Everglades National Park.....part 3

We got to the Flamingo area of the Everglades National Park. This area used to be an actual town as well as part of the park. The town has disappeared and all that is left is the Flamingo Visitor Center and a marina store with trinkets for sale and the opportunity for a boat tour. It was 92 degrees by now and the boat was a slow moving pontoon type and that didn't interest us at all. It would take passengers into some of the water passages but it did not go out into Florida Bay, which would have been more interesting. So, we skipped the boats.

We drove into the campground area here and sat at a picnic table and ate our lunch. There were only 3 campsites occupied for this Memorial Day weekend. There were a lot of boat trailers, however, where folks had driven in with their boats and were now out enjoying the water.

After lunch, we decided to stop back at the Royal Palm center on our way out of the park. We wanted to check out the situation for more alligator viewing. We got there and grabbed our camera once again. We took the 1/2-mile loop trail as before but there were not quite as many gators visible this time. The ones we saw were big, plus we saw a few baby alligators this time.

This is the first one we saw and he was providing quite the show by swimming the distance of this one pond area.

This is the boardwalk provided for good wildlife viewing.
Here he comes again!

This is a different gator and this one got a little weird. He was just swimming along and then as we walked by on the asphalt path before we got to the boardwalk he just cruised along beside us. It seemed like he may be watching us.

Then as we stopped to take his picture he actually turned in the water to face us and look us over. Yikes!! We began walking toward the boardwalk. These gators in this pond area are not fenced in. There is a small bank that is about 3 feet from top to the water surface, but I know alligators can walk on land and do it often.

For more photos, proceed to part 4......