Without being able to put into words why—other than “I want to see this before it’s gone”—I’ve wanted to visit the Florida Everglades for years. I’m ashamed to admit that before I went I knew virtually nothing about it. I imagined a kind of giant swamp, filled with mosquitoes, alligators and pythons.  Happily, what I found instead was a place with its own quiet beauty—a beauty that is more than skin deep. What I was most struck by was the intricate, often invisible, interconnection of life in the Everglades: plants, birds, animals, insects—and ultimately humans—so dependent on each other. And because it’s so interconnected, it’s also exceptionally sensitive and fragile. Threats to the health and survival of the Everglades include runoff of fertilizers as well as other types of pollution from encroaching urban areas, and the invasion of exotic/non-native plants and animals.

A little history: The Everglades once covered nearly three million acres, stretching from just below Orlando, through Lake Okeechobee, all the way to the very tip of the peninsula, as well as east and west towards both coasts. However, it was not always valued, or even understood. In the early 1900s, even conservationists felt that the dredging of the Everglades was the “smart, progressive thing to do.” The wetlands and marshes were seen as worthless, and many areas were dredged, drained, and diked to make way for agriculture and development. (One governor, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, was elected after running on a platform that included promising to drain the Everglades.)

The Everglades became a national park in December of 1947. According the National Park Service website, “For the first time in American history, a large tract of wilderness was permanently protected not for its scenic value, but for the benefit of the unique diversity of life it sustained. The mosaic of habitats found within the Greater Everglades Ecosystem supports an assemblage of plant and animal species not found elsewhere on the planet.” The park is approximately 1.5 million acres, but the Greater Everglades Ecosystem is much larger than the national park itself.

Kerri and I took parts of two days to explore, and could easily have spent much more time there. The park is huge, and there are many ways to see it: scenic drives, hiking, biking, canoeing, boat tours, and naturalist-led guided tram tours. I highly recommend the tram tour at the Shark Valley Visitor’s Center. I took most of the photos in this post while on this tour. You can bike or hike the 15-mile loop the tram takes if you prefer, but I learned a lot from the guide. (We also took an airboat tour, but it wasn’t nearly as informative as the tram tour.) Some things I learned:

Seven million people (one out of every three Floridians) rely on the Everglades for water.

The Everglades is not a swamp, but a very slow-moving river. It flows at the speed of about 100 feet per day (contrast that with the Mississippi, which at its headwaters, flows at an average speed of 1.2 miles per hour). Talk about meandering.

The Everglades is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an International Biosphere Reserve.

Everglades National Park is the largest mangrove ecosystem in the western hemisphere, the largest designated wilderness in the southeast, and the most significant breeding ground for tropical wading birds in North America.

It’s the only place in the world where the American Alligator and American Crocodile coexist.

We agreed that the more we learn about natural places like the Everglades, the more questions we have, and the more we want to learn. For me, that’s one of the happiest, most important benefits of travel: discovery and the urge to know more. 

Thank you for reading installment two of Kerri and Kathy’s road trip. I hope you’ll return next week for our further adventures—we’re bound for the Florida Keys!

For more information on the Everglades:

National Park Service

Everglades Foundation

Encyclopedia.com

Friends of the Everglades

The Everglades: River of Grass, Marjory Stoneman Douglas

The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and thePolitics of Paradise, Michael Grunwald

“Gratitude is the only thing that will ever make you happy. Without a doubt, if you can master the art of feeling and expressing gratitude on a daily basis, then you will have mastered happiness. It’s that simple: more gratitude equals more happiness.”

—Jason Wachob, WELLth: How I Learned to Build a Life, Not a Resume

I had a visitor last week—my friend Kerri—and we took to the road, heading to Sanibel and Captiva Islands, then meandering through the Everglades, all the way down to Key West. Want to come along? 

Both of us love to travel—to see how other people live, to infuse our creative banks with new sights, sounds, tastes, and smells, and for the change of pace escaping our normal routine brings. I think it’s also fun traveling with different people. I’ve taken trips with my husband, my friend Laure, and now with Kerri, and each trip has a different feel and focus. It’s fascinating to see how other people travel: what they enjoy doing, how they see things. (This trip was especially good for that, as Kerri is an accomplished photographer and she saw much I wouldn’t have noticed.) Also, as we caught up on each other’s lives, I learned how I really felt about certain things as I heard myself talk. There’s something about formulating thoughts and exposing them to a “safe” person that clarifies things for me.

But that’s enough of why we travel—onward to what we actually saw. I’ll break the trip into a series of posts, since it would be unbearably long if I tried to cram it all into one. And before you ask, I didn’t make one sketch—I simply didn’t have enough time in any one place, and I was too tired at night. I took many photos (so many my camera battery died on the last day), and my plan is to make at least one sketch from them.

Our first stop was the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island, 6,400 acres of mangrove forest, seagrass beds, marshes, and hardwood hammocks. The refuge provides habitat for more than 245 species of birds. We took the four-mile wildlife drive (you can also bike or take a tram), but we could have walked the four miles quicker. We kept stopping to jump out to look for wildlife—we saw white pelicans, little blue herons, ibis, gulls, sandpipers—and our first alligator.  (There will be plenty more gators when we arrive in the Everglades—stay tuned!)

Introduction by Ted Kooser: I suspect that one thing some people have against reading poems is that they are so often so serious, so devoid of joy, as if we poets spend all our time brooding about mutability and death and never having any fun. Here Cornelius Eady, who lives and teaches in Indiana, offers us a poem of pure pleasure.

A Small Moment

I walk into the bakery next door

To my apartment. They are about

To pull some sort of toast with cheese

From the oven. When I ask:

What’s that smell? I am being

A poet, I am asking

What everyone else in the shop

Wanted to ask, but somehow couldn’t;

I am speaking on behalf of two other

Customers who wanted to buy the

Name of it. I ask the woman

Behind the counter for a percentage

Of her sale. Am I flirting?

Am I happy because the days

Are longer? Here’s what

She does: She takes her time

Choosing the slices. “I am picking

Out the good ones,” she tells me. It’s

April 14th.. Spring, with five to ten

Degrees to go. Some days, I feel my duty;

Some days, I love my work.

Regular readers of Catching Happiness know I post a poem here approximately every other Wednesday. I share this simple pleasure in an effort to show that poetry doesn’t have to be the broccoli of the literary world. It can be beautiful, simple, thought-provoking, funny, entertaining—and it doesn’t have to make your stomach (or your brain) hurt.

April 2016 marks the 20^th anniversary of National Poetry Month, so if you’re at all  interested, it’s an ideal time to discover the flavor of different types of poetry. You don’t have to attend a poetry slam or immerse yourself in obscure verse to do so, either. Here are 10 (mostly) simple ways to expand your taste for poetry. Bon appetit!

Combine National Poetry Month with the trend of coloring for adults by downloading a free poetry coloring book.

Who says poetry has to be serious? Enjoy some funny poems, such as the collection I Could Pee On This: And Other Poems By Cats.

If you’re in a book club, suggest choosing a book of poetry—or even a single poem—as focus for a meeting. Or check out this free guide to starting your own “poetry café.”

Sign up for Poem-A-Day, or for a weekly poem via email from American Life in Poetry. (This last is where I get the poems I highlight here.)

Participate in National Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 21, 2016. (You can download a poem for your pocket here, too.) 

Buy a book of poetry, or check one out from the library. Two collections I’ve enjoyed recently: She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s JourneyThrough Poems, and Good Poems for Hard Times. I also love many of Mary Oliver’s poems.

Learn How to Read a Poem and/or How to Write a Poem. 

Watch a TED talk of a poet reading his or her work. 

Click here to visit Name Poem Generator, type in your name (or someone else’s), and the site will generate an acrostic poem. 

If you write poetry, join NaPoWriMo and write a poem a day, or check out some of the sites participating. (I’ve participated in several 30-day challenges, but I’m not sure I’m up for writing a poem a day!)

Please share with us any poetic discoveries you make this month!