Greetings from Everglades National Park

We left a cold Massachusetts in February for a reprieve from winter down to South Florida and the Everglades. On our way to Flamingo Point where we would have a tasty lunch including the best ever key-lime pie, my wife and I were utterly amazed by such a different world in Everglades National Park. We saw giant white oaks and dangling Spanish moss drooping with wild pineapples and pink orchids and spiraling vines of strangler figs. And then we stared at twisting snake-like roots that thicken into smooth trunks of Banyan trees like we were somewhere in central India. Royal palms rustled in balmy winds from a warm sea of glistening lime, and nearby gumbo limbo’s smooth and curving trunks pointed high in a purple sky. Dark sap oozed from poison wood while a jet-black alligator basked in humid heat. All of a sudden roseate Spoonbills rose to glide over a marshy lake flapping their wings in a tropical noonday sun. We tried not to think about returning to a snowy driveway back in frozen New England!

Sincerely,
Richard F Fleck