July 4 on Key West

Monday, July 4 - Amazingly, July 4 was a rainy day down here.  It was in the 70s this morning, with a breeze.  I watched the display of storm clouds accumulating, and the jet stream from a plane taking off left a beautiful track in the sky.

The mosquitoes don't seem to be a problem in the daylight hours, so I enjoyed the view for quite a while.

The clouds got closer and closer, and it finally started raining.  Joe came out and joined me in our private little tiki hut -- see how far I've advanced since hiding in the closet in Indiana during all those awful tornado warnings!

It quit raining so we headed back into town, but Joe got caught in the Circle K getting his soda when the rain really let loose.  He finally made it back to the car, only slightly damp, and we stopped at a couple stores searing for snorkle fins.  We went on down to Duval Street (the main street here, that goes from the east coast to the west coast), and had some success with the fins, so now that we are leaving this area we are completely set up for snorkeling.  We drove from coast to coast, traffic (both pedestrian and vehicle) was heavy and it kept raining.

Fortunately, we finally found a parking spot (a mission impossible here) and joined the crowd, stopping in a few gift shops.  Then we had lunch at the original Margaritaville, of course.  I talked to the lady who had her boat moored next to our RV earlier this morning, and she and her daughter had gone downtown yesterday to some public pool, where they saw women wearing only body art.  Joe was on the lookout for that sight, but I guess the rain forced them all to put clothes on because we didn't see any today.  She was pretty sure that Joe really had seen some naked woman in the parking lot the other day -- she said anything goes down here.

 We drove out to the state park again, where a coast guard ship and another WWII ship are museums, but they were both closed.

We also drove past (but didn't go in) the Museum of Art & History, which had a beautiful statute out front, and John Hemingway's home.  There was no place to park in the vicinity.  Parking is really a nightmare down here, unless you go into the public parking lots, or are lucky enough to find a spot with a parking meter.  But all day in the parking lots is $15 to $20, so we avoided that.

 

We also saw this beautiful banyan tree right in this area.  These trees are fascinating.

We drove  up the Atlantic side and came upon Higgs Beach, which appears to be where the locals go.  There were lots of people here, so I'm guessing they are probably having fireworks here later this evening.

We really didn't do much today, but we were ready to go back to the RV, after a stop at the grocery store.  I decided to get the laundry done, since we are leaving tomorrow, and Joe did some of his outside work.  We went over for a late dinner here at the campground, and they put on a small fireworks display so we stayed for that so we didn't have to fight the traffic and crowds downtown.  We hope to be in the Miami area tomorrow night, assuming traffic won't be too bad getting out of the keys.  But this was an interesting trip, and it is amazing to us that we have been all the way from the northernmost place  (Prudhoe Bay, Alaska) to the southernmost place (Key West) in the U.S. in the last two years.  We are definitely enjoying retirement!

Snorkeling at Key West

Sunday, July 3 - After a slow start this morning, we headed to the beach about noon.  Our camp host recommended a beach for us, so that's where we went -- Fort Zachary Taylor State Park and Beach.  It was better than the others we had seen here -- had some depth and not so weedy, but it was still a rocky beach.  Our boat shoes came in handy here. 

The water was fairly clear, so after we got wet, Joe decided was time to snorkel.  We both geared up, and he headed out to the rock wall, but I'm not the master snorkeler he is, so I paddled around on my noodle and tried to get used to breathing under water again.

We rented an umbrella and beach chairs, so we did some people-watching as we rested.  The group in front of us had 2 ladies wearing thong bikinis, so Joe got an eyefull there.  Last year we were looking at haliBUTs and halibut CHEEKS, but this year we had female butt cheeks on display.  I never did take a picture of them, I couldn't figure out how to do it inconspicuously, even though I doubt they would have cared.  I don't think being inconspicuous was their intent.

Our second time out, Joe headed over to a different set of rocks, and I finally mastered my equipment.  But then a storm blew in, and the beach emptied.

Even Snorkler Joe abandoned the water when he heard the thunder roll.

So we gathered up most of our stuff and headed up to the snackbar patio to eat some lunch and  wait it out.  It never did rain on us, and the storm finally moved on.  We had put our two noodles under the chair frame so they wouldn't blow away.  Next thing we knew, a group of young black guys were slapping them around out in the water, so I marched myself down there and got them back!   We finally were able to get back in the water, and this time I snorkeled with Joe all around the rocks.  We saw some neat fish.  One trip around was enough for me, but others had seen some big fish, so Joe went back around by himself.  He ended up with a pretty good sunburn on his back.

We left about 5:00 and headed back to camp.  After we took showers, we walked along our brick wall to the tiki bar here, where they had a barbeque going on, but their credit card machine was broken, and we didn't have that much cash, so we sat and listened to the band for a little while, then headed back to the RV and I fixed dinner.  By the time we ate, it was 8:00 and we were both tired, but we did sit outside for a few minutes (until the mosquitoes woke up at sunset) and enjoyed the view.

We had a good beach day.

Key West

Saturday, July 2 - We watched the snorkel boat go out this morning and stop in front of our campsite, we assume for their safety instructions, but then it turned around and came back in.  It was pretty choppy out there, no fun to snorkel when it's choppy, plus it was pretty cloudy, so they cancelled the snorkeling.
John called to check on us this morning.  They were mowing, house cleaning and working on their presentations for the conference this week, so we were lucky to be away from all that work.  We were sorry they were unable to join us down here, but they are very busy people.  He did tell us, though, that he thinks his dad has started a new trend with the flying crab in Texas.  John said they were driving on the freeway, and a "flying mouse" hit their windshield (and smeared all over it).  There were no trees around, so unless it fell out of a birds mouth, it just have been flying.  Something else for me to have the camera ready for, I guess.

We drove around the state park a little before we packed up this morning.  Over past where they were fishing last night, we found a bay (this on on the Gulf side) where we could see lots of fish around a coral shelf -- but no swimming or snorkeling here.

We drove back past the beach where we swam yesterday, and at high tide, it was a little more inviting, but it was still weedy.  Joe did find a conch shell when were out here yesterday (it's illegal to remove anything form the park, so we couldn't take it with us).  There were several people out in the water this morning, but when it started to sprinkle (and lightning), they all headed in.  Yesterday, Joe swears he saw a naked woman in the parking lot, changing out of her swimsuit.  When I looked, I could she had on see ivory-colored underwear, and a top of some kind, so I don't know if he actually saw her before she got her underwear on, or it was wishful thinking on his part. But women don't usually have underwear on beneath their bikini, so I'm assuming he was right.  Made his day, anyway.

Part of this beach area is roped off for nesting turtles.  We had hoped to see some but were told they usually come up on the beach about 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., and we didn't make that sighting.

We saw a little whirlwind out in the water, like an Arizona dust devil, only over the ocean.  It disintegrated when it hit land. 

We went back to camp, packed up and hooked up, and continued on our way, leaving this very nice state park.

The drive on down to Key West was just a series of channels and keys, each key had a channel on each side of it as a waterway to the Atlantic, with bridges over the channel.  Some of these bridges were just short spans, but coming out of Marathon we went over the "7-mile bridge."  All along this route, we could see the water was very shallow, and mangrove islands dotted both sides of the road.  For some reason, I thought there was only seven keys, but there are many more than that the the highway crosses, and there are islands all along the way.  There's even a "Cudjoe Key" (figures that Joe would have a key named for him).  We saw one island for sale. 

We saw an osprey as we were driving yesterday, but only a dead key deer today.  It rained on us on our way, lightly, but we got to our campsite about 1:00 --about 35 miles driven today.   Our campground, which we thought was on Key West, was actually about 5 miles before that on Geiger Key, but we found it easily enough.  Not sure how we will get out of here, but we pulled into a very nice spot, right on the channel, and we could fish, swim or snorkel right from the RV.  We even have our own little tiki hut.

This is the view out the front windshield (you can see some of the traveling zoo).  Unfortunately, the boat was not included in our rental price.  We sit here and watch boats come in and out, and a few swimmers, fishermen, and snorkelers go by every once in a while. 

And we had a visit from another iguana.  After we saw the first one, at Bahia Honda, we learned from Dr. John that the iguanas are an invasive species here (thought to be from Cuba, according to our current campground host), and they are trying to destroy all of them, so Joe missed an opportunity to get out his gun (I can't imagine what all trouble that would have brought!).  This one was smaller than the first one we saw, and he jumped into the water when Joe got too close with the camera.

After settling in, we drove into Key West, finally.

We decided to check out the beaches, and the first one we came to was Smathers Beach, a public beach on the Atlantic side.

But like the ones at Bahia Honda, it was another shallow, weedy area, not very inviting.  We have learned that the Keys really don't have any good beaches, because the shores are protected from erosion by the coral reef that runs parallel to the Keys, and the beaches are not naturally sandy. Most of Key West's beaches are fortified with sand that is brought in from elsewhere, but they are very shallow, and there are lots of seagrass growth on them, so it's hard to find turquoise, clear water to swim in. Having just left behind the Sarasota beaches, some of the best in the world, it's hard to get excited about getting in the water down here.  We are going to check out the Fort Zachary Taylor State Park and Beach tomorrow, which was recommended by our camp host.

We drove around to the Southernmost Point in the U.S., 90 miles from Cuba.  There was a line for picture taking, but I did get a picture. I might have to find a small replica of this as a souvenir -- it's pretty cool that we are here.

 Next, we worked our way over to the Gulf side and found the harbor.  We walked amongst the boats here, but it was hot and crowded, and we only had one hour on our parking meter, so we didn't hang around too long.

We did see some large (probably 4 foot) tarpon in the water here -- they hang around the fish cleaning station.  Parking is a problem down here -- actually, driving is a problem down here.  It's a bit like the French Quarter in New Orleans -- most of the streets are very narrow, with parking on both sides, they dead-end into the ocean, and some are one-way.  Pedestrian traffic is heavy, and the people driving (including us) don't know where they are going.  And parking lots charge $15-$20.  We'll have to brave this again to go watch the sunset at Mallory Square, but not today.  It actually was cloudy this evening, so I'm not sure there will be a view of the sunset anyway.

We pulled into a carwash, which we couldn't get to work, but there were a couple of chickens hanging out here.  We have seen a few of these around.

We found a place to have dinner (TGI Fridays, I wasn't very brave) and headed back to camp, but decided to drive on past our turnoff to go to the end of Geiger Key. There is a Naval Air Station right beside us, and the "dry" side of this road was fenced off and marked off as "U.S. property. "  After some housing, the road ended in a dead-end, of course, but we drove to the end and turned around.    This next is just hard to explain.  When we turned around, we saw this guy.  Right on the road.

Joe thinks he is training for Al-Queda.  He had his exercise mat out, and was going at it.  We tried not to be too obvious, but it was certainly an unusual sight.  Fortunately, we spotted a brown marsh rabbit across the road from him, so that gave us an excuse to be taking pictures.  I think we saw 3 of these rabbits on this drive.

Finally, we headed back to the RV to watch the NASCAR race.  Joe hooked up our little TV that Stacey gave us, and we sat on the brick sidewalk right beside the water and watched the race.  We had seen a mosquito-spraying truck on the highway (Thank God!) so we were ok for a while, but once the sun went down, we started getting buzzed by them (while Joe was getting buzzed by beer as well). 

That was our day.  A pretty full one for an old retired couple like us.

Bahia Honda State Park

Friday, June 30.  We are heading out this morning, so I decided to wash a load of clothes so we could get our mosquito pants ready to wear.  There were 2 washers and dryers outside, under roof, by the shower room, so I went over there.  I encountered another one of these free-wheeling crabs, but he scurried one way, and I scurried the other, so no harm was done.  After my load was done, we unhooked the RV (electricity) and headed out.  John had told us this is a really pretty drive, but the first part of it was wider, with mangrove trees lining the highway.  As we got further down, though, we were crossing lots of bridges, one key after another, and driving with the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Atlantic on the other.

We saw several stacks of these wooden boxes, but we haven't found out yet what they are for.  We assume they are for catching crabs or lobsters or something like that.  We'll have to ask when we get to Key West.

We are staying tonight at the Bahia Honda State Park, and it actually came up quicker than we expected -- it's on Bahia Honda, 12 miles south of Marathon.  We pulled in and got registered, unhooked the car, then I was supposed to lead the way to the campsite.  But I missed a turn, so Joe found it and got parked on his own, while I toured the campground trying to find him.  He backed in, but the view was so great, he turned around and pulled in, and we have a great view of both the Gulf and the Atlantic, right where the old bridge and the new bridge look like they come together.

 I finally showed up after he had all that done.  He was expecting a call from me, unaware that my phone was in the RV (who knew I would need it!).  Anyhow, we settled in and absorbed the view for a while, then he thought he would like to see the campground, since he missed my tour.  We put on our swimsuits and went out to the car, where he spooked an iguana (!#@!!) right next to the car.  These Florida critters are not among our usual suspects!  After that excitement, we drove around, finally deciding to get in the water at one of the many beaches.  But these are not sandy beaches, although there is some sand.  There's a lot of rocks, and sea grass, the water was really shallow (low tide) and very warm.  We walked out in the water and floated, swam and walked around for a while, wearing our new boat shoes, and saw a few fish, including a huge stingray. 

We  then checked out the gift shop where the snorkel tickets are sold, but he finally decided to wait for Key West for that.  After dinner, we braved the mosquitoes (of course, we did not put on any of our mosquito warfare gear, not even mosquito spray) and took a walk along the coastline, coming up on some fishermen under the bridge.  One kid caught a small grunt, and then a little big bigger snapper.

The sunset was somewhat hidden by clouds, but we did have a good view.

We had no TV reception here, so I read while Joe spent some time on the internet (it's wonderful to have our own little hotspot connector), then we called it a night.  No rain here today, although it did cloud up, and I think the temperature was in the high 90s.  Hot and humid!