The brochure for Long Key State Park has the statement on the front: “Your Home in the Florida Sun”. Our mobile motel home looks just like the one that we’ve been in for the last several weeks but when we open the door here – the view is way better than most and the sun IS shining! SPFB!! When we drove down here about 5 years ago when H’s dear Aunt Ruth passed away, we stopped here at the park and had a picnic lunch. Back then, I took a picture of the brightly colored kayaks and the wonderful view of the ocean. The kayaks are still here and we are definitely enjoying the ocean views still. There are 60 campsites in the park and each one backs up to the ocean. Talk about pretty sunrises! Each site is separated by thick green walls of mangrove, palmetto bushes and even morning glory vines in bloom and finished off with a low split rail fence. To the east side of the fence is a low dune – and then the gentle lapping waves on the small beach – when the tide is in! When the tide is out – the beach is 20 feet wider and spattered with rocks and bobbing little shore birds. Today, H even saw an Osprey fly over with a fish clasped in his talons.
Once we were parked and all set up last Friday, H called B&B who were parked in an RV Resort down the road a few mile markers. On the highway from the beginning of the Keys the miles are marked by “mm” and count down. Key Largo starts at 100; Key West is 0 at the other end. We are at mile marker 67.5. We invited B&B to go out for seafood and of course, B had to drive and H navigated. We found our favorite “hole in the wall”, back road restaurant/fish market, Castaways. We were seated on their enclosed patio, right by the boat dock for our dinner. The seafood was still good but the prices – not so much anymore.
These last two days have gone by quickly. We’ve kept busy by exploring the rest of the park, reading, me knitting, H napping and both of us walking the long narrow beach – ALL done in the warm sun and ocean breezes. Saturday we rode our bikes north a couple of miles and investigated a few small residential streets, all of which had boat channels as back yards. Today we rode them south to, over and back over the Marathon Bridge, a 3-mile long bridge that gently arches as a divider over the turquoise blue waters of the ocean and Gulf of Mexico. The “old” bridge, intact and right next to the one for auto traffic, is now for fishing, pedestrian and bike traffic, as well as being perches for big gray pelicans and long graceful white herons.
Monday morning, on the way down a few more Keys, we stopped for breakfast at The Stuffed Pig before pulling into Bahia Honda State Park between mm 36 & 37 and is divided by hwy 1. SPFB for pictures of the Flagler Bridge and the minivan going under the highway showing that the bridge height was 6 ft 8 inches! A beautiful day to walk the beach, however – since there have been several storms in the area lately – the shores were lined with thick blankets of shredded seaweed that had been washed up, wave after wave onto the beach. No snorkeling here either. Since R&N were on their way to a KOA park that was down at mm 20 – H decided we should go see if they were there yet. We were just getting nicely caught up when the sky grew charcoal gray and the lightening started flashing. We took refuge in the Laundromat area, along with several campers who had the misfortune of being tent campers! When the deluge let up, we ran to our vehicles and went out to dinner at Mangrove Mama’s – just up on the highway. Have you gotten the drift of the restaurant names down here? Tomorrow we’ll drive down to Key West.
