Tamiami Trail; Hwy 41

Everglades Slough

Florida Hwy 41
“Tamiami Trail” (Tampa-Miami)
11/12/10

In the unsleeping dark of a still and stifling Everglade pre dawn I lay in bed stuck to my sheets with sweat, waiting for some sign of breeze.  But the Cypress woods to my back and the alligator pond to my front move nary a ripple.  In the primal blackness the only thing that moved was my shallow breathing chest.  After three more hours of trying to roll and peel away from the damp sheets a thin silver light stole upon the horizon.   It was going to be a hot and bright day.  Only one lonely chickadee sang in the tree outside my window but an almost imperceptible movement of air arrived, like a quiet exhalation of breath or the fluttering of her wings.  It soon grew into the slightest waving of grass then tree leaves and its welcome scent
slipped in the window.  The land was coming alight and bringing  with it a palpitation.  Soon a slight but steady breeze was upon us and moved through the interior of the Airstream with its windows now all opened wide.  The currents in the morning light seemed so clean and fresh.  It had to be due to the thousands of acres of grasses growing up through wetlands known by the Seminoles as Pa-Hey-Ogee , Grassy Waters, that filtered this breath miles before it reached us.  It reminded me how the tumultuous waters of one Early Winters Creek tasted long, long ago in the North Cascades - clear, sweet and when swallowed deeply cooled  the spirit and soothed the tired brow.    I drew  in the breeze, free borne and untainted,  in deep and long breaths.  To savor such air and water is a hard won immanent privilege.
On the move again and entering Big Cypress Park we  see the life along the road.  Along side the miles of straight two lanes running to the horizons are wet grassy prairies  and a meandering slough of slow soupy swampy water that  spreads into the shadows of grasses and mangrove roots.  The first thing we noticed were the birds;  herons, buzzards, kingfishers, egrets and ibis in abundance.  The trees were filled with them,  sitting still or even laying on their backs on branches facing the sun with their wings outspread drying off as if embracing sunshine.  Birds flew back and forth across and along the road with long beaked heads somehow gracefully pulling along improbably long thin necks pulling along wings and trailing fragile stem  legs.   Ibis sat in groups in trees like snow white Christmas ornaments.  White Egrets perched in masses in the shrubs and grasses and lit up the shadowy  mangrove roots with their whiteness.
Threads of ibis in elongated flight seemed to float and shift like feathery motes in the air just for the sake of it.  We were blown away by this profusion of graceful motion.
Then there were the alligators.  There were hundreds of them, steely blue grey, beside the roadway waters gliding  submerged save for their knobby heads and eyes or laying about in the shadow of again the mangrove roots.  There were  all sizes of gaitors including fat babies only a foot long but already sunning lethargically on sunny stumps.   The ecological importance of these mangrove plants and Pa-Hey-Ogee is so obvious to all animal life in the Everglades.   No  Virginia this is not a zoo.
This was one of the most exciting drives we have made so far after almost 12,000 miles on the road.
It was a great disappointment to eventually approach Naples on the West Coast and civilization as I shook my head at the point and shoot camera in my hands inadequate to record my visions.  Already there is the nagging desire to return for an extended exploration.