Rediscovering America -- On the Tamiami Trail to the Keys

It was unusually cold for Florida even in December as we started our journey to Key West. While we could have taken I75 - Alligator Alley  (puzzles me why it's called this since it is very rare to see alligators along this fast lane through the Everglades), the adventure would have been lost. Instead we took the old route, Tamiami (to Miami) Trail, which allowed for stops along one of the most exotic roads in the U.S. 

From Naples we enter Big Cypress Preserve, where hammocks of immense bald cypress trees rise up from the swampy land teaming with life.   I'm just in the middle of reading a wonderful book called "the Orchid Thief" by Susan Orlean and as we pass by the thick jungle-like places (the Fakahatchee, e.g.) where she wandered with her quixotic guide, places where snakes and alligators thrive, I have to shutter and admit that I am not that much of an adventurer -- and that there are places where I do fear to tread, although I love reading about them and gazing at them at a relatively safe distance.

We made a brief stop at the visitor center which is located where Route 29 crosses Tamiami Trail.  From there, you can pick up lots of maps, pamphlets about the area and such.  Had time permitted we would have visited Everglades City further down 29 -- its a unique piece of old Florida, with some historic buildings, a museum and opportunities for Everglade tours.  Further along the trail, we passed the Wooten Swamp Buggy Tours -- been there done that -- another Florida tourist thing that you should do at least once in your life.  In the little town of Ochopee, we also stopped by the smallest post office in the U.S., where I mailed a postcard of the small little post office.  We did also stop at Clyde Butcher's, a wilderness photographer, who for years lived in a small cottage behind the gallery in Big Cypress -- he only recently moved to Venice, Florida.


Further along  Tamiami Trail into the Everglades runs a shallow waterway with a narrow bank just on the side of a endless stretch of sawgrass march dotted here and there in the backdrop by dense hammocks of palms, gumbo-limbos and other sub-tropical trees.

Today almost every 30 feet or so, we spotted an alligator, so many of them that we decided to stop an the Oasis Visitor Center in Big Cypress to get a closer view.   The Center has a boardwalk raised above the shallow stream that parallels the highway.  Amazingly herons, anahinga and other birds perch over the waters gazing at the pristine crystal stream teaming with fish along with many, many alligators who swim and sun themselves along the bank.

1 According to Wikipedia "The 165 mile  north–south section (hidden SR 45) extends to Naples, whereupon it becomes an east–west road (hidden SR 90) crossing the Everglades (and forming part of the northern border of Everglades National Park) before becoming Southwest Eighth Street in Miami-Dade "