Friday – January 11, 2013
We continue our stay here in the Everglades National Park in Homestead, Florida, enjoying sunny days with temperatures in the 80’s. We visited the Flamingo Campground late this afternoon. This campground is located 34 miles southwest of our campsite at the Long Pine Key Campground. The Flamingo campground is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Gulf of Mexico on the west.
The campsites at the Flamingo campground are located in open areas with little to no shade. There is tent camping only allowed on the grass area adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean shoreline. A short distance inland there are additional campsites for tents and RV’s. The restroom facilities have flush toilets and showers. There are no electric or water hookups here except for the Loop "T" campsites which have electric hookups. The rules and regulations on the Flamingo Campground map state the Loop "T" campsites are for use by RV’s that are 24 feet or longer in length. However, during our visit we saw several pop-up and other styles of travel trailers that were much shorter than the 24-foot minimum limit. Loop "T" campsites can be reserved on the Reserve America website.
We met a very nice couple from Las Cruses, New Mexico traveling in a 2008 Casita Travel Trailer, the Freedom Deluxe model. They were camped in Loop "T" and we stopped to say hello. They have traveled extensively and during the husband’s working career, as an electrical engineer with the Raytheon Company, they had lived in Australia for 15 years on company business. They shared with us some of their adventures in their Casita to Alaska and to Mount Hood in Washington.
Darkness had set in during our return trip to our campsite at Long Pine Key. The speed limit on this section of the two-lane paved road is 55 mph. Because it was so dark we were traveling less than 50 mph as a precaution in case we encountered any wildlife on the road. Sure enough! We were traveling along when all of a sudden a large Blue Heron was standing there in the middle of the road. It’s color blended in perfectly with the pavement of the road. We were within a few feet of hitting the bird before I spotted it. Fortunately, there was no other traffic on the road and I was able to swerve toward the side of the road to avoid hitting it. We were relieved to arrive safely back at our campground without injury to any wildlife.
Tomorrow another adventure begins.
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