We got off the cruise and headed back to Peace River campground where the Journey was stored for the week. We stayed there that night and headed for the Florida Keys the next morning. The word "key" means "island." We were so excited that we have an ROD park in the keys and were planning on walking on the beach every day! RIGHT! The keys have no beaches with sand on them, unless the sand is imported. There are coral reefs about four miles out and this prevents the waves from bringing in sand to the beaches, so most of them are very rocky or have rock sea walls all along them to keep the erosion in control.. The Upper Keys islands are remnants of large coral reefs, which became fossilized and exposed as sea level declined. The Lower Keys are composed of sandy-type accumulations of limestone grains produced by plants and marine organisms (info taken from Wikipedia.)
It was amazing to travel on the overseas highway. Lots of times there is water on both sides of you--on the left is the Atlantic Ocean and on the right is the Gulf of Mexico. We crossed over a long bridge and there was our park on the Fiesta Key and we could see it on a little island, almost surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico.
Fiesta Key Campground is in our ROD system, so after paying our yearly dues of $149/year, it is one of almost 100 parks we get to stay at no charge. We met a couple who were staying there in a "public" status and they thought they got a pretty good deal at $700/week!
The entrance to the park was really pretty, with all of the palm trees. It seemed like we were in a foreign country instead of in the States.
The colors of the club house and other buildings were pretty wild, but they really blended in with the trees and plants.
The swimming pool was above because the ground is so hard and rocky that it is difficult to dig deep holes.
Again, we got a great site, backed up to the trees, with a palm tree. It was pretty close to other RVs, but we didn't spend too much time at home.
Our site was very close to the water. When you stepped out in the road in front of the Journey, this was the scene in front of us--the gulf of Mexico.
There was a gazebo at "Sunset Point" just down from us and every night campers would group there with their drinks and snacks and watch the sunset. It was only about six or seven sites down the road from us and we went there most of the nights we were there.
We had to do laundry one day. It was an open-air laundry room, right on the marina. While we were sitting there, we actually saw a stingray in the water. We were told that there was a local mama and baby manatee and also a couple of large sea turtles, but we never saw them.
I got kind of warm so I sat in a boat slip and put my feet in the water, hoping a stingray or some other sea creature didn't come nibble at my toes!
There were a lot of pelicans along the dock area. They liked it when the fishermen came in and cleaned their fish at the fish cleaning stations.
We took a day trip to Key West, the southern-most key. Our campground is at mile post 70 and Key West is at mile post 1. This is a picture of the 7-mile bridge. It is the longest of the bridges on the overseas highway. The next longest one is 3 miles. We were told that there are 42 bridges in the 100 miles of the keys.
This is the marker at the southern most spot of Florida. We didn't get off of the trolley tour we were on to get a picture of us in front of it because the line was too long, so I didn't get a very good picture of it. It is only 90 miles to Cuba from the marker and, on a very clear day, you can actually see Cuba.
The cemetery in Key West is all above ground. We thought it was because of the water table, but we were told that it is because the ground is too hard to dig in, being coral and rock.
Key West is the largest city in the keys, with a population of 32% of the entire keys, which is about 95,500, and is really a tourist city, with lots of museums and shops. There were two cruise ships that were there on a stop the day we went, which put over 4,000 more tourists on the streets that day. This is a big stature in front of the Museum of Art and History.
This is a banyan tree. A lot of its root system is above ground, probably because the soil is not very deep in the keys.
Harry S. Truman spent a lot of time in Key West when he was the President. He spent some working vacations there, so they dubbed this building the Little White House. The government owned a big area, with a lot of beautiful homes on it, but has since been sold to private sector and most of them are rented out as time shares or condos to tourists.
This building used to be the military hospital. There is a law in Key West that no building can be torn down. If it is damaged in a storm or anything, it has to be restored. If the building has a gold star on it, it means that it has been totally restored to its original state on the outside. If there is also a plaque under the star it means that the inside of the building is also original or has been restored to the original condition. And, there can be no new buildings built in the older part of Key West.
We had a great lunch at the Blue Fish. Terry didn't expect his hamburger to be quite so big!
There was one beach that we found that actually had some white sand on it (imported, of course.) It was at Anne's Beach and it was a public beach and was free! The whole beach had a boardwalk along it, mostly in the trees, and every little ways it had these picnic areas. They filled up fast so one day we got there early enough to claim one for the day. We brought our lunch and lounge chairs and had a great time.
I found this really cool shell that was about three inches long. It had a large hermit crab in it. I gave it to some little boys who were playing on the beach. They had a great time with it and their dad made them put it back in the water when they left "so the crab would be happy."
The water was very shallow. You had to walk out a long ways before the water was over your knees, but we had a good time just wading in the warm water. We didn't get to do any snorkeling while we were in the keys, which we were hoping to do. Most of the snorkeling is done from boats about four miles out where the Florida reef is located.
There is a lot of private land along the road where there is enough land to build houses. A lot of the homes are build on "stilts" with a garage on the bottom. At times during the storms, there is water clear across the roads and most everywhere.
There was a house that was just down from our campground that was unfinished. It kind of had it's own little island, except for the driveway from the road. There was actually a film company filming that area for a couple of days, so maybe we will see it in a movie some day. It would be a beautiful place to live. I asked Terry if he would buy it for me and he said, "Sure." So, some day we may come back to the Florida Keys and invite all of our friends to come visit us in our beautiful home!
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