Sickness Week: Everglades National Park

69-year old Presidents who give two-and-a-half hour inaugural speeches don’t represent all the National Parks that can be sick. Not at all. Some Parks are sick themselves and need help. Case in point: the Everglades. South Florida is a very young land mass, appearing anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, a veritable newborn. Native [...]

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Birdwatching Week: Everglades National Park

The Everglades National Park was the first place where we felt like honest-to-goodness birders. We walked around book in hand, binoculars on point, ears wide open. Our heightened senses weren’t necessary; birds are everywhere! The Park’s famed Anhinga Trail follows a boardwalk through a densely inhabited landscape. The birds (and the alligators) seem too content [...]

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Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve

near Jacksonville, Fla. Visited: February 2, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 140 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? 46,000 acres existing mostly of salt marshes that border the slow urban sprawl of greater Jacksonville. The historical part of the preserve consists of a Sea Island cotton plantation and scattered Timucuan Indian ruins. BEAUTY [...]

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Fort Caroline National Memorial

Part of Timucuan Ecological and Historical PreserveJacksonville, Fla. Visited: February 2, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 139 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? Reconstructed 16th-century fort that marks the brief Protestant French (Huguenot) presence along the southern Atlantic coast. BEAUTY (2/10) We asked the Ranger at Castillo de San Marcos NM why did [...]

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Fort Matanzas National Monument

south of St. Augustine, Fla. Visited: February 1, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 137 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? A Spanish stone masonry fortification finished in 1742 whose purpose was to guard the mouth of the Matanzas River, a back door channel into the important colonial city, Saint Augustine. BEAUTY (6/10) Fort [...]

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Castillo de San Marcos National Monument

St. Augustine, Fla. Visited: February 1, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 138 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? A massive stone masonry 17th-century Spanish fort built to protect the city of St. Augustine from British colonial invasion. The Castillo de San Marcos (St. Mark’s Castle) marked the northern-most settlement in Spain’s vast New [...]

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Everglades National Park – Shark Valley

south Florida Visited: January 21, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 133 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? At 1.5 million acres, Everglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. This review covers the Shark Valley area, which consists of a loop road leading to an observation tower through a [...]

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Everglades National Park – Main Entrance

near Florida City, Fla. Visited: January 21, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 133 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? At 1.5 million acres, Everglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. This review covers the areas of the park accessible through its main entrance located just outside Florida City, [...]

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Everglades National Park – Gulf Coast

near Everglades City, Fla. Visited: January 4, 2005 NPS Site Visited: 133 of 353 NPS Website; Local Website WHAT IS IT? At 1.5 million acres, Everglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. This review covers the northwestern portion of the Park; the area serviced by the Gulf Coast Visitor Center. [...]

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