Everglades National Park, Day 1

We left Key West in the early afternoon, right after grabbing some key lime pie from Old Town Bakery, and arrived at Everglades National Park about 5:15, shortly after Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center had closed for the day. The park, however, is open 24 hours a day, so we drove to the Royal Palm Visitor Center and walked the short Anhinga Trail, a self-guiding trail that winds through a sawgrass marsh, where, believe it or not, we spied at least three alligators and heard lots of pig frogs. Then we headed to the Pa-hay-okee Trail, a short boardwalk loop, which provided us with sweeping vistas of the "river of grass." After that we headed to our hotel for some much needed rest and to find a place to have dinner.



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