Our drive on Wednesday (Feb. 19th) was smooth and uneventful, taking us South to Highway 1, which becomes the Overseas Highway through the Florida Keys. We stopped for lunch at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park; we stretched our legs in their visitor center and by the beach.

The Overseas Highway is 113 miles from Key Largo to Key West; our campground is at mile marker 39, putting it about 2/3 of the way out and 39 miles from Key West. It’s on “Ohio Key”, has a “Big Pine Key” mailing address, and is called “Sunshine Key RV Resort”. So confusing…talk about an identity crisis! Our campground is literally the only thing on Ohio Key, and it’s a huge place. About 400 RV sites, plus a marina and lots of amenities. Apparently, Verizon doesn’t think it’s an important place because they have zero coverage here. There’s a cell tower on the campground property, but it’s all AT&T.

Back in August when I planned this trip, it was really challenging to find a campground in the Keys. Most that I looked at required a seasonal stay where you had to be there for at least two or three months. It wasn’t easy finding a place that would let me book just a week! And, this is by far the most expensive campground we’ve ever stayed at – the nightly rate is over $200, compared to our average which is closer to $60/night. I guess that’s what happens when you have a limited amount of land and lots of people wanting to visit.

We didn’t do much Thursday morning, and in the afternoon we decided to explore the area surrounding the campground. We started at the National Key Deer Refuge Nature Center. Key Deer are a relative of the white-tailed deer, and they are found only in the Keys. They’re endangered and much is being done to protect them. The volunteer at the nature center recommended a few places where we might see some deer, so we headed out in search of them. As we were driving to the first site, there was a group of four deer in the yard of a home…I wasn’t able to get a picture, unfortunately, but we did see them and can verify that they do exist! We also saw a crocodile at the Blue Hole Observation Deck.

Our next stop was Bahia Honda State Park. One of the highlights of this park is the old Bahia Honda Railroad Bridge, so we walked a couple of paths to see it and get some photos. The bridge was built in 1912 as part of Henry Flagler’s (same guy who was so instrumental in St. Augustine’s growth) efforts to connect Florida to the rest of the East coast with the East Coast Railway. In 1938, the original Overseas Highway was built on top of the railroad bridge until the current highway was built in the 1970s.

From there, we took a walk on the Silver Palm Nature Trail which was full of a huge variety of plants and trees, including the Silver Palm – Bahia Honda has more Silver Palms than anywhere in the US. And, of course, we had to dip our toes in the water, on the ocean side. The water was 79 degrees, according to the sign at the park entrance…it felt really refreshing!

Friday was our first trip into Key West. We started our time there with the “World Famous Conch Tour Train” – it was just over an hour and our wonderful guide and Key West native shared so much history and interesting stories about the area. One of the most interesting stories is that the Florida Keys seceded from the United States in 1982, after a border patrol roadblock wreaked havoc. They became the “Conch Republic” and their unofficial motto is “We seceded where others failed”.

After our train tour, we headed to the Little White House where several Presidents have spent time. Harry Truman was particularly fond of Key West and worked from this property often. It’s on the site of a Naval Base.

We spent some time on Duval Street, the heart of Key West, enjoying all of the unique places…bars, restaurants, shops, galleries. Duval Street is often called the longest street in the world, because it starts at the Gulf of Mexico and ends at the Atlantic Ocean – but it’s only about a mile and you can walk from one end to the other in less than 30 minutes! One gallery caught my eye, as it was filled with bright and creative paintings featuring the Peanuts characters which I’ve always loved. Turns out, the artist, Tom Everhart, is the only fine artist trained by Charles Schulz and he has been granted full rights to use the characters in his works. I fell in love with these pieces – so cheery and fun!

We had an early dinner at Fogarty’s on Duval Street, and then went back to the gallery because I had decided one of the paintings would be a wonderful souvenir of Key West. Turns out the guy we spoke with misquoted the price by quite a bit. I know people make mistakes, but I held my ground and ended up getting it for the price he had quoted me. And the artist was going to be at the gallery that evening, so I left it for him to sign on the back, and told them we’d return in the next few days to retrieve it. I’ve never bought an original piece of art from a gallery before – very exciting!

We made a quick stop at Kermit’s Key Lime Pie Shop – when in Key West…must have pie! It was definitely tart – authentic, I guess! With that, we headed back to the truck and swung down to what is most likely the most-photographed spot in Key West, the “Southernmost Point” buoy, so I could grab a quick photo. The line to take a picture with the buoy was quite long…just as it had been earlier in the day when we drove by on the train tour…but I snuck up and got my shot in between people. From there, we made the 1-hour drive back to the campground. Just a wonderful day in Key West!

There’s a flea market not far from our campground, so we wandered around there for a bit on Saturday morning. It was a good one – lots of variety and bargains, but I guess we didn’t need anything! In the afternoon, we drove about 10 miles to Marathon, to visit the Turtle Hospital. It’s a wonderful place that cares for and rehabilitates sick and injured sea turtles from all over Florida. We learned about the various types of sea turtles, the reasons they usually end up in the hospital, and the process they go through to hopefully return to the wild. Far too many are hospitalized because they ingest things like plastic bags and straws, and then need help to pass those through their system. Some have tumors, and some are struck by boats. We saw so many turtles and heard their stories. Thank goodness a place like this exists to care for them!

On our way back to the campground, as we drove over the seven-mile bridge (longest of the bridges in the Keys), we had a nice view of Fred the Tree and his friend Randi. They oddly grow out of the old seven-mile bridge.

On Sunday, it was back to Key West for a glass-bottom boat tour of the world’s third largest living coral reef. We had debated if we should do this – last time we did a glass-bottom boat tour was in the Caribbean back in the late 90s and neither of us felt great. But, we knew this was a much larger boat, with a top deck for fresh air and an air conditioned lower deck, so we decided to give it a try. Then, we watched the weather closely to plan it for the day with the lowest winds, and that turned out to be Sunday. Before the boat tour, we hung out at Mallory Square, the place that celebrates the sunset every night in Key West, and I walked through Bust Park which is full of busts of people important to the history of Key West.

Our two-hour tour started at noon, and the captain shared that they hadn’t been able to be on the water the two prior days due to the windy conditions, and this was their first trip of the day, so she wasn’t sure how it would be, but warned it could be rough going and gave us all a final chance to bow out and get our money back…but we decided to stay, and take the Dramamine we brought with us. It was about a 30-minute trip out to the reef, and we spent about 30 minutes anchored above it. We spent a few minutes on the lower deck enjoying the view and then we both needed some air, so back to the top deck. After a few minutes, I went back down and found a seat, and that worked much better for my stomach! It was very cool to see the many fish and hard and soft coral. We didn’t see any large marine life, unfortunately, but still a neat experience!

We headed back to the art gallery to pick up my signed painting, and UGH, they ‘accidentally’ transferred it to St. Petersburg that morning, thinking they needed to ship it out (even though I told them I’d pick it up multiple times!). So we talked through all the possibilities, and settled on us picking it up in Winter Park which is just North of Orlando, while we are in that area in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed it gets to Winter Park without any issue. So frustrating.

On our way out of Key West, we stopped at the Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden. We wandered through and saw more of the beautiful Florida greenery and some palm tree varieties we haven’t seen before.

On the drive back, the Dramamine hit me and I was exhausted (and we took the “less drowsy” formula, too!) for the rest of the day. We did manage, as tired as we were, to head down to the campground’s marina to see the sunset – we haven’t had much sun during our visit, so it was really our first opportunity, and we didn’t want to miss out. It was over trees, not directly over the water, so it was good but not as spectacular as it would have been over the water!

Monday it rained. All day. Ugh. But that’s okay, we knew it was going to, so we hadn’t planned anything except laundry…but even finding a time to get to the laundromat was tricky with the heavy rain. We finally braved it and headed out early afternoon; while we were at the laundromat, the rain finally let up. Some roads in our campground are practically flooded…no drainage at all!

For our last full day in the Keys, we returned to Key West one final time. Our first stop was the Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, where we toured the fort which dates back to 1866. It served the Union during the Civil War (while the rest of Florida was part of the Confederacy) and was also vital during the Spanish-American War. Touring this fort was our ‘next-best-option’ – our first choice would have been to visit Fort Jefferson at Dry Tortugas National Park, which lies about 70 miles West of Key West…but it’s one of the most remote National Parks, and you can only get there via ferry or seaplane. After researching the options and costs, we decided against it. I find old forts to be incredibly photogenic, and love taking pictures of them!

From the fort, we headed over to Ernest Hemingway’s home for a tour. It’s a beautiful two-story home with lots of windows, surrounded by lush greenery and the largest residential swimming pool in the Keys. Oh, and there are cats. So. Many. Cats. There are chickens everywhere else in Key West, and here, there are nearly 60 six-toed cats, descended from a cat that was given to Hemingway while he lived there. Our tour guide was wonderful, and we learned so much about Hemingway’s time in Key West and the history of the home.

And that brought us to the end of our time in Key West – it’s scenic, it’s historic, and it’s quirky…what else could you ask for? Here’s one final photo of a gorgeous orchid growing out of a tree in Old Town, Key West.