Update

So it's been a little while since I've last updated here.  Let's see if I can remember what's happened.  We left the everglades and headed to Florida City for a night.  The resort had a heated pool, which the girls were thrilled to play in for the afternoon.  We caught up on laundry, restocked the fridge and planned our next steps. 

We decided to head West, across the northern boundary of Everglades National Park.  We spent a night at Collier-Seminal State Park.  The park was actually full, but we were allowed to boondock overnight.  Being without electricity reinforced the fact that we needed a generator if we were to spend more than a few hours on battery.  So the next day we headed toward Naples, purchased a generator and tried to spend the afternoon on Marcos Island.  We discovered that RV's are not allowed to park anywhere on Marcos Island, so we were ultimately denied the chance to spend the afternoon on the beach.  The girls were very disappointed.  We soothed our disappointment with doughnuts and a scathing letter to the Collier county parks department.  We moved on to Palmetto Florida.  We stayed at Fiesta Grove RV resort, where there were orange trees on every campsite.  We filled our fruit bowl... so good!  We spent the next afternoon at Anna Maria Island beach and had a great time even if it was a little cool.

The next day we headed across Florida to Titusvill on the Atlantic side.  We conspired with our friends, the Spotts, to surprise the kids with a visit.  We met at Canaveral National Seashore.   It was cold and windy, but the surprise was worth it.  We spent the day together, including a meal at the trailer. 

From Titusville we went up to St. Augustine, the only city to be continuously inhabited since 1572.  We visited the Castillo de San Marco, an old fort.  It was cool to see and hear people passionate about history tell the story of the Castillo.  It inspired Andrea to be more excited about her Kansas History assignments. 

We left St. Augustine and spent a night at Eagles Roost Rv campground.  The spanish moss on the trees was incredible! 

We are now at Koinonia Partners near Americus Georgia.  It's a cool place and worthy of a post of it's own.

The Everglades

If you have an opportunity to go to the Everglades take it!  What an amazing place!  When we drove into the park towards our campground I said to Doug "I need someone to help me interpret what I'm seeing.  It doesn't look like anything but grass."  It is grass.  Sawgrass.  Miles upon miles of sawgrass, sitting in a few inches of water as it flows from south central Florida to the Florida bay.  The area is called a river of grass because it literally is a river of grass.  The highest elevation the park is 4 feet above sea level.  The water flows so slowly that it's almost imperceptible.  This slow moving water is the home to thousand of migratory birds, alligators (lot's of alligators), crocodiles, mosquitoes (not so bad in Feb, but terrible in summer), some deer, panthers, bobcats and snakes. 

The park provides lots of ranger-lead activities that help you understand what you're seeing.  My favorite was a slough slog.  We entered into the sawgrass and stepped into a few inches of water and more inches of mud.  There is a layer of nutritive algae, called periphyton, that is on the top of the water.  The saw grass is named aptly, as it has very sharp "teeth" along the edge.  These teeth gather dew and funnel it down to the center of the plant which is how it survives the dry season when there is no water.  We worked our way into a cyprus dome.   The water is deeper here.  The cyprus loose their needles in the dry season to protect them.  As they decompose they acidify the water, which then erodes the limestone bedrock.  The deeper the water, the better the trees grow.  Very cool.

There is one area of the park that has a preponderance of  wildlife.  Here are a few pictures of my favorites

Anhinga.  Spears fish with it's beak.  AKA the snake bird because of it's long sinewy neck

  the tri-colored Heron

 The wood stork

 The little blue heron

 alligators

 silly birds

 the green heron

Also very prevalent were ibis, great blue herons, great white herons and snowy egrets as well as many that I didn't identify.

We're working our way North towards Americus Ga, where we have tentatively set up another service assignment.  Hopefully the weather on the main land will have warmed up a bit by the time we get there.