Florida Fridays; The Great 2012 Florida Trip Part 5 (Biscayne National Park)

After the Shark Valley Loop Road in Everglades National Park I continued east on the Tamiami Trail to the Florida's Turnpike Extension south to Florida City. At the end of Canal Drive I visited Biscayne National Park along Biscayne Bay.

Biscayne National Park was created in the waters of Biscayne Bay in 1980. Much of Biscayne National Park is aquatic but it does encompass some of the Florida Keys south of Key Biscayne. The push for Biscayne National Park was largely due to the prospects of development on Elliot Key. In the 1950s a plan to build a bridge from Key Biscayne to connect Elliott Key and the rest of the Florida Keys was announced by the Dade County Planning Board. This led to the incorporation of the "City of Islandia" on Elliott Key which was largely just a glorified land grab. The potential for a possibly extended Overseas Highway was largely crushed by the creation of Biscayne National Monument in 1968 which later became Biscayne National Park in 1980.

The prospects of development along Biscayne Bay and the northern Florida Keys is long dead. The City of Islandia incorporation was dissolved by the state of Florida back in 2012. Today there isn't really much going along Biscayne Bay other than people boating or attempting to fish near the mangrove ridden shoreline. For what its worth I probably would rank Biscayne as my least favorite National Park. There isn't much to do at the visitor center area and the Overseas Highway offers way more variety hopping from Key to Key southward to Key West. Even exploring the Lower Keys by boat in my opinion is much more fun than up in Biscayne National Park. I guess the distant view of downtown Miami on a clear day is nice.

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Abandoned US Route 40 in the Truckee River Canyon

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