Flo-rida
NP Roadtrip – Homestead – Biscayne National Park – Key West – Days 57 -62
Our last morning at San Carlos RV Resort near Sanibel Island dealt a blow that we weren’t prepared for, a sudden death of a family member very close to my husband. We processed the news as best we could and tried to plan for whatever was to come. We went about our morning routine sort of like zombies, not really hungry for breakfast. I’m surprised we were able to get out of there in the short time frame we did. Our final destination for the day was Homestead, but we managed a few stops on the way, the first being Naples, Florida.
Naples is an impeccably manicured town, the roads, the lawns, and the people too! There was a Saturday farmer’s market going on, which meant there were no available parking spaces for the trailer. We drove around, parking on the side of someone’s house, but received frowns and stares so we pulled out and looked for another spot. Finally, after about 15 minutes of driving around downtown Naples, we found the perfect spot within walking distance of where we wanted to eat. When we lived in Las Vegas, we had a Tommy Bahama Restaurant that we loved going to. Their cantaloupe martini, key lime pie martini, yummy appetizers. Mmmmmm. So yummy. I guess you can say the craving for nostalgia was upon us! We got the very last outdoor table so we could eat with the dogs. Score! I should also mention that I picked up my pace and raced to the hostess stand when another couple was walking up at the same time. I’m my mother’s daughter, what can I say? It’s just too bad that Tommy Bahama’s menu has changed considerably since the last time I ate there about 5 years ago. It just wasn’t as good as before, but we were glad for the food, the time out, and the doggies being able to be with us. Doggies are the best medicine, and in our case, provide ample opportunities to pay attention to them as opposed to your own heartache.
Super cute homes in Naples. Fancy place.
Besides Naples, the road to Homestead also takes you through Big Cypress National Preserve, which is wonderfully beautiful and expansive. They have experienced horrible fires that closed the main road for some time, but when we came through, it was open. We stopped at the Oasis Visitor Center not really knowing what to expect. My only experience with the entire state of Florida is the Miami airport and the Miami cruise terminal. We get out of the car (leaving the dogs inside with the AC on) and there is an awesome boardwalk that spans the visitor center, about 100 yards in length. There are at least 50 alligators just hanging out in the culvert in front of the visitor center. It was so awesome to see these animals in the wild. What struck both G and I, though, is that they didn’t move. At. All. We’ve since found out that they are very lazy animals. They can move when they are motivated, but don’t have that much energy so they poop out quickly. Hmmm. Kind of like me!
We stayed at Miami Everglades RV Resort in Homestead, Florida. My cousin works for the park service in Everglades National Park, and lives in Homestead. We were finally able to entertain someone at our campsite, which I love doing! And she’s family, so she basically had no choice! We made Grilled Lime Shrimp with Coconut Curry Rice and Grilled Carrots, and she brought some awesome Lemon Ricotta Cookies for dessert. My cousin is so very knowledgeable about plants, wildlife, the parks, Key West, the Virgin Islands. She has so many great ideas about where to go, what to do, where to stay, and how to get there. She was our personal tour guide, and we appreciated it so much. She has worked in Biscayne National Park, Everglades National Park, Dry Tortugas National Park, Glacier National Park, and Lewis & Clark National Historic Park. When I say I’m lucky to have her in my life, I mean it! I’m sure she got a little sick of my worried stressed out texts about alligators eating my dogs. Seriously. This happened. But she was so gracious and calm in answering all my questions.
The following day we headed out for a four-hour sailing trip to Biscayne National Park, while my cousin watched the dogs. Biscayne NP is 95% water, so the only real way to explore is by boat. We had a few options beyond the sailing trip, one being kayaks, but a call to the visitor center said the kayak rental guy is unreliable. Low and behold, the day of our trip, the kayak guy was there. Bummer. We had decided to do the 4 hour sailing trip, because you actually got to get out at one of the park’s keys and do some snorkeling. Sadly, I didn’t realize that you had to take a stand-up paddleboard (SUP) over to the snorkeling spot. We’ve never used one before, and we got a little concerned when it became clear that SUPs were the primary form of transportation to the snorkel spot. G tried, but wasn’t feeling the love so he turned back around. I went the whole distance sitting on the board with my feet out in front of me, through the mangroves and into the lagoon where we could swim more freely off the boards. I was a little nervous without my main squeeze with me, but eventually I worked up the nerve to do some snorkeling. Honestly, I didn’t see much, but the family traveling with us saw some stuff. On the way back to the boat I got really brave and stood up on my paddleboard outside of the mangroves. What a great workout! My back doesn’t always love workouts where I’m twisting my torso, but I took it easy and survived!
Our captain told us some interesting stories about Biscayne Bay, one involving several US Presidents utilizing an island (that he pointed out) as a gambling club of sorts. A quick Wikipedia search, trying to find the name of the lagoon in the middle of Adam’s Key actually revealed that Adam’s Key, in fact was the place where the club was located! All the buildings were wiped out in 1992’s Hurricane Andrew, but still amazing that’s where they were. That is, if you believe everything Wikipedia tells you. I urge you to check my facts!
Park service housing on Adam's Key.
On the way back from Adam’s Key we chatted up the family who took the boat ride with us and discovered that they were going to Dry Tortugas on the same day that we were going. They have instilled an adventurous side in their daughter, though she is “not much for hiking”. So grown up, the comments that came out of her mouth! She was awesome. This family spends a lot of their vacations exploring the National Parks, which is great! They offered up some advice and places to go, as did we. We let them know how to follow our adventure, said our goodbyes, and went over to my cousin’s for a fabulous dinner.
The dogs making themselves at home on my cousin's quilt.
We headed to the Keys the following morning, but not before stopping at Robert is Here. I could do an entire blog post on Robert is Here, but I’ll try to be succinct. On the sailboat trip, we were talking about all the fruit stands and plant nurseries in Homestead. The boat captain was trying to think of the name of one that he really liked by naming some men’s names, and the family (with the little girl) chimed in that he was talking about Robert is Here. From the name alone I knew we had to go as long as it wasn’t totally out of the way. It’s actually on the way out to Everglades National Park, but isn’t too far off the path down to the Keys. They have fresh milkshakes and smoothies, an impressive selection of fruits and veggies, and also mustards, salts, jams, nuts, etc. We got a Strawberry Key Lime Milkshake, a mango, a guanabana (more on this later), mango bread, and key lime salt. We don’t have too much storage so I usually have a well curated grocery basket at places like these. Oh, and guess what? Robert WAS there. So was Barack Obama, but only Robert was there on the day we were there. Hahaha! Gotcha.
After finishing up our milkshakes, we stopped in Key Largo at the Fish House while trying to avoid traffic. Fish House was on Diners Drive Ins and Dives, so naturally, we had to check it out. We had an amazing grouper sandwich and mahi mahi sandwich and got a smoked fish dip to go. And…doggies were allowed at their front tables! Yay Fish House! We also made a stop at the Florida Keys Brewing Company, per a recommendation from my cousin. It's well worth the stop with great beers, friendly service, and you can bring your dogs in their tasting room.
We made it to Boyd’s RV Resort in Key West well after the long check in lines happened. This place charged well over $100 per night so people want to get their $$$ worth. By the time we settled in, we were pretty pooped, so we decided on a quick meal out at Hog Fish Grill, which is walking distance to the RV Park. My aunt said it’s a good thing that we were able to walk, because trying to find a parking space around Hog Fish can apparently be a lesson in patience. Our meal at Hog Fish was so delicious. We had the grouper bites, the “World Famous” Hogfish Sandwich, and one of their specials, a grilled fish sandwich with crab rice. Everything was delicious and I would highly recommend it.
The "World Famous" Hogfish Sandwich!
The following morning we broke into our guanabana for breakfast. The guanabana was described as “the most delicious fruit in the world, a combination of the flavors of pineapple, banana, and strawberry with a hint of sour”. Hmmm. Ok. We got one, not knowing that it was $9.95 a pound…and the smaller one we picked out was 2.5 pounds…so…waste not want not. And don’t get me wrong, it was delicious, but very difficult to eat. The flesh is very stringy and it wraps around tons of large black seeds. The only real way you can get them out is to suck on the seeds and spit them out. We went through half of the fruit and gave the other half away to adventurous neighbors at Boyd’s.
Guanabana halves
Mango Bread, Guanabana, Pineapple
Although not the guanabana, this was our typical breakfast in Key West. Fruit and Mango Bread from Robert is Here!
When booking this part of our trip, we knew we had to somehow find a way to get to the Dry Tortugas. There is a regular ferry that goes out as well as a seaplane. Unfortunately for us, the ferry was full for the days we wanted to get there. But, a quick call to the folks at the seaplane confirmed two spots for G and I on the afternoon trip. I was a little scared, G was not happy at all to be going, and my poor mother thought the both of us were crazy. But we absolutely loved it. LOVED IT! I would highly recommend springing the extra dough for this amazing opportunity. You can see turtles and stingrays, ship wrecks and private islands, gloriously beautiful views from the plane, and pristine turquoise blue water. Incredible. I couldn't help but think how much our lives have changed in the last few years. Two years ago I was working from home managing recruitment for a large financial institution in San Diego. G was traveling a lot and working crazy long hours. Flash forward to this moment, and I'm sitting on a freaking seaplane that is going over crystal clear blue waters on the way to a remote island fort. We both worked really hard to get to this moment, but it's still a little surreal.
Once the plane lands (which was super easy and way softer than a runway landing) they drop you off to snorkel and tour Fort Jefferson then pick you up a few hours later. As we landed, the ferry was getting ready to leave and we found our favorite family from the sailboat trip in Biscayne Bay, looking at us from the bow of the boat and waving. We waved them hello and goodbye and ventured out into the Fort. We brought our own snorkel gear, but the seaplane will provide you with gear if you don’t have any. We saw a ton of schools of fish, a stingray, conch, etc., so definitely worth it to bring the gear. My cousin who works in Everglades, LIVED out in the Fort for a period of time while working for the park service. So it was even more incredible to get to see just how remote this place is. You can tent camp out there, which is pretty primitive, but we didn’t want to pack a tent in our small trailer only to pull it out once. We saw all that we could in the time we were there and were ready for our quick hop home when our seaplane arrived.
After landing, we decided it was time to check out Duval Street since neither of us had ever been to Key West, but weren’t really feeling it. It’s pretty touristy and not our style. If I had known more of where to go, I’m sure we could find some awesome places to go there, we just didn’t really research enough before getting there. Plus we were tired, emotionally and physically exhausted. It was easier to go back to our little yellow bubble and chill out with the dogs. We did make it to Frita’s for dinner, a very casual Cuban restaurant just off Duval, got the obligatory Key Lime Pie on a stick, covered in chocolate, and headed back to the campsite to rescue our dogs. They do remarkably well in the trailer IF there is no food around. They love to chill in the AC and sleep all day. When we pull into a spot they literally buck like broncos at the door of the trailer waiting to get in there. They do the same thing at home at our front door. I’m so glad our doggies also think home is where you park it!
Our last full day in Key West involved taking the doggies to the dog park and taking a Jet Ski Tour to the Southernmost point then around to the gulf side of Key West. This was fun, though we had one slow poke on our tour that hogged a bunch of time, not allowing us to get to full speed for the first half of the ride. Oh well. Before leaving Key West the next day, we made sure to take the dogs to the dog park and going to “Mile 0” for our picture. I wanted to also check out Bahia Honda State Park. It is notoriously difficult to get into and, even though I tried multiple times, no reservations were available. We pulled up to the ranger stall and the guy asked us if we were staying there that night (since we were hauling our trailer in there). We said no, that we were just going to take a few pictures and check out the campground. He said, “well we do have availability if you’re interested”. “WHAT?!?!” You have got to be kidding me. We had tickets to fly to the US Virgin Islands the very next day. I know, I know. You hate me right now. But it’s Bahia Honda State Park! Tough loss, but that’s the way it goes. They wouldn’t even tell us the site number because they knew we would be heartbroken. And we were. But we cheered ourselves right back up again as we stopped in Key Largo at the Fish House for some grouper sandwiches and smoked fish.
