President's weekend free entry to Everglades Park

On a beautiful spring day, Krisse, Zanze and I found ourselves at a Miami ceramic league art opening at the Coe Visitor center in the Everglades National Park, south of Florida City. The work was nice and varied. Usually you see photography at these types of venues and rarely is sculpture on display, so this was a nice opportunity. Each artist was inspired and responded to some plant or animal, (or insect), that lives in the Everglades. Krisse made a ceramic Otus owl inspired sculpture, and Zanze made a funky Purple Gallinule.

Better still was the real thing waiting just outside. A free day in the park! (There was even a free trolley from downtown Homestead). We joined lots of other people for a short outing on the Anhinga trail. It was like walking through a living diorama! The birds were practically tame. I used my cell phone to take these pictures. I think I counted 26 alligators next to the walkway. They were all snoozing in the sun, collecting heat to fuel their nighttime hunting.

I mention that there were lots of people- but it didn't feel too crowded at all. I heard French, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian and Japanese being spoken excitedly!