04/09-14/2012

Arrived at the Miami Everglades RV Park on Monday afternoon.  It's a nice campground, with the majority of campers being here long term.  Got settled in, watched a little TV, and hit the sack.  Tuesday we toured the lower section of the Everglades.  It's getting into the "dry" season now, so we saw lots of big turtles, fish, and even a (baby) aligator in the swamp set up around the visitor's center.  He was only about 3'-4' long and very quick, so we didn't see him for long! We want to see more of the park, so our plan is to visit another part of it this weekend.


Wednesday morning we headed south to the Florida Keys.  It was a beautiful ride, surrounded by blue/green water for the biggest part of it.  We started out on Route 1 in Miami, and drove it all the way to the end in Key West.  It's the southernmost point in the US, and Route 1 begins and ends there.

We went over a 7-mile long bridge, and I lost track of how many other bridges.  But as you can imagine, there's very little land once you leave Florida.  It was about a 3 hour drive.  We had decided to leave the camper at the RV Park in Miami, not knowing for sure what travel would be like, and I'm glad we did, at least this time.  As it turns out, it probably wouldn't have been a problem for the majority of the trip, but once we got into Key West, it got pretty hectic.  We got a nice room at the Navy Lodge at Trumbo Point, and it's a great location to see everything in Key West.

We found (once again by accident) the "old" section of Key West, and we really enjoyed it.  Took the Trolley Sightseeing Tour this morning, and then came back to the room to rest this afternoon.  LOTS of walking, once we finished the trolley tour.  We had planned to go back tonight to see the area at night, but wanted to watch the sunset on the water, so we went to the club at nearby NAS Sigsby as it overlooks the water.  Turned out we had a couple of drinks and some snacks, met some nice people, enjoyed the sunset, and decided to stay for a while.

We drove back to Miami yesterday.  It was a beautiful day.  I saw another small alligator crossing the road - that's about as close as I want to get.  We had planned to leave this morning for another section of the everglades, but the weather turned ugly (lots of rain), so we decided to stay here another day and head out in the morning.