wetlands from the south. The wind was really strong so we made it up the canal and into Coot Bay but not any further. Still a great paddle.

The first part of the trip was nice, relaxing if a bit uneventful, but the Everglades, wow. Totally singular, completely engrossing, truly astonishing.

Everglades Part 1

Spending the next couple days in the Everglades, the real meat of the trip. It's a wild, sprawling, eclectic place where the ecosystems change drastically depending on an elevation of inches. There's pine forests, cypress groves, grasslands, swamp, lakes, rivers, and chock full of wildlife. Truly spectacular. There are some hiking trails but not a ton as even in the dry season its a wet place. But there are a couple which we did and a fair amount of short boardwalks. The sounds here are incredible, lapping dripping water, wind in the mangroves and grass, tons of bird calls, the squelching sucking mud. Beautiful.

Everglades Poems

Everglades 1

the heron soars
the ibis perches

the gator croaks

and all around is

grass, water, wind

and the relentless sun

Everglades 2

there is a rightness to the swamp

like cake on your birthday

or calling your mother on Mother's Day

a harmony

and yet that balance is precarious

fragile

you can smell it in the muck

sense it in the bald cypress

see it in the gator's recalcitrance

fleeting

fleeing Man's avarice

Everglades 3

Rich

like the smell of sex or compost

like the feel of mulch or dried beans

like the taste of a perfect cheeseburger

like the sound of harmonies

what is it?

It's life.

Everywhere.

Everglades 4

Improperly maligned

the gator lies sunning

motionless, totemic

a primordial god made flesh

it sighs, releasing heat

insouciant to the spectators

serene in its purpose

and in its place

it is home

it belongs.