It was a humid 77° when we retired last night. It was a humid 78° when we got up at about 6 AM. This is not an improvement.
After breakfast, it was time to pack up the bikes and screen house. I managed to get the bikes up on the rack without too much harassment from the morning mosquitoes, but when we got to taking down the screen house, the mosquitoes came out in force. By the time we got all of the stakes out, I was hot and sweaty and it attracted yet more. I was pretty well soaked in repellent, but it was like a swarm of bees around me. Ellen wasn't getting much better treatment. We were simply covered in bugs.
Meanwhile a man from the next campsite arrived for a visit (really!). He has a new Class C, but had just traded in a Roadtrek exactly like Speedy. He had lots of useful information on the quirks and features of Speedy and, under any other circumstances, I would have loved to chat, but I was under attack and just wanted to get the tent stowed and get away form this royal buzzy send-off. What was really terrible was that he was entirely covered in mosquitoes and didn't seem to mind. Maybe it is easier if they are all stuck to you instead of buzzing madly around your head. He had come in yesterday afternoon and his wife wouldn't even come out of the camper (wisely, I think). I suspect they would be leaving today as well.
Harry and Sally left shortly before we finished. We urged them to go and we would catch up later. We were all heading for a last visit to Mr. Bubbles and the Homestead Publix before traveling the Tamiami Trail in search of the Snail Kite.
With clean laundry and a restocking of the larder's, we said goodbye to the Everglades and moved towards the west coast (of Florida, alas). It took a while to get to the Tamiami with heavy traffic on the northbound road (997), but we passed Shark Valley and made it to the abandoned parking lot opposite the Micosukee Village where we'd seen the kite on our last trip. It is also the location that Pete Dunne says 90 percent of birders have seen the Snail Kite. The Everglades wet prairie habitat along the Tamiami is about the only place the Snail Kite is found. They live entirely on Apple Snails which are found in the water here.
We arrived around 1 PM in time for a late lunch. While Ellen and Sally were preparing lunch, I started looking beyond the canal in front of us over the prairie. Before they had lunch prepared, I'd found what I thought was a kite. It flew back and forth and made several dives. On its first pass, it flew fairly close but didn't stop before wheeling and heading away from us.
The last time we were here (two years ago) a solid gray adult male had flown in and perched in a tree right across the canal from us. No such luck this time. The bird I was watching had a white head, white under the wings and appeared brown. It looked like an Osprey ... yes, it was an Osprey! It came and went over the prairie several times while we were there. It even crashed into the water, making a large splash, as an Osprey would but not a Snail Kite. Sigh.
As we were looking into the canal in front of us, we could see some fairly large fish in the clear water. Time to try the Tenkara rod again. I got it out and made several casts into the canal, having lost sight of the fish. When I finally found it again, I managed to get the fly right over it. It gave it a sniff, but didn't take it. I tried several more times and even tried a different fly but no luck. The wind stiffened and the visibility went away, so it was time to put away the rod and continue on.
We were going to Midway Campground in the Big Cypress National Preserve about 15 miles further west. Harry and Sally drove off ahead of us, hoping to get into the same campground. We had a reservation, but they did not. We'd made the reservation before they had decided to cut their stay at Flamingo short. By the time we got to Midway, they were leaving having found no space available and were off down the road without stopping for us. They had a reservation at the Monument Lake campground about ten miles further on, but Midway has electric sites (read this air-conditioned) and Monument Lake has no hook-ups.
Midway is a nicely kept campground with only 26 sites around a small pond (with alligators). Our site is at the far end of the loop, away from the road, and we have no one next to us on one side and no one behind us. It is a long paved back-in site with lots of grass behind the end of the pavement. We quickly plugged in, turned on the AC and cooled and dried the interior of Speedy. After a cooling off period, we ventured out to dry and repack the screen house which was put away hastily this morning. We were able to now get everything into the box on the back.
After a nice cool dinner of roast chicken, salad and rice pudding from the Palm Bakery, we took a quick stroll around the campground, just long enough to sample the mozzie population. It was then back to the cool van to read and write in the Speedy Journal.
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