Biscayne Trail Sights

We live very near a national park - and I'm not talking about Everglades National Park. We don't live terribly far from that park either, but the park we live nearest to is Biscayne National Park. Still we don't see it too much because 95% of it is underwater.


On weekends, the main north/south road that we live near is often crowded with bikers (think Lance Armstrong, not Harley Davidson) who ride in packs and never use the bike path. The path leads down to a marina and connects to a trail that is paved for a ways and then turns to coral rock. At the point where the coral rock starts, there is a marker showing the boundary to Biscayne National Park. The trail is made of what was dug out to make a waterway from the marina. You can follow the trail out farther until is literally is washed away. You can wade in the coral rocks and out into the sea grass. We went down there this week and here are some pictures I took along the way:

Julia Butterfly

Buckeye Butterfly - I knew these were down here, but this was the first time I'd seen them - and we saw several.

Caleb "picked" some of these small shellfish from the rocks.  I thought they were Conchs, but Rob says they are not.  He's the marine expert in our family!  Literally!

Annalise loves little creatures - even faceless ones!

Enjoying the ride :)

We were there at low tide.  There are coral rocks in shallow water for a few feet, then it drops off into sea grass.  We optimistically brought nets, but couldn't catch the little fish.

Snake skin!

We are going to count this as part of our Florida study. Since we did school work in the summer, we are on break now. Our state for January was Florida, but we were pretty laid back and did not get too aggressive about it. Still, most of our produce is from Florida this time of year anyway! And Florida grapefruits and strawberries are extra good right now too. Caleb said, "I already know everything about Florida." "Not everything," I countered, "Do you know what the capital of Florida is?" "Tallahassee," he answered quickly. I guess he knows more about Florida than I thought he did!