The Spectacular Florida Keys

I’ve always been a little dubious of the phrase It’s the journey, not the destination. Mostly “journeys” consist of an exercise in how much discomfort you can tolerate. But the Florida Keys might be the place to change my mind.

The Overseas Highway extends from the last vestiges of mainland Florida to Key West, a thin line drawn over azure blue waters. Driving through a dozen or more keys all connected by bridges is just a stunning experience that took our breath away on multiple occasions.

We arrived at Bahia Honda State Park just after 3 p.m. and had the challenge of backing up into our site in the Sandspur Camping Area. The park is one of the most sought-after campgrounds in the Keys as it’s much more affordable than the $100- to $150-a-night private campgrounds. And it’s located on some of the nicest beaches in the Keys. Reservations are usually snatched up seconds after they go live, and it took multiple tries to get a site. We had to alter our schedule to accommodate the days we got.

Sandspur is the newer campground in the park and was designed for vehicles under 22 feet. Our trailer is 26 feet long, but the sites seemed plenty big to accommodate it. What I didn’t factor in was the access to the site. The road was narrow and necessitated a tight turn to back the trailer into its site. But once we got settled, we took a long walk on a picturesque sand beach, and the stress of trying to park the trailer melted away.

The following morning we drove over to Long Key State Park, where we hiked a mile-long nature trail that was frankly a bit underwhelming. Afterwards, we launched our canoe in the protected waters of the park’s lagoon. Although it was high tide, the water was just a few inches deep at the launch. We ran aground pretty quickly and I tried to help by stepping out of the canoe. Not only did I almost tip the craft over nearly sending Mrs. 123 into the water, but I sank into the silt a good six inches. I pulled up my sandal covered in muck and had to take a minute to clean it off again.

But we finally got out of the shallows and paddled our way into the deeper middle of the lagoon. The lagoon has a sort of paddling trail, marked with interpretative signs. We paddled from one to another, checking out jellyfish and other marine life, learning about what makes this ecosystem tick. The lagoon is a breeding site for horseshoe crabs, and we spied a small one plying the waters close to shore.

Our foldable canoe is definitely a conversation starter. People ask us about it when we’re setting it up or putting it away. After a few paddles, we’ve decided it doesn’t quite measure up to a real canoe, but having something that fits into our truck bed is worth the trade-off. Without it, we might not have done any paddling yet on our trip.

After getting the canoe packed up, we drove to the beach area of the park, where we enjoyed a picnic lunch with a lovely view.

The following day was supposed to be the chilliest of our eight days in the Keys, so we decided to do the only indoor activity we had planned, a visit to the Turtle Hospital in Marathon. At $35, the price of admission is steep, but it was fascinating to see the injuries turtles incur and how the hospital treats them. And the money goes to a good cause.

We saw turtles recovering from two of the most common ailments the hospital sees. One is a buoyancy problem the staff colloquially calls “bubble butt syndrome.” It occurs when a turtle is struck by a boat and the impact deforms the shell.The deformations cause air pockets to form causing the turtle to permanently float on the surface. The hospital treats these turtles by glueing weights on their shells to counteract the buoyancy issue and allow the turtle to dive. But even this isn’t a permanent solution as the weight will eventually come off.

The other common condition is fibropapilloma, an aggressive herpes-like virus that can cause tumors to grow on soft tissue. Although the tumors are benign, they can interfere with movement and sight. Staff at the hospital can remove those tumors with a CO2 laser, and eventually the turtle will develop antibodies to the virus.

The hospital has a number of large and small tanks for both recovering turtles and those who are too damaged to be released into the wild. Touring the facility provides an up close view of the various types of turtles found in the keys, and a chance to feed the permanent residents.

Back at the campsite, we walked a mile and a half to the other side of the state park, and up onto a remnant of the old overseas highway bridge to view our first Keys sunset. It’s not an experience you soon forget.

We spent the next day on a boat trip to Dry Tortugas National Park, but I’ll do a separate blog post about that. On Saturday, we ran a few errands and drove down to Robbie’s Marina on Islamorada. The place is a popular restaurant and bar, but it’s claim to fame is the tarpon feeding. Tarpon are prehistoric looking fishing that can grow as big as 8 feet in length. For $5, Robbie’s will sell you a bucket of fish that you can feed to the tarpon by dangling the fish just above the surface of the water and letting go as the tarpon emerge from the water to eat it. It’s a startling experience made all the more difficult by the pelicans stalking nearby to try to steal your fish. I advised Mrs. 123 to stamp her feet and chase the nearest pelican away, only have to have the pelican bite her twice on the leg. I ended up getting a small cut on my hand from the fish.

We drove back to take showers and meet my good friend Roman, who happened to be in Miami Beach this month and drove out to meet us. We hopped on our bikes to ride out to the bridge for the sunset, and then after a dinner that Roman brought for us, headed out into the night for a stargazing event at the state park.

Sunday started out with rain, but watching the radars, we were able to time our drive to arrive in Key West just as the storms subsided. We walked around the harbor, past Sunset Pier and into Mallory Square, but it was still early and most of the Key West crew was still in bed. 

We wanted to get the traditional photo at the buoy marking the southernmost point of the continental U.S., and walked past the Little White House used by President Harry Truman, and alongside Ernest Hemingway’s house. The seas were rough that day, like an old man trying to send back soup, and people posing by the buoy were routinely splashed by the waves as they posed for their photos. We opted not to wait in line to get a photo standing next to the marker, but stood a bit to the side, and snapped a few pics in between the more patient people.

We returned to the car via the infamous Duval Street, Key West’s answer to New Orleans’ Bourbon Street. It was getting close to noon and the street was already starting to liven up. There was a pub crawl later that day for people wearing onesies, and we saw a fair amount of people walking in thick furry costumes despite the warm southern sun.

We had brought some sandwiches for lunch and found a park bench alongside the marina. Afterward, we drove over to Fort Zachary Taylor and toured the remnants of the fortifications, a sister fort to the one at Dry Tortugas. We hiked a short nature trail and drove back to our campsite, for dinner and game night.

We had planned to paddle out to Indian Key the next day, but the weather wasn’t cooperating. We eventually drove up the Key Deer Refuge in hopes of spying some of the miniature deer, but the refuge is closed Monday and Tuesday. We drove up to the Blue Hole, a former limestone quarry that had filled with water that attracts wildlife. A male and female alligator were resting right below the viewing platform, making us question whether they were real. It was all a little too convenient.

We then drove up to nature trail, but hadn’t gotten more than a quarter mile down the path before the rains opened up. We decided to turn back and buy some salmon and steaks to grill for dinner.

The following day was Mrs. 123’s birthday, and once again conditions were too rough to paddle over to Indian Key. But it wasn’t raining so we headed back to the nature trails we hadn’t finished the day before. After a quick lunch, we threw our bikes in the back of the truck and drove over to the 7-mile bridge. The structure is the remnant of the original overseas railroad that had been damaged by a hurricane in 1935 and sold to the state of Florida and converted into a road three years later. Eventually, the road was rebuilt over new bridges alongside the original railroad bridges. Portions of the old route, including the 7-mile bridge were repurposed for walking and cycling. We biked down a 2.2-mile segment of the bridge into a fierce headwind to Pigeon Key, a five-acre island that served as a home base for railroad workers pushing the route out to Key West. But admission to the key was $15 a person, so we decided to snap some pictures from the bridge and head back.

We then rode our bikes into Marathon and stopped in at a bar for conch fritters, tuna nachos and some drinks. Back at the campsite, I took Roman’s kayak for a spin on the water, getting drenched by the waves before I even pulled away from the shore. But the water was warm and the kayak sheltered me a bit from the winds. It was a fun paddle even if I didn’t last too long.

We finished off the night with a birthday dinner at Castaways, each of us ordering a fish we had never had before and then tasting each other’s choices. We got rushed to leave the table as someone had reservations there at 6:30 p.m. but the waitress knowing it was Mrs. 123’s birthday, gave us two pieces of Key Lime pie and some sort of caramel cheesecake which we ate outdoors. Roman headed back to Miami from the restaurant, while we spend another night in the Keys, then headed back to the mainland in the morning.

Days: 32

Miles traveled: 4090

Next stop: Dry Tortugas National Park