Key Largo to Cedar Key

       We left the Everglades and drove further south to Key Largo  which is the most northern of the Florida Keys.  The weather was gorgeous, clear and in the 80s, but I am not sure that I could take the humidity for long.  Every thing is wet; you, your neighbor, your clothes, your furniture, your food, your husband, your pets, etc., etc., etc.  I learned that the geography of the Keys really does not create many beaches.  The islands are actually old exposed coral reefs that used to be under water.  This creates a white sandy base for everything, but when I think of sand, I think of sifting, movable stuff.  This was actually quite hard.  You can't scoot around in it while you are sitting to create a comfy hole any more than you can get a board to shift its composition.  I also learned that really everything in Florida is not human friendly.  You can't swim in fresh water because of the alligators.  You can't swim in salt water because of the Portuguese Man-of-Wars, unless you swim behind some sort of barrier.  When you walk on the land, you must beware of the snakes.  AND even some of the trees are poisonous.  There are poisonwood trees which have bark and leaves that are toxic to skin and similar to poison ivy.  If you stand under one in the rain, even the run off water is poisonous.  There is also a bush called a manzeneel which is so toxic it can kill you! If you walk in the grass, you get painful burrs in your toes and clothing.  Maybe we should give Florida back to the Spanish.  Key Largo is fairly crowded with lots of escaping northerners.  RV parks are generally so jam packed together than you feel like a small child in a huge crowd.  Out our back window, 3 feet away is another rig.  Out the side windows, three feet away are two more rigs, and out the front, 3 feet away is a road.  Everybody has a dog or two or three (including us) and one is always barking. (And I won't even address the flea situation!) Not my cup of tea!   The Keys are so narrow that there is only one main road to goes the entire distance and that road is also the location of most commercial activity.  Addresses not only include a number, but also a mile marker number, and frankly, the mile marker numbers are what make it easy to locate them.    We stayed at a State Park which wasn't quite as crowded as the private parks.  We did have a picnic table and almost 4 feet between sites.  The Keys are beautiful and I am not suggesting that one should not see them.  Just don't expect to see me there.



The beaches LOOK inviting!

                                                   

We didn't come prepared with beach chairs.  See the barrier out there so you can swim?

More barrier.

Manatees can't come inside the barriers however!

Lurking.  Waiting for the unsuspecting swimmer.

Really, who would be stupid enough to molest an alligator?

Bridge to Key Largo.

We left Key Largo and drove across Florida to the Gulf Coast.  We crossed by following the northern border of the Everglades National Park and then passed through the Big Cypress National Preserve.  The drive was beautiful and the swamps fascinating as long as we didn't put a toe in the water.  And we never got higher than 3 feet above sea level as we traveled in a very straight line!   The southern gulf coast is made up of a lot of islands and again, not too many sandy beaches.

    We traveled to a small funky little town named Cedar Keys.  It is located on some islands and about 30 miles from the main highway.  We are staying at a funky little motel and RV park, named the Low Key Hide-a-Way, that has 4 RV sites and all of them back up to the water.  There is one other large RV park in town, and several condos and motels, but none of them are the big grandiose resorts one would find in much of Florida.  Cedar Key used to be a major port with much shipping between New Orleans (and the Mississippi)  and Cedar Key.  There was a railroad that then took products inland and north.  Faber pencils had a factory here until they decimated the red cedar trees, and there were some broom and brush manufacturers that used palm fiber at one time.  Now the only industries appear to be aquaculture and tourism.
    The operators of the "resort" we are in spent three years traveling in a trailer much like ours and have then been in Cedar Key for a year.  They also kept a blog about their travels entitled "everymilesamemory.com".    I took the dogs on a nature trail that follows the old train right-of-way.  The trail goes for one-half mile and then ends where there is a pile of oyster shells deep enough to stay dry on top of lots of mud-flat silt.  I sat down and then first, Bernie began barking and growling at some old pilings standing in the water, sure that they were going to attack and eat us all.  Then Louie, unsure of what was so dangerous but having no doubt that something was extremely dangerous or Bernie wouldn't be barking that way, jumped into my lap and tried to get even closer than that!  Then, right when I got Bernie calmed down and I was distracted, Louie went and jumped, as only a puppy can, into the silt.  He sunk a good six inches and stopped like a statute.  He looked at me like, "now what do I do?" and I was really dreading having to go in after him!  But he did manage to drag himself out.  Louie is normally white, but when he got out, he was black on the lower six inches and white above that with a pencil sharp line between the colors.  I so wish I had my camera with me.  He was quite the sight!

View from our camp site.

Tiki bar.

Cats sunning in the morning.

What the locals call "the honeymoon cottage".  Apparently, before it achieved its current state of disrepair, it was a cottage that one could rent.

We endured one day of deluge.  Pouring rain  is wet and cold regardless of where you are.

Sunset at Low Key Hide-a-Way

Old door in town.

Fish ready to take the bait.

Fisherman offering the bait.

We are only 2974 miles from Seattle!

Back of the tiki bar.  I love the reused building products!

Old building in town.

A little Muir history.

Mike by the salt kettle.  It looks to me like a cannibal's cooking pot!

Old Whitman House build in the 1890s.

Most of the buildings in Cedar Key are pretty modest including the houses.  There are only a handful of large homes built by people like us, seeking warmer climates after retirement.   People do not gravel their driveways and roads, but instead cover them with shell fragments.   I do recommend a visit to Cedar Key.  It is very picturesque!