Tuesday-Wednesday, July 5-6 - As we are leaving Key West this morning, I was thankful that we got through all these days here with no "tropical depressions/hurricanes" heading our way. Actually, although we had some rain, the weather was pretty good because the clouds kept the heat a little lower (but not the humidity). After Trucker Joe got us backed out of our tight parking space, we got on the road about 9:45, after a 5-minute delay due to a rain shower. Neither of us ever got in the water at the campground, although it was only 2 steps from our door. We were always getting back at low tide, and although the water was clear enough to see fish, the current was pretty strong through here, so Joe was afraid we would be swept out to sea. We saw several fish here in the water, but we didn't get out fishing poles either.
As we were driving along, we thought we spotted another flying fish, but this turned out to be a blimp in the sky. It is sort of fish-shaped, especially from a distance.
As we came upon the Bahia Honda State Park, we saw that someone else was in the parking spot we had a few days earlier. But this was a good view of the campground here.
We passed a Veterans Memorial right along the highway that had a very pretty tree all trimmed up. We didn't stop so I didn't get to see the memorial itself, but the tree had several different colors of blooms in it.
While it took us 4 days to get to Key West, it took us just less than 3 hours to get back to Homestead. We continued on Hwy 1 until we got to I-95 at Miami, and that was a slow trip -- lots of traffic and stoplights, although the traffic had been no problem coming out of the Keys. We opted to go over Miami on the freeway rather than driving through the city - a rare drive on an interstate for us.
Our next destination was the Ft. Pierce area, where my nephew lives, and Joe just decided to drive all the way today -- a total of 272 miles. We found a very nice campground at Port St. Lucie, about 10 miles south of Ft. Pierce, and got set up about 5:00 p.m.
We got in touch with Mike and made plans for tomorrow, so we went up the street to Sonny's Barbeque for dinner, then drove out on Hutchinson Island to check out the beaches.
We made the whole loop back through Ft. Pierce, but it got dark on us so we called it a day (a long day!). Wednesday morning we got directions to Bathtub Reef, a beach with good snorkeling, so we headed out there. This is a really pretty area, with some beautiful homes and golf courses. This was a nice beach, but the waves were pounding in pretty hard, and the lifeguard told us the snorkeling wouldn't be very good right now. We got there about noon, at high tide. There are 4 tides a day here, and low tide was 6 hours away, but then you could walk out to the reef because it would be sticking out of the water. Maybe midway between the tides would be the time to snorkel, but we didn't last that long. We did swim around some, but there were lots of big rocks underwater and I scraped my leg on one and it started bleeding. I really was afraid the blood would draw in sharks, so I was a little apprehensive after that.
The coastline bows in here, and with the outer reef, it forms a bowl when, at low tide, the water is very calm and it's a very popular beach for families. There was some surf here, but no one was snorkeling while we were there. After a couple hours (we forgot our sunscreen), we headed back to camp for lunch and showers, and I threw our wet clothes in the washer/dryer at the campground. I had taken a seasick pill in case we went snorkeling, and although it was supposed to be non-drowsy, while I was waiting for my laundry to finish, I could not keep my eyes open. So when I got back to the RV, I laid down for 10 minutes, then it was time to go meet Mike, Lisa, and Corey. We had a really good visit with them, went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant just up the street in Ft. Pierce. Mike is always full of stories, so we shared some good laughs.
We head out in the morning back to the Cape Canaveral area, so we are keeping a close watch on the weather. And it is not looking real good right now. Rain is predicted for the next several days, so we are hoping the window is open for the launch to go off on time. We'll be there!
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