Travel Day to the Florida Keys

Sunshine Key, Florida
We left Midway campground about 9:30 for about a 160 mile trip down to the Keys.
There are two roads  east/west,  that cut through the Everglades.  One is I-75 which is also known as Alligator Alley.  We chose highway 41, because that is where Midway campground was. 
Highway 41 was only a one lane each road, but there were wide paved shoulders and the road was in good shape. 

That is, until we left Midway campground and the road was terrible.  There were several areas where their was construction and that slowed everything down.

We decided to take Alligator Alley on the way back and maybe try to find another campground for one night.
We could have taken highway 997/Krone Ave south, but we decided to stay on 41 a little longer and take the Florida turnpike to  south into the Keys.  Traffic got worse and of course that brought out all the bad drivers, but eventually we got on the turn pike heading south.
Once we got onto Highway 1, it was a straight shot into the Florida Keys, and and that point we slowed down, due to traffic.

Highway 1 in the Florida Keys is called the overseas highway, because it links together many small islands to form one long highway.
It’s a beautiful drive and something everyone should try and do.
Al and I found ourselves oohing and aahing all along the way.     It was a beautiful sunny day, so the water looked very pretty.

The pictures really don’t do it justice.  The water was so turquoise and pretty.


I had trouble getting good shots due to the glare on the glass and the little fans on the dash kept showing up in the photos.  I had to do a lot of re-sizing!

This next photo shows our view from the front window without cropping out the mirrors and sunshades.


The waters around the island of Islamorada seemed to be the prettiest….so far anyway.








It’s a beautiful drive, but there was a lot of traffic, so it was a bit stressful for Al.



No stress for Baxter.

It was a beautiful warm day and lots of people were out enjoying the weather and water.


Lots of bridges to cross.
We  ended up having to run the generator to be able to use the house air…it was definitely getting warmer!
We arrived at Sunshine Key Rv Resort and were pleased that it was easy to get into with a good place to park while we checked in.  The lady who checked us in (Meredith) was most helpful and gave us some options for campsites.  We asked about upgrading our site (maybe to ocean front?) but all those sites were full.  She gave us several sites to check out, but in the end, we went back to the original site they assigned us.   While checking the site out, the people next door came out and introduced themselves.  They were very nice so after checking for overhead clearance, how to get in and out and where the connections were, we decided this would be a good site.  We could pull in forward, but will have to back out when we leave.    We got the motorhome settled in and needed to trim some branches from the  Sea Grapes.  John our new neighbor had a pole trimmer that he got out for Al to use.  Like I said, very nice neighbors.  They have been coming here for 11 years so they know where to go and have already given us some suggestions.  Evidently we have a large Iguana that lives in the Sea Grapes.  We haven’t seen him yet, but we did see this one on the side of the road. 

I’m sure we’ll see lots of Iguana’s while we are here as they are all over the place.  I remember reading stories (maybe last year) when they had a cold front.  The headline was “Iguanas dropping from trees.”  It seems they got so cold they couldn’t hang on.  
There is definitely a tropical feel here in the Keys.  The weather is much warmed (hot) and humid, and the plants are more tropical.  The Christmas decorations have a more tropical theme to them as well. 
The campground is full with snowbirds but also many people that are probably going to be here until school starts back.  I hope so anyway, there are way too many kids flying around on bikes, skateboards and motorized scooters.  We almost hit one..or I should say, one almost hit us!
We were exhausted last night and both fell asleep early.  It rained for a few minutes and got a little windy, so I put the awning in before we went to bed.
When we got up this morning, I noted a weather alert on my phone stating “tornado warning in Key West”.   Yikes!!!!   Tornado warning…that couldn’t be. Not  a watch…but a warning!   I put on the weather radio and nothing was happening.  I figured it must have been a mistake but after checking online I read where a waterspout (tornado over water) had formed and was heading inland.
Al said he heard if rain for a little while overnight but didn’t notice any bad winds.  I’m sure glad I put the awning in though!  I don’t know why our weather radio didn’t sound last night.  It appeared to be working just fine.   I really don’t like to sleep through bad weather.  I’d much rather stay up and worry!
The weather last night was from a “cold front” that finally got into Florida and even as far down as the   Keys.
The temperature is only going to get up to the 70’s today…which is a good 10 degrees cooler than it was yesterday.  It will start to warm back up in the next few days, but we may not get the mid 80’s like before.
We like it here and I have a feeling they’ll have to drag us out kicking and screaming!

Gators, Birds, and a Florida Panther?

Ochopee, Florida

We left the Tampa area around 8:30 am on Monday…a record for us. 

Our plan was to go about 230 miles and try to find a campsite in the Everglades, along Highway 41.  There are a few campgrounds, but they are first come, first serve, so we didn’t know if we would be able to get a site or not.  Fortunately, we did.

We spent Monday night at Midway Campground, in site 18.  We had 50 amp electric, but no water or sewer.  Actually they have a spigot where you can get fill your tank, but no water at the campsites.  It was okay, because we traveled with a full tank of water, anticipating we’d be staying there.  The cost with Al’s Senior Pass was $10.00.  

It was a nice campground, but out in the middle of nowhere.  It would be a great place to spend a few days.  There was a lot to do in the area.  We’d love to go back and take an airboat trip into the glades, and do some more exploring.

It was so dark last night, that you couldn’t see anything except lots of stars.

Here is a picture of our campsite.

The road  and sites were all paved. 

There is a small pond, and the sites are all situated along the pond.  The campground is nice, but it’s main attraction was being in the everglades.  

We were in the middle of the Everglades and there were alligators everywhere.  All along highway 41, there are canals along the side of the road, and all were full of gators.   The ecosystem seems to be extremely healthy.  There were birds everywhere. The canals were full of fish, gators and birds.  Driving along the highway was a wonderful experience.  It wasn’t a good place to stop and take pictures though.  There were several visitor centers where you could view the wildlife.   I would have loved to gotten some pictures of the birds sitting in the trees along side the road, but it’s a 2 lane road with enough traffic to make it unsafe to stop along the road.

I have never seen so many Anhinga’s.

I have also never seen so many gators.

They were all along the canals that ran alongside the roadway.

We stopped at a visitor center, where you could stand on a boardwalk and view them from above.  There were a lot of foreign tourists and very little English being spoken. The everglades appears to be a big tourist draw.

After we left the visitor center, we took a driving trail and shortly after starting the trail, we saw what we thought was a Florida Panther.  I didn’t get a good shot and he disappeared into the woods, but this is what I saw.  I was disappointed I didn’t get a better picture, but what I saw looked very much like a panther.  It was large and it wasn’t a dog.  It had the shape of a cat.

A little while later, we saw a small snake curled up in the middle of the road.  Of course, Al had to get out and poke it, to get it out of the road.  He thought it may have been hit by a car, but he wanted to at least attempt to help it get to safety.

There was no arguing with him!

You  can see his fangs if you look carefully. He thought it might have been a Pygmy Rattler.   Wonderful!

We  found a few other places to stop and look at gators.  This place had a pile of 9 gators…all big boys!

I don’t know what was wrong with this ones mouth.  It may have had an injury.

 

It is extremely dangerous to feed alligators, even small ones.  It’s against the law and there are signs all over, telling you not to do it.

Once they lose their fear of man, they are dangerous.

There are always people who want to feed them and we ran into a family that had hot dogs that they were feeding the small gators.  I think they might have been from Brazil and only the woman spoke much English.  I think I educated her in why they shouldn’t feed gators.  I hope so anyway.

Here is a “swamp buggy.”  They use these to travel in the everglades.  I guess they are hunters.

This gator appeared to be making eye contact.

The water was teeming with fish.  No one went hungry!

The Everglades is truly a beautiful place.  We had driven through it years ago, but always in a hurry to get to the Keys.  We felt lucky to have had some time to explore it a little bit.  Boy were there a lot of birds.  We hope to be able to go back and spend a few more days.  Winter is the time to go though.  It was pretty warm yesterday and we ended up running the a/c all night long.  No mosquitos though.   We got lucky.

We got up early today and went looking for that panther….but we never saw him again.

It was then time to head towards the Keys.  More on that tomorrow, but we are in the Keys and and it was a beautiful drive.  We think we’re going to love it here!