Big Cypress National Preserve is surrounded by various sections of Everglades National Park, a few state parks and two Indian reservations. We stopped in at the welcome center on the west side of the preserve to ask the ranger where…
Everglades Redeemed
We’d heard that Everglades National Park’s Gulf Coast section typically has fewer bugs than the Flamingo area and decided to head over there. We’d also heard good things about the Anhinga and Gumbo Limbo trails in the park’s Royal Palm…
Everglades: The River of Grass
Checking the tide tables, we knew we had until mid-day for high tide to paddle the nearby Nine Mile Pond canoe trail through the mangroves. So to make the most of our time in the morning, we drove to the…
Bitten By the Everglades Bug(s)
When people asked me before the start of Project 100 which national park I was most excited to visit, the Everglades — with its vastly different landscape and wildlife from that of Phoenix, Arizona — was one of the first…
Bear Lake – Grin and Bear It
Passing run-down rural houses with junk-filled yards and Confederate flags on the drive to Bear Lake in Florida’s Blackwater River State Forest northeast of Pensacola, we wondered what we were in for. Pulling into the campground, however, we were relieved…
Gulf Islands, We Hardly Knew You
The sky was dark and the forecast called for rain as we departed New Orleans and headed east through little snippets of Mississippi and Alabama on our way to Florida. Hector had awoken with a sore throat and chills so…
The New Orleans Feast Continues
On Saturday we had to forgo beignets because the line stretched to more than 100 people — even for the take-out window. Instead we passed through the French Market and swung around to the Central Grocery for another item on…
Letting the Good Times Roll in New Orleans
New Orleans is one of America’s best places to eat, drink and be merry, and we spent a long weekend soaking up as much of the city’s food, music and history as we could. We met my brother Matt at…
Camping in Alligator Country
The beauty of an extended road trip is the ability to tweak our itinerary and destinations as we go along. With a focus on national parks, we hadn’t planned on visiting many state parks but saw Louisiana’s Lake Fausse Point…
Bigfoot in Big Thicket?
From the historic town of Natchez, we crossed the Mississippi River, cut across Louisiana and headed to southeast Texas to check out Big Thicket National Preserve. Rather than being in one contiguous area, Big Thicket is a series of nine…