Sally and Ellen go bird watching. Steve goes for a ride. Dinner at the Buttonwood Cafe. Sally and Ellen go bird watching again. Steve tries to change campsites. A short ride into the wind. Dinner at Trattoria Ellen.
Amazingly, it is just as crowded here on the weekends as in the state parks—and we're 50 miles from the nearest town. Cars seemed to be arriving well into friday night and the campground was full and overflowing into the usuaully closed B loop by morning.
Ellen and Sally went off the daily ranger-led morning bird walk and came back with the usual two pages of birds seen. There always seem to be a few new ones each day.
I took a short ride up to Mrazek pond. All the usual ducks, coots, grebes, herons, egrets, cormorants and anhingas were there. There was also an alligator cruising through. On the way out, I stopped at Eco Pond, near the campground, because I noticed a flash of pink as I was passing. There were several Roseate Spoonbills almost on the bank right near the entrance path, along with a large flock of egrets further out on the pond. I also stopped along the road when I saw a hawk landing in a tree. As I was getting out my camera, I noticed that there were two hawks and they were mating. He was away before I could get the camera turned on. The female sat there for a couple of minutes before flyinh off as well.
When I rode back to Speedy, I took a loop around the campground. In B loop, I spied the boy scouts that had tried to park on the grass across from us the night before. I'd told them it wasn't a site and they would be told to move. I'm glad they left because they had set up 14 four-person tents in B loop. Unfortunately, they had set up the tents in an area that had been reserved for another large group and the ranger was telling them that they had to move.
Much of the rest of the day was spent relaxing and reading. We went over to the visitor center to the Buttonwood Cafe. A screened in outdoor dining area along the water. The cafe serves pretty simple stuff, fried grouper, shrimp, etc., burgers, pizza and salads, all prepared in a kitchen trailer. They'll even cook your own fish, fi you happen to catch one off the seawall right next to the cafe...or anywhere else.
This morning Ellen and Sally went off to the morning bird walk again. I tried to switch to another site. It is a couple of sites up from where we had been, but has a sea view and a couple of trees for shade. The people who were there left early this morning to do an eight day kayak trip through the Everglades. Unfortunately, they neglected to drop off the site pass, checking out as they left. When I asked to change sites, the ranger said we couldn't yet because they hadn't checked out and that they wouldn't know until noon...even though the site was totally empty.
So I anxiously waited around until almost noon and tried again and was told that I had to come back in 15 minutes by a different ranger. Fifteen minutes later, I returned at 12:15 pm and was told be a third ranger that the campground hosts, who verify that the sites are empty, hadn't checked A loop yet and I'd have to come back after they'd checked the loop. I asked the ranger if could just look out his back door and see that it was empty. It was nearly the closest site to the registration kiosk. He told me that it wasn't his job to verify that the site was available.
As soon as they drove by I went up to the kiosk again, waited behind a couple with a teardrop trailer who were being told to drive around the A loop and pick two or three empty sites and come back. This time I finally was able to change sites and get a new site pass. As I returned to Speedy the the teardrop trailer came by and stopped right at our new site, idled a bit and then went back to the ranger kiosk. I mentioned that It looked like they were interested in that one as well.
We moved Speedy and all of our other bits and pieces, chairs, bikes and sun shelter over to the new site. A couple of minutes later, the couple with the teardrop trailer showed up. They were surprised, since the site was empty when they passed by and now we were in it. They'd been given the site, by yet another ranger, not more than five minutes after I gotten it.
About 30 seconds later, the ranger showed up to tell them that there had been an error and the site was already taken...by us. We were a little surprised by the whole thing. I'd gone up to the registration kiosk three times before, asking to change to that site. Each time I was told to wait. If I'd delayed my last trip by five minutes, they would have given it out to someone else.
The people with the teardrop trailer were actually quite nice and just picked a site across from ours. Harry and I helped them set up since they had this huge screen tent and it was quite windy. The tent was big enough to use as a garage for their trailer. They set it up so that it overlapped the back of the trailer as is has a built-in outdoor kitchen in the rear of the trailer.
In the afternoon Sally and Ellen decided to give the Coastal Prairie Trail a try. It is a six mile one-way trail that wends its way through a coastal prairie (what else?) to a backcountry campsite called Clubhouse Beach, which is nearly at the tip of the park. They didn't intend to walk the whole thing and didn't stay out long as it was mid-afternoon and there were no birds to be seen.
Harry went off fishing and I took a little ride, getting only as far a the visitor center, since a stiff headwind was coming from the east. Ccoming back along the paved Guy Bradley trail (and bike path) and through the tent camping area along the beach, I stopped to look at a flock of Willets on the shoreline. They were mostly just standing there, facing into the wind.
It was so breezy, that we added the wind wall to our REI Alcove sun shelter. It was first time we'd tried it. It worked quite well, allowing us to have dinner at the picnic table under the shelter and out of the breeze.
Tomorrow we go on a canoe trip...assuming decent weather, it's raining a bit right now.
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