Brown Pelicans in Chokoloskee

Chokoloskee is a small unincorporated village of about 350 residents, south of Everglades City.

When I visited, about twenty brown pelicans were roosting on piers at a marina.

Pelicans are the goofiest things, bar none.

City Daily Photo bloggers post photographs on a theme on the first day of each month.  On 
February 1, they will address this intriguing question:  If you had to leave forever the city 
from which you usually post, what would you miss most?  

A Great Egret at an Ibis Convention

As dusk approaches, ibises gather to tell tall tales and gossip.

A great egret hired to provide the security eavesdrops.

Weekend Reflections.

U.S. Post Office at Ochopee

You are looking at the smallest post office in the United States.  It was a shed on a tomato farm

until 1953, when the Ochopee general store/post office was destroyed in a fire.

This shed was quickly commissioned as a post office and
has been  in service ever since.

Ochopee is on the Tamiami Trail near the entrance to the Everglades National Park.

City Daily Photo bloggers post photographs on a theme on the first day of each month.  On 
February 1, they will address this intriguing question:  If you had to leave forever the city 
from which you usually post, what would you miss most?  

Country Churches

There are a few very small towns to the southeast of Naples, on the way to the Everglades.

(Goodland, which you saw yesterday, is one of them.)  Each small town has at least one church.

Everglades City was the staging area for the construction of the Tamiami Trail -- the main road from Tampa to Miami -- through the Everglades in the 1920s.  Everglades City lies south of the 

Tamiami Trail, at the eastern edge of the Ten Thousand Islands.  

Today it has only 400 residents but three churches.  This is the community church.

Copeland is north of the Tamiami Trail, with the Big Cypress National Preserve to the east and the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve Park to the west.  Copeland is home to 275 people and a Baptist Church.

City Daily Photo bloggers post photographs on a theme on the first day of each month.  On 
February 1, they will address this intriguing question:  If you had to leave forever the city 
from which you usually post, what would you miss most?  

Goodland's Mullet Festival

Thousands squeezed into the little fishing village of Goodland for the annual Mullet Festival.

She was the queen of the festival.

Or maybe she just bought the shirt.

He wore a badge claiming to be the Buzzard Queen Inspector and the ladies raced to have their photos taken with him.  I'm not going to discuss the coconuts.

Yes.  Alcohol was involved.  A lot of alcohol.

A bunch of fun-loving ladies from Decatur, Illinois, posed for the cameraman.

I always forget to wear my crab hat.

But I am planning to wear my hat for the follicle-challenged wherever I go from now on.

City Daily Photo bloggers post photographs on a theme on the first day of each month.  On 

February 1, they will address this intriguing question:  If you had to leave forever the city 

from which you usually post, what would you miss most?   

Everglades Cafe

A mural on the side of Everglades Cafe in Naples highlights the Florida panther,

a critically endangered cat found in swampy marshlands like the Everglades

and Big Cypress National Preserve.  Only 100 - 200 survive.

Today's post is linked to Monday Mural.

City Daily Photo bloggers post photographs on a theme on the first day of each month.  On 
February 1, they will address this intriguing question:  If you had to leave forever the city 
from which you usually post, what would you miss most?  

Empty Bowls

"Empty Bowls" is a very successful fundraiser for the Harry Chapin Food Bank.

Local artists contribute pottery bowls that patrons buy for $15 and

local restaurants serve soup and bread to fill the bowls.

Last year the fundraiser raised $60,000 in three hours.

This year it seemed even more crowded.

Charity Navigator ranks the Harry Chapin Food Bank as #1 out of 141 Florida charities in its effectiveness and #11 out of 3,326 charities nationwide.

Terrific organization!