Sunday, February 27, 2022

Our last day in Florida! It’s especially hard to go home, where the temperature hovers near zero. The weather here has been beautiful, in the 80s with mostly clear skies. These are the times when we ask ourselves yet again “Why do we live in Minnesota?”

We like to visit National Parks whenever they are close to our travel routes. Biscayne National Park is just south of Miami, and covers 300 square miles, most of which is open water. Established as a National Monument in 1968, it attained National Park status in 1980. The park contains several Keys, of which Elliott Key is the largest in the park, and northernmost of all of the Florida Keys. It also contains the northernmost part of the Florida Reef, the only living barrier coral reef in the continental United States, and the third largest in the world.

Biscayne National Park is home to hundreds of species of fish, as well as manatees, sea turtles, many species of birds, butterflies and both the American Crocodile and the American Alligator. In fact, Florida is the only place where both crocodiles and alligators live.

Since we had not planned ahead to visit the park, we were too late to take any of the boat rides into the bay itself. The shore was not accessible near the park headquarters, and the rangers suggested we drive to the northern edge of the park, where we could actually walk out to the shore. It was hard to believe we were so close to Miami

Tomorrow, we head back to Minnesota. Sigh!