#244 Everglades national park

As we left the casino we were wondering if we could stay at one of the several RV parks that's run by the Miami County or Broward County type thing. It seems like everything Had No Vacancy and then we found one that we thought was very appealing but later found out you could not stay overnight.

It was called the TY park but the actual name is indigenous and it's a mouthful. Topeekeegee Yungee.

We went in because it would be a nice place to park and spend some time maybe taking a nap and having a meal and just enjoying the greenery about the place. We used this opportunity to drop the rig and go get fuel and go to the grocery store.

Later in the day at around 4 or 5 we drove on into the Everglades and got there and it was about dark and we got there.

As we were on the lonely road into the Everglades the sky was showing off a sunset

The only place that had vacancy was a bit of a drive and it was in Everglades National Park. When you leave Hollywood you probably go about 10 or 12 mi to get to the entrance of the national Park. You’re not there yet. Next you drive about 20 miles down a two-lane road until you get to the end of the world. It’s a great place for getting away from it all but you just got to make sure you've been to the grocery store first and you’ve got plenty of fuel and propane. There is really nothing out there for sale except camping and of course wilderness.

Add some point you realize there's not going to be any TV stations, maybe radio station but no cell phone service and no internet.

It was a federal Park. I believe full price was $20 and we paid 10 because we have a lifetime senior pass federal park. Once you actually get there there's a water and electric hook up.

We found the people parked nearest to us friendly and quite a few people camping there in RVs.

We arrived in the dark and I went to great effort to back into an RV site. Later figure I figured out that they’re all pull throughs. It could have been a lot easier but it was dark and I didn’t realize it at the time.

This is one of the many reasons why it’s better not to get anywhere after dark.

We knew we were going out into the boonies so we downloaded a lot of stuff from Amazon and Netflix. I saw some people tent camping out in a large field. It was winter and there were only a few bugs but I've been told that there's a season where you might not want to be in the Everglades without a Bee keeper suit on.

I saw one guy that looked like he had the 360 cameras on his roof tent camping. I believe he was the Google maps guy riding around taking images for maps which I thought was very cool.

I went on a nice bike ride just to do some touring about and I learned that the marina and the museum visitor center was closed.

I knew there had been a hurricane back in September called Irma but man, there was a lot of damage. The visitor center roof had a lot of damage which allowed a lot of water into the museum and it looks to be closed for a while to come.

The marina was also a bit of a wreck which just had like all kind of dock hookups laying on their side and debris everywhere.

I tried to take some pictures to show how rough it had been here. There was a lot of devastation in fact some of the camping areas were closed indefinitely until they could repair it all.

It's really hard on humans but it occurred to me that the wild life has been experiencing these hurricanes for millennium. I have to assume the hunker down inland or worse. It’s hard for a while but it's already wilderness so it’s kind of bounces back pretty well.

I tried to get pictures of the marsh grass debris as it showed how deep the water was and how fast did it came racing through.

We spent a few days at the Everglades and then we headed on down towards the Keys.