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I made it to the Florida Keys! Just another hundred miles and my goal of riding to Key West will be complete.
It rained on me a few times, but otherwise it was a great day. Because I ended yesterday significantly past where I'd planned to, I had plenty of time to do some things in Everglades National Park.
I started off with a boat tour in the mangrove forests of the northwest part of the park. It was pretty much exactly what you picture when you think "swamp tour". I think we checked off all but one of the "you might see..." birds before we even got into the mangroves: roseate spoonbills, ospreys, herons, egrets, ibises, kingfishers, and even some gulls diving spectacularly (the one that was missing was the bald eagle, but I had one of those overfly me on my bike a little later on). Inside the mangroves, we got some great views of gators. One was sunning itself on a bank and mostly ignored us. Another slipped into the water when we approached, so we got to see it swimming. A third was active on a muddy bank and hissed at us when we approached. We also saw a raccoon, which is mostly interesting because it was the only nonhuman mammal we saw.
I arrived at Shark Valley too late to see the sharks, so I did a short walk along the slough and saw more birds (including an egret who let me walk along the other side of the path while he just stood on the other staring) and some small alligators, and a snake of some sort.
I ended up arriving in Key West just before sunset, and had a few tropical drinks with dinner and Key Lime Pie for dessert. A great end to the day.
(No, there are no sharks in Shark Valley, but I did arrive about half an hour after the last tram out to the observation tower.)
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