Credit: Florida State Archives

Few big cities in America have a community as culturally and architecturally distinct as Tampa’s Ybor City.  Beginning its life as a cigar-manufacturing town made up of Cuban, Spanish, Italian, Jewish and German immigrants, the neighborhood is now a thriving entertainment district with a rich palette of late 19^th century and early 20^th century buildings.

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Emerson Fales first met the Dragonfly Expeditions team at one of our regular exotic removal and habitat restoration events at Vizcaya in 2008 and started guiding kayaking, biking, walking tours for our company in 2009.  He has called Miami home for practically his entire life, so he felt that Dragonfly Expeditions’ vision and mission were well aligned with his personal love of South Florida.  His interest and enjoyment of natural South Florida began at an early age and has grown over the years.  Emerson’s favorite saying is: “No other city in the country has a front yard like Biscayne Bay and a backyard like the Everglades.”  Thanks to his mother, and despite the chorus of negative comments from the backseat, his family spent many hours canoeing and exploring the Everglades.  He also spent lots of unforgettable days on Biscayne Bay snorkeling, fishing, water skiing, and canoeing.  As a result of all these childhood travels, he accumulated a tremendous amount of knowledge on South Florida ecology and animal life which came in handy when educating visiting friends.

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Recently I had the pleasure of paddling on Halfway Creek guided by two local park rangers. The trip was offered free of charge  as part of the annual National Park Week from April  21st to 29th, 2012. The purpose of this event in the words of National Park Service Director  Jonathan B. Jarvis is: “America’s national parks offer something for everyone. Take a break and  experience something new, enjoy some fresh air, get some exercise, and see where history happened. And, since admission is free to all 397 parks, all week long, National Park Week is a great time to get up, get out, and explore a park.”

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Dragonfly Expeditions is proud to announce that Managing Partner Charles J. Kropke has received the 2012 Historic Preservation Award presented by the Dade Heritage Trust during their annual meeting in the restored Pan American Seaplane Base (today Miami City Hall) on April 27^th, 2012.  Charles was honored in the category of outstanding individual for the many aspects of his professional and personal life on behalf of endangered historic treasures and the general awareness of preservation.  Among the efforts mentioned were the work of Dragonfly Expeditions which educates travelers from all over the world about Miami’s architecture and neighborhoods through the art of storytelling. In addition, Charles’ book “South Beach – Stories of a Renaissance” highlights inspiring individuals whose push for historic preservation had a tremendous positive economic impact on the tourism industry of Miami Beach in particular and South Florida in general.

This month brings the unique opportunity for locals and visitors alike to participate in some of our tours in the Everglades and Biscayne Bay that are usually reserved for groups only. They are being offered as part of the Sustainatopia event:

Saturday, April 21^st, 2012 from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm:

The Everglades according to the Miccosukee

Skip across the shallow waters and sawgrass prairie to a distant Miccosukee   island as your guide prepares you for a journey of natural wonders and cultural discovery! Watch in wonder as Great Blue Herons, Egrets, Woodstorks and Ibis take to flight as we travel into the true heart of the Florida Everglades. It is here among the sawgrass prairie that remote cypress islands filled with Seminole and Miccosukee history still exist and it is here that our adventure begins . . .

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The folks at WLRN-TV are creating a series of small segments entitled “Slices of Life” featuring local residents’ careers and businesses. A small group of friends and I were invited to come along with the crew to interview Charles J. Kropke. I was thrilled to join upon hearing that the filming was to be conducted in Big Cypress National Preserve. This, however, was not going to be the passive outing that most people witness- high and dry. Our guide’s ominous recommendation was to “make sure to bring a change of clothes and shoes”.

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On Saturday, February 25^th, 2012, it became clear to me that people from all walks of life in South Florida still do care.  Only a few weeks earlier I had called for action for an environmental restoration workday at Broward County’s Deerfield Island Park. The call went viral and 199 volunteers RSVPed.  176 showed up.  My appeal was the following.

“This is something that I rarely do but I am requesting it now, I need your help.  Saturday, February 25^th at 10 am, I am gathering everyone we can muster at the dock that services Deerfield Island Park in Deerfield Beach.  I am responding to a plea from my longtime friend Pat Howell on a project that is dear to both of our hearts.  The gopher tortoise habitat on the island is facing a de-listing as a critical wildlife habitat by the Fish & Wildlife Commission because invasive exotic plants are choking out the area.  I am trying to mobilize an army to eliminate the invasives and prevent the critical wildlife de-listing.  Because it is a large task and we only have one day, I need as many volunteers as humanly possible.

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My name is Janine. I grew up in a small town in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg that is located in the north of Germany’s Black Forest. In the past, my family and I traveled a lot together for vacation, thus I have seen a lot of places such as France, Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom, Turkey, Tunisia, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Austria, Qatar and of course the United States of America. I am in the US for the 7^th time now. My family and I started going to the United States back in 1992. We traveled with a RV along the East coast and the West coast of the US and found some wonderful and awesome places.  I was so impressed about the towns and the national parks in the US.  Most of the time we stayed with our RV over night in national parks, like Bryce Canyon, Yosemite or Grand Canyon National Park. I liked the nature at these locations a lot, especially when a dragonfly was flying next to us or when a squirrel was stealing our cornflakes from the table. Friends of my family live in Venice, Florida, so I flew to Florida on my own in the summer of 2009 in order to spend my vacation there. I fell in love with Florida, so I decided to make a road trip through Florida with in the summer of 2010 for 3 weeks. I started in Venice and drove to Cape Coral, the Everglades, Miami, Key West, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Daytona Beach, St. Augustine, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and back to Venice. It was a great trip, but I only saw the major tourist spots. This trip inspired me to see more nature and discover places that not many people have seen before and can’t be found in a travel guide.

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I am Liana Rajaonary and I am the new intern at Dragonfly Expeditions. I am 21 and I was born in Marseille (France) but I grew up in Reunion Island, where my parents live, which is a French dependency located in the Indian Ocean. I am originally from Madagascar -which is the 4^th largest island in the world before being a movie- but many people here in Miami seem to think that I am from South America. I have an older sister, she is 25 and she also lives in France, but in Toulouse.

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An extremely successful and poignant panel discussion took place on Friday, January 13^th at the Wolfsonian-FIU in South Beach.  The panel discussion was part of a lecture series organized by the Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL) as one of the activities for the 35^th Anniversary Art Deco Weekend.  Charles J. Kropke, moderator for the event, assembled the panel of noteworthy nightclub owners, event promoters and nightlife professionals who created the entertainment scene for which South Beach became internationally renowned.  Represented were Lee Schrager, founder of  the South Beach Wine and Food Festival, David Wallack owner of Mango’s Tropical Café,  Jane Wooldridge, business editor for The Miami Herald (formerly nightlife editor for South Beach during its heyday), Michael Capponi, club promoter extraordinaire, and Louis Canales, one of the first successful nightclub owners in the resurgent South Beach.

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