Marsh Madness - A trip into the Everglades…

With the cold weather heading our way we snuck out to the everglades one more time before the cold front made its way through southwestern Florida. We headed south and then west on highway 41 back over much of the same scenery we had traveled to earlier during our stay in Florida.

 

So not surprisingly we saw a lot of the same critters we had seen before but we did have a couple of more unusual sightings on this trip into the marsh. When one first enters the everglades it becomes apparent that you are in a different world. If the scenery doesn’t tell you, then the signs warning of panther crossings or the sign informing you that you have entered the home of the “Skunk Ape” surely will...

One critter is real and the other is not! Another blogger more than likely recently sighted a panther here but we were not so lucky, We did have an encounter with a young raccoon who scurried across the road in front of us and scampered up a tree seeking safety. We took some photos and watched from afar as he slowly crawled back down the tree, head first, as if defying gravity.

We also made the jaunt over to Everglades City, Florida and toured an RV resort that was quite upscale, but in reality this town is very remote… probably too remote for us. As we were driving back we took some of the back roads when I noticed something large and black up ahead in the road… What was it?

Could it be a panther? No, because it was much larger than any panther I had ever seen photos of. Maybe it was the elusive Skunk Ape!!! Afterall this thing was huge and black and hairy all over…But this thing was not walking upright like the supposed Skunk Ape is reported to walk… Nope this wasn’t a Skunk Ape…

What was the creature we encountered? It was a very large black bear and what gave it away was its posture and shape as it crossed the road. We stopped where it crossed and saw it look back towards us and then slowly saunter deeper into the wooded everglades marsh. Why was it here? Well as we looked over the area it became apparent that it had found a local resident’s trash can and was doing its version of grocery shopping…

With the mystery behind us we left the Everglades and headed back to our favorite haunt for happy hour… Buffalo Chips. Fifteen wings and several adult beverages later we called our adventure over and took refuge in our RV to escape the bitter cold heading Florida's way…