I miss the Everglades. I have been planning my next trip to southern Florida in the last few weeks. I don’t know exactly where I am going to hit, but the Everglades is sure to be on the list. This time, I am going to spend at least two days in the park, if not three or four, depending on what else I have going on. All I know for sure is that I have to get out of Western Pennsylvania…this weather here is depressing as hell…

In the Long Key Area of the park, these Pine Trees are everywhere. Up north, our Pine Trees and very full and have dense heavy branches. The ones down south have very thin branches and not very many of them. I have read that this is because of the hurricanes, the trees with less branches are less prone to be blown over in a storm, hence they are much more prevalent.

I love the Everglades, I really do. It is one of my favorite places to go. This past November I spent a little over week in the Florida Keys and one of those days I decided to drive up to Everglades National Park.

I didn’t even see any of those huge Burmese Pythons while I was there, what a rip-off! I did however see a very large Barn Owl. It was about 6 inches from my face flying at full speed…and I was going about 60 miles per hour, ha. I noticed it sitting in a tree along the road and it took off at exactly the wrong moment. It hit the metal bar the separates the driver’s door from the back passenger’s door. Poor guy. I thought for sure he was going to fly right into the car, that would not have been pretty.

Anyways, these palm tree were such a pretty sight that I couldn’t pass stopping for a photo. I was at the Royal Palm area of the park when I came across them.

I was in the Everglades the other day doing some photography and came across this scene. I went down a road I have never been down before, despite being in the Everglades many times before. I believe it was called Big Pine or something like that. Anyways, i came around a bend in the road to see this beautiful scene. The sun was heading to the horizon and caught the edges of the clouds just right.

Not too long after I took this photo I found myself down in Flamingo and took this photograph of the sunset. The sun is always beautiful in the Everglades.

While I am down here running around I decided to head up to the Everglades for an afternoon. Everglades National Park has to be on of my favorite places to visit. It is soo beautiful, peaceful…and you never know what you are going to see.

After spending some time up in Royal Palm, I decided to head on down to the Flamingo area of the park for sunset. I made it with about 2 minutes to spare! This tree really caught my attention so I decided to make it famous, ha. If you are ever in the Everglades around sunset, head down to Flamingo. I don’t know what it is about the area, but the sunsets are always spectacular. The cloud formations and always great and the light really kicks ass! Maybe I just get lucky every time I am there, but anyways….ha