Why The Everglades Owns My Heart

Writer Annette Thompson has traveled to the Florida Everglades more than a dozen times. Here, mindful of the fragility of one of the South’s last wild places, she describes the things she treasures most.

Florida Everglades: Pa-hay-okee Overlook

Robbie Caponetto, Article by Annette Thompson

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Pa-hay-okee Overlook

The low horizon spreads as far as I can see. A light taste of salt tinges my lips and a brutal sun heats my back. As I stand at Pa-hay-okee Overlook, the wind ripples across a vast river of yellow-and-green sawgrass. There’s a white ibis standing by a cypress tree, water droplets cascading off its coral-colored beak. When I go south to Florida Bay, a gray manatee swims the shallows. I see the slippery silver of a just-caught trout as it flips back into the turquoise waters. I have returned, once again, to The Everglades.

One of the best places to see the marsh's scope is the Pa-hay-okee Overlook (12 miles from the entrance near Homestead, pictured).