Long Key, sunset to sunrise.

Our vote for the best place to see a great sunset followed by and equally beautiful sunrise, Long Key is the place to be. So sad we do not have another day here. Plus, Blue loves rolling in the white sand.

Bahia Honda Kayaking

It was the perfect day for a Kayak trip down the length of Bahia Honda with temps in the low 70's. We capped off our last day with some fresh Mackerel from another camper and a campfires under the stars.

Key West, a colorful place to visit

From Duval Street (the Burbon Street of Key West) to Mallory Square, to Hemmingway and his famous cats with multiple toes, and the turn of the century homes, Key West has a colorful history and some colorful characters to enjoy for the day. We drove the 26 miles left of the Florida Keys to see what has become a tourist trap to say the least, but it is still worth a day trip. We can now say that we have been to the furthest point south in the Continental US. I enjoyed the fancy ladies scratching up their lunch on the street corner and walked some of the most beautiful beaches this area has to offer.

Back at camp we walked the remains of the railroad bridge to capture the sunset. A very nice day in the Keys.

Bahia Honda, a great place to kayak and walk the beaches.

This is a nice park as well (but still in love with Curry Hammock) with more areas to explore and more sites. The park is not as neat with more growth, but it is older as well and shows her age. Within the park there is the remnants of the old train tracks built by Henry Flagler's Overseas Railroad that spanned the Keys in the early 1900's. We walked out on the old bridge that once held the train and now takes people out over the water some 20-30 feet in the air over the deep channel that connects the Gulf and the Atlantic.

Bahia Honda has a very long stretch of beach and walking trails through the Sea Grapes that remind me of the Bahamas. No Crabzilla but I did see an large Iguana. But the beaches are kept natural which means the sea grass covers many parts of the beach and with the recent full moon, that includes dead jelly fish that smell up the beach. It's still lovely and many of the beachcombers have decorated a few of the Sea Grapes with shells and sponges that washed up on the shore. The best sites in this park are #14-16 and in the Sandspur area, which is more tents and small campers, site #72 looks really nice and is large enough for our rig.

Best sites in Curry Hammock

We'll here is our vote for the best sites in Curry Hammock, #8, #9 are the best with sites #11, #17 and #18 great alternatives. Really a nice park! Just small enough that you get to know a lot of the people and many are there for a full tow weeks and in the Keys for 6 weeks. Nice places to kayak and walk and on the windy days you can watch the kite boarders do their magic in front of you on the beach. You are also close to Marathon with it's quaint little restaurants and beach paraphernalia. Our last evening was spent on the beach gathered around a campfire listening to a guy playing a 12 string and singing oldies, very nice way to end our stay. But it was time for us to move on the see more of the parks in the Keys, so onto Bahia Honda.

Kayak adventures in Curry Hamock

This is a great place to spend a week. We took our first kayak adventure around the area, through the mangroves, ducking to avoid the branches and out into the Atlantic a mile to explore two sand spits. We can report sighting 5 baby Hammerhead Sharks, two rays, several species of fish and I must say, local people live very well along this stretch of beach as seen in the one little hut. We also have our first sunburn after 4 hours on the water.

Yesterday we drove into town for Happy Hour at Sparkys which included $1 tap beer, peel-and-eat shrimp and wings at $.25 each. Big juicy pink Florida Shrimp, yummmmm!

This morning Blue spotted a visitor to our site, a Black Racer snake. Non-venomous but a nasty bite if you get to close.

Full moon over Curry Hammock

Today was an easy drive to the middle of the Florida Keys. We are staying at Curry Hammock in the heart of Marathon Key, midway to the furthest point south in the US, Key West. This is a newer campground and without question, the nicest we have seen yet. A little more money than most state parks, but worth every penny. It was just pure luck that we got in here. We did not plan to drive to the Keys because the State Parks were booked full as far back as July when I first started looking. But I kept my eye on the sites in the Keys and a few weeks back a week opened up. Bouya! Three clicks on the internet and we had a reservation to Curry Hammock for one week and Bahia Honda for four days after that. BH is just a few Keys closer to Key West. Tonight we are enjoying a full moon on the beach.

Just a few more gators

We left Big Cypress today, driving through the eastern side of Everglades National Park with miles and miles of saw grass as far as the eye can see. This reminds me of the prairies out west but with a lot more humidity. In fact, they call many of the areas prairie. It was in the 80's with 91 percent humidity today after yesterdays rain. But before we headed out we took just a few additional photos of the locals enjoying the sun. The one is a photo of a gator that tangled with a car. Reminds me of a Larson cartoon.

Hot sun burning down, bloating gator under foot and friends flying in from a far... it just doesn't get any better than this (a little turkey vulture humor).

Gators Gators everywhere

Along the Tamaimi Trail that cuts across Florida through the Big Cypress National Preserve there is a canal that runs along the north side of the road. This canal is filled with birds, turtles, fish and alligators. Gators of all sizes can be found sunning along the banks just 10 feet from the road. At Midway State Park, we are 1/2 way across the preserve. The park had a campfire last night and one of the local rangers spoke about the area. He did a great job telling us the difference between the Everglades and Big Cypress. The Big Cypress is filled from rain water and varies from season to season where the Everglades are fed by overflow from Lake Okeechobee that makes it's way down through the everglades to the ocean. We also learned that this last year, the Florida Panther grew in numbers for the first time in a long time. There are almost 120. Sadly their biggest enemy is the automobile.

Blue is enjoying the open door on the rig these days but the photo shows him in his ridding spot (under my chair) as we travel down the road. As soon as we stop in a campground, he pokes his head out and seems to ask if it is OK to come out.

Big Cypress National Preserve

At more than 2,400 square miles, The "Big" refers to the extent of swamp, slash pine, mixed hardwood hammocks (tree islands) prairies, cypress and marshes. This subtropical wilderness is also home to unknown dangers including snakes, spiders an occasional bear and even panthers. It is also a birders paradise. We walked two trails (one in the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve and the other in the Ten Thousand Island National Wildlife Refuge)seeing several alligators and large numbers of Ibis, Egrets, Spoonbills, Herons and the list goes on and on. All of these sit next to the Everglades National Park. I had a great time and loved every minute!

Collier-Seminole State Park campground

The park was originally created by Barron Gift Collier to preserve the royal palm trees. In the 1700's Seminole Indians emigrated from the Creek Confederacy to Florida. The park is the site of the last existing dredge used to build the Tamiami Trail Highway linking Tampa and Miami.

Not a bad park but not our favorite with rigs one on top of another, but knowing what we know now, I would book a campsite in the tent area which have a good deal of space between camp sites. This is a great place from which to explore Marco Island, the Everglades and Big Cypress Preserve. We also had a nice day with Gary's uncle Paul who lives just 6 miles north of the State Park.