About once a month or so my husband, Kim, and I travel east across a stretch of I-75 known as Alligator Alley. What a great name for a road! I did a little checking on how it got that name and I was disappointed there wasn’t a fabulously exciting story of how the road construction crew had to take turns guarding each other’s backs from a sneak attack by the many alligators that live in this deep, thick, jungle of sawgrass, cypress, and swamps. Instead, AAA labeled it that. They hated the road. They didn’t want it built. Even after reading why, I’m still not sure why. They wanted their customers to go around it, taking the Tamiami Trail to Miami instead of Alligator Alley to Ft. Lauderdale. Their reasons were a bit vague, convoluted and undoubtedly dry, but that isn’t important. What’s important is they gave it that name to discourage its use, while the State Road Commission officially adopted it, saying it would be good for tourism.
That was back in the 60’s. Alligator Alley cuts through the heart of the Florida Everglades. The road is amazing straight and flat, bordered both sides by a fence to protect the animals that live there from cars zooming by at 75 mph. Some faster…a lot faster, but the speed limit is 70, so I’m going to say 75. This mostly works, but not always. I’ve seen a few dead critters; armadillo, a wild pig, a couple of turtles, and the latest find, a very large python! I’ve read in the paper about a bear being hit out there and from time to time a Florida panther. There are 36 tunnels under this 75 mile stretch of road, so the animals can move freely from side to side. Though that fence is pretty high and looks fairly sturdy I have seen animals on the road side of it. I have no idea how they got there.
Do not be fooled into thinking that because the road is flat and straight it’s boring. Though it doesn’t offer breathtaking views of massive snow-covered peaks and sprawling green meadows it is like stepping back in time. Way back. From our home the Alley begins with palm trees, slash pines and dense vegetation too numerous to count or identify. It’s not long before you encounter the Florida Panther Preserve. These cats look just like their western mountain lion cousins, only a little smaller. They are distinct, however, by their crooked tail. Though they are endangered I do wonder if there aren’t more of them than they think, because a fair number have already been killed this year on the roads near and around Naples. Something isn’t adding up and my own belief, backed by no science or fact, is that life finds a way and the swamp harbors life invisible to the eyes of man. Try as I might, I have yet to see one of these rare creatures lazily napping in the branches of any nearby tree, but I keep looking. Odd looking conifers begin to appear known as bald cypress. These trees lose their needles in the fall, which is unusual for a pine, but hence the name, “Bald”. When bald they appear to be dead. Fully leafed out they provide a beautiful canopy to the Everglades where you can easily spot large birds roosting amid their branches. It’s also along this strand of highway that you encounter Big Cypress National Preserve, which I have yet to explore, but it’s on the list. In what appears to be a seamless transition, the trees begin to fall away and the vistas widen as you travel further east and you now begin to encounter the famous sawgrasses of the Everglades. You might wonder if this is what the savannahs of Africa might also look like.
The birds are amazing! Winter and spring the trees are heavy, bearing their ornaments of ibis, great egrets, great blue herons, great herons, osprey, bald eagles, cormorants, spoonbills, and anhingas. Those are just a few! They’re big and beautiful and my head swivels constantly at the sight of another and another. So different! So fascinating!
Alligator Alley is home to black bears, white tail deer, wild pigs, turkeys, mink, river otters, gray foxes, opossum, and panthers. In fact, there are 40 different mammals who make their home in the Everglades. Shall we talk about the snakes? Let’s not! The point is, this place is wild.
Water is ever-present. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but it’s there and because of that you strain your eyes, if you’re not driving, searching the canals that border the road looking for those creatures of the past and present for which this road was named. Alligators! I find it difficult to see alligators in the water while flying past at 75 mph, which is where they spend most of their time in the summer. But in the winter, alligators like to bask in the warm sunshine along the banks of those canals and it doesn’t take much effort to see a dozen or so of these famous tough guys synonymous with the state of Florida.
For all the water out there it can burn and lightning seems to use it for target practice almost every day during the summer rainy season. I feel for the wildland firefighters who have to penetrate the jungle swamp with all of its inhabitants in the unrelenting steaming heat that can only be summer in south Florida.
The Everglades is not an impenetrable wilderness swamp, but almost and teeming with life from the beautiful to the scary. When they built Alligator Alley the engineers were faced with using airboats on the eastern side and swamp buggies on the western to line out the route. A note written by a construction worker on the wall of an outbuilding in the Alley wrote, “Please Lord, I’ve been a good man. So if I get cotton-mouth bit, or attacked by some of Oscar the Alligator’s brothers, and if I get to that Big Job in the Sky, oh, please, Lord, let it be on dry land. Amen!” ( Alligator Alley: Florida’s Most Controversial Highway, by August Burghard, 1969).
Bottom line, I like it. I never get tired of it, even though it’s straight and flat and a shot of espresso halfway across might be nice. There’s always something to see out there, or something to be looking for. An amazing place like none other.
(Photo credit given to Ben Pardini)