morning of the 18th. Traveling was smooth going until we got onto the Florida Turnpike. There was alot of construction around the Miami area and the people using the Turnpike in this area were not very friendly. On two separate occasions, we had to make dicey lane changes--once to get to the proper exits and then once to get into the proper toll lane. In both instances we found that people would rather pass on our right than wait a few seconds behind us while we moved into the right lane. Add poorly planned road construction to the shockingly selfish driving behavior and you have the recipe for a very stressful drive (note: we do not have pictures from this experience because Tara couldn't remove her fingers from the dashboard to pick up the camera).
Everything smoothed out once we got past the Miami area. We picked up US 1 in Florida City, FL for journey into the Keys. We crossed the Seven Mile Bridge (which Kevin actually measured out to be just under 7 miles; the old Seven Mile Bridge still runs along side it, but is not open to traffic...maybe it was really 7 miles long; in any case The Seven Mile Bridge sounds much better than The Just Under Seven Mile Bridge). While traveling along this bridge, we passed Pidgeon Key (the Pigeon Key Foundation maintains a museum and several of the original buildings here used by Henry Flagler during the construction of the original railroad bridge to the lower keys). Note the picture below is not one that we took, we copied it from Wikipedia :) 
We stayed at Boyd's Campground while in the Keys. Our campsite was located on a small peninsula. The space backed right up to the water. Below is an aerial view of the campground (retrieved from their website http://www.boydscampground.com/) along with an arrow pointing to our approximate location.
It started raining a bit right after we finished hooking up at the campsite. Kevin and 
Bacon were bummed; they had hoped to get out and walk around the little peninsula after setting up. They both sat and stared out the window as the rain poured down. The great thing about our time in the Keys is that although we had several afternoon thunderstorms, they passed quickly and left clear skies behind. On this day, Kevin and Bacon didn't have to wait very long for their walk.
Bacon was so facinated with the view that he spent hours
sitting on the bed and staring out at the water. From this vantage point, we could see the boats anchored in the little "harbor" behind us. In the picture to the right, Kevin tried to capture how beautiful the sunset was reflected by the water and the boats (unfortunatly, in the time that it took him to get the camera from the front of the RV, the most spectacular moments were past).
At one point during this trip a friend of ours asked to see more pictures of us enjoying our trip. You'll note in this picture, Kevin is quite relaxed and that for the first time, he is lounging outside of the RV reading, NOT a textbook, but a novel (The book is They Thirst by Robert McCammon...he writes very entertaining horror stories; this particular one is about vampires attepting to take over LA). Our RVing friends will tell you that for the past year and a half, Kevin was always packing text books on his camping trips. I think it is safe to say that those days are over. 
We made a couple of trips into "downtown" Key West. It was
a bit touristy, but the architecture of the homes and the atmosphere in the "old" section of town stirs an inate desire to quit our jobs and move to an island community. Our assumption is that once you slip into "island mode" everything is free, so there would be no 
need for continuous employement :) . We also made a quick visit 
to the Southern-most point in the US. It was surprisingly crowded--you would be amazed at the cheesy things that people will wait in a line to take pictures of (see our Day 1 posting). Not too far from this point, rests the Key West Lighthouse. As is apparent with all lighthouses, this one also has an interesting history. I'll leave the history lesson to the museum--(http://www.kwahs.com/lighthouse.htm). 
Two other notable sights--to us at least--was a docked
cruise ship and some of the local residents. These were a first for both of us. We'd never been that close to a cruise ship (a fact that Tara will no doubt use to remind Kevin that he still owes her a "right proper" honeymoon). They are HUGE! The picture doesn't convey the mamouth proportions of this ship. With respect to the resident wild-life, there were chickens everywhere! From the shops downtown to the parking lot of the local K-Mart (as seen in the picture above).As with all good things, our stay in Key West had to end eventually. This came on the morning of September 23rd. We departed early in the morning for the long drive to Kevin's brother's house in Zypherhills, FL.
We enjoyed our stay here almost as much as the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We'll close our Key West entry with a video. One morning during our stay, Kevin setup the camera early and got the following Sunrise video. The compression required to fit it up on the web takes alot out of the quality, but I think one can get the idea that it is much better to be sitting on the water, watching this rather than sitting at your desk in the office.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment