Scott and I discussed our travel plan to go to the Everglades with a kind individual we had just met. He had an interesting response. He said there is nothing there. If you count human-made structures, it is true; there are few marinas, minimal restaurants, no shopping malls or big box stores: no theater, art galleries, and waterside cafes.
We saw a lot there. It depends on how you look.
Everglades National Park is the third largest park in the lower 48 states, covering 2,400 square miles. Most critically, the Everglades provide a habitat for marine wildlife. The shores are lined with Mangroves, with their bright green leaves and gray exposed roots, where various wildlife thrive. The sky is open and expansive, bright blue with its partnering white pillow clouds; as the hour changes, so too does the show the sky provides. The openness makes space to enjoy and savor the natural beauty.
You will be rewarded for waiting quietly. A speckled stingray silently gliding past our bow, dolphins playing and hunting for fish, birds hovering just above the water, fish nibbling on the surface insects, the alligators sunning on shore, and the gentle manatees lumbering past. At dusk, the sky rewards you while the insects descend from the trees. As the fading sun shines her fiery orange glory, the water reflects it to her.
As night descends, the crystal-clear night sky appears. Stars seem close enough to reach out and touch them. The moon shines brighter as the sounds of the nearby animals serenade you. Pitch blackness descends. Eerily calm, coal-black dark, silent, and still.
In the morning, the bright sun greets you as it peaks over the Mangroves, and a new day begins.
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