There’s nothing quite like it in the Keys. Tropical breezes sough through tall pines and emerald waters lap gently up on a glistening white sand beach. Locals bring picnic baskets and hammocks and children laugh and splash in the surf.
Posted: Friday, January 15, 2010 12:31 PM EST
It’s the place where Harry S. Truman did all of his presidential work during the winter months, where Dwight D. Eisenhower created the U.S. Department of Defense and where John F. Kennedy may have made a decision that averted World War III.
Posted: Friday, January 15, 2010 12:31 PM EST
A great Egret perches in Everglades National Park in a photo by Julie Chancy.
The Florida Keys are known for three national parks, Dry Tortugas National Park off Key West, and Everglades National Park and the Big Cypress National Reserve on the mainland.
Posted: Friday, January 15, 2010 12:31 PM EST
Charles Anderson took this aerial photo of the Bahia Honda Bridge and the developing park at the north side of the bridge in the mid 1950s. The Overseas Highway is clearly visible as it rises to the height of the top of the bridge trusses then passes over the old railroad bridge left by the Florida East Coast Railway. Today this land is all part of the Florida State Park system. Photo from Charles Anderson albums.
Just down the beach from our sunny picnic spot at Bahia Honda State Park, a toddler in a pink bathing suit scampered to her parents, carrying a handful of sand that she had scooped from below the gently unfolding surf. Her giggles carried on the wind as she dropped the sand into a vivid blue pail beside her mother’s beach chair, and went back for more.
Posted: Friday, January 15, 2010 12:31 PM EST
America’s Greatest Generation, the men and women who served in our armed forces during World War II, are no better represented than by those who served as crew aboard a little steel ship named Mohawk — now berthed in Key West and open to the public.
Posted: Friday, January 15, 2010 12:31 PM EST
One of Key West’s oldest attractions is crawling back from the brink of extinction. The Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden welcomes visitors where once there were none and, before that, throngs.
Posted - Friday, January 15, 2010 12:31 PM EST
Weathered wooden docks, all grayed with age and dotted with barnacles, mean the edge of the world for any person whose love of the water has met its equal in the sleek design of a boat.
Posted - Friday, January 15, 2010 12:31 PM EST
If the Florida Keys were a church, the backcountry would be their sanctuary.
Posted - Friday, January 15, 2010 12:31 PM EST
If you were to go on a search to find hidden treasure, the first place you might look would be on a remote island. With visions of a treasure chest full of glittering gold, you may very likely walk right over a beach full of pearls and not even notice.
Posted - Friday, January 15, 2010 12:31 PM EST
A brilliantly colored cockatoo cried out somewhere in the jungly tangle of Nancy Forrester’s Secret Garden and temporarily shattered the quiet of a late-September morning.
Posted - Friday, January 15, 2010 12:31 PM EST
