Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to follow the natural lay of the land, it would flow down: from its center, the state of Flor-
ida inclines about 6in every 6 miles until finally, the peninsula can't keep its head above
water anymore. What was an unelevated plane peters out into the 10,000 Islands and the
Florida Keys, which end with a flourish in the Gulf of Mexico. Key West, the last in the
chain, is the southernmost point in the continental United States.
Incidentally, when the waters of Okeechobee
do
flood the South Florida plane, they in-
teract with the local grasslands and limestone to create a wilderness unlike any other: the
Everglades. They also fill up the freshwater aquifers that are required for maintaining hu-
man existence in the ever-urbanizing Miami area. Today, numerous plans, which seem to
fall prey to private interest and bureaucratic roadblocks, are being discussed for restoring
the original flow of water from Central to South Florida, an act that would revitalize the
'Glades and, to some degree, address the water supply needs of Greater Miami.
What really sets Florida apart, though, is that it occupies a subtropical transition zone
between northern temperate and southern tropical climates. This is key to the coast's florid
coral-reef system, the largest in North America, and the key to Florida's attention-getting
collection of surreal swamps, botanical oddities and monstrous critters. The Everglades
gets the most press, and as an International Biosphere, World Heritage Site and National
Park, this 'river of grass' deserves it.
But while the Glades are gorgeous, there is far more waiting to be discovered. The Keys
are dollops of intensely beautiful mangrove forest biomes. The white-sand beaches of the
Gulf Coast have been gently lapped over geological millennia into wide ribbons of sugar
studded with prehistoric shells. The Panhandle's Apalachicola River basin has been called
a 'Garden of Eden,' in which Ice Age plants survive in lost ravines, and where more spe-
cies of amphibians and reptiles hop and slither than anywhere else in the US. The Indian
River Lagoon estuary, stretching 156 miles along the Atlantic Coast, is the most diverse on
the continent. And across North Florida, the pockmarked and honeycombed limestone
(called karst terrain) holds the Florida Aquifer, which is fed solely by rain and bubbles up
like liquid diamonds in more than 700 freshwater springs.
