On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
frosty
Everglades: as far south in Florida as you can get without being in the Keys.
I had a hard time reducing three days in the Everglades to one post, so I was glad to see the comments that asked for a few more pictures. Here’s some of the ones that didn’t make the cut for the first post.
Taylor Slough, from the Anhinga Trail boardwalk
Gumbo Limbo Trail, at Royal Palm, Hardwood Hammock ecosystem
Gumbo Limbo tree, adjacent to the parking lot at Royal Palm.
Pa-hay-okee Overlook, Cypress ecosystem
This is claimed to be the oldest mahogany tree in North America, 400 to 500 years old, at Mahogany Hammock Trail
Bromeliads, Snake Bight Trail
Whitewater Bay, taken during our boat tour out of Flamingo
Florida Bay, Marine – Estuary ecosystem
Paul in St. Augustine
The Gumbo Limbo tree is also known as the Tourist Tree. Seen up close, the tree is red, and the bark looks like a severe case of sunburn, small pieces of bark that look like flaky, burnt skin.
eclare
Wonderful photos!
raven
I highly recommend “The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea by Jack Davis.”
donatellonerd
a suggestion, not a complaint. a link to Part One would’ve been nice. i went back 5 pages of OTR and didn’t find it (ok it’s conceivable i missed it), so obviously i really liked these pics and would like to have seen the ones Frosty thought were better. looks less jungly/swampy than i would have imagined.
Betty
I do hope Florida does what it can to preserve this unique ecosystem. I became fascinated by the Gumbo Limbo tree while reading Alice Hoffman’s Turtle Moon.
WaterGirl
@donatellonerd: I am not finding a frosty OTR titled Everglades part 1, but I did go back and tag all of frosty’s Everglades OTR posts with Everglades.
So if you click that category at the top of the post, you will see all of the other Everglades posts.
I am thinking of doing something like that for all of the longer series in On the Road – like I did for Paris After Dark. If you all think that would be a good idea, let me know. If you think that would be a waste of time because you would never use it, let me know know that, too.
frosty
@WaterGirl:
Thanks for this (and everything you do for the site). I probably wouldn’t use these tags, but I can see some value in tagging the ones with multiple posts.
I did a search on the site for “Everglades” and they all came up, along with a few others.
frosty
@raven:
This looks like a really good read – I put it on my list to take on our Snowbird trip next year.
J R in WV
If Frosty had used the “tourist tree” moniker I would have known immediately what tree he was talking about. When we briefly lived in Key West 1970-73 they were common there and always called tourist trees. Revisited Key West in more recent years. It was overrun by cruise ship born tourists, all the sweet fine dining restaurants we expected to eat at were gone.
The Everglades looks like a great place to visit… would FLA natives recommend a time of year? Dead of winter might be crowded, we try to visit attractions off their peak. NC beach over xmas for example. No swimming, but beautiful and deserted!
ETA: Watergirl, anything that organizes the vast amount of interesting stuff on B-J is a good thing!
ALSO, Frosty, thanks for the tour photos! So sweet of people to share their slices of the world with us!!
Paul in St. Augustine
@J R in WV:
Winter for the Glades. Although it is the middle of our season, the remote location of the Glades keeps most of the tourists away.
Any other season and you will be carried away by mosquitos.