Journal Entry #7

My family moved to Florida about 11 years ago to a place where everything seemed to be a tropical paradise. We frequently enjoyed playing on the beach and basking in the Florida sun. As I grew older I began to learn about the Everglades, mainly recognizing the vast lands with air boats and alligators. I had no idea that the Everglades stretched as far as Lake Okeechobee or that it possessed two different names. 

The Everglades is comprised of so many different types of wildlife and different plant species such as the saw grass which covers most of the Everglades and makes it the river that we all know today. As stated in the book, most men have never hiked the entire length, due to thick mud and the extreme growth of saw grass. If man were ever to hike across the Everglades they would find themselves lost in a sea of saw grass with no visible sight of land. As the saw grass die and decompose in the mud underneath, the decomposition of the plant helps nurture future plants and areas surrounding. The Everglades have proven to be a tough river, being able to withstand almost everything that it has encountered. Even hurricanes cannot break down huge areas of saw grass; but not everything is resilient. Fires have become the Everglades kryptonite.

The rock, which holds together the borders of the Everglades, stretches miles across the state of Florida, either under the sea level or above. This rock has created what we call today as “Miami Limestone” which is not to be mistaken with coral reefs. These rocks have created the Everglades Keys, which were thought to be where the Indians hid when the “blossoming of the sea grass” occurred to indicate a hurricane was approaching.

The Everglades is Florida’s true history book; land that we now walk on was once under water and millions of years ago came up from those salty waters. It is filled with hidden mysterious and shows how Florida really was before we all moved in.