BAD TRAVELS

Spent almost 2 weeks in the keys and the weather was beautiful! FINALLY! Sunny and warm most of the time and very little rain.

First 6 days we stayed at a campground in Key Largo which had a big beautiful pool. Got up every morning and did laps for half an hour and other exercises in the pool for another 30 mins. Felt great to get into a little bit of a workout routine. Afterwards rewarded myself with a couple of hours hanging out at the pool and finally got a tan!!! Poor Dave actually caught a cold when we got there and had to take a couple of days off from vacation :-)

The place was pretty nice but filled mostly with the grey haired, snowbird crowd. They were pretty sociable though and one night they had an all you can eat fish fry for $6/each so we indulged and had a lot of fun hanging out with them.

There’s lots of biking in the keys. They have a path that goes all along Highway 1 right from Key Largo down to Key West. If you’re ambitious and can tolerate the traffic noise and dust and relative boredom of the flat terrain you can bike the entire 100 miles.  We went out a couple of times for the exercise and treated ourselves with the best key lime pie ever. Love that stuff!

Spent 5 more days in Marathon which is in the middle of the keys. Decent place, central location to do more exploring. Went to Key west for a day which is as far south as you can go in the continental US. It was a cool but sunny day, perfect for walking around and exploring.

Of course we had to get some fishing in so talked to some locals and found out that the bridges only 10 mins from where we were staying were the place to go. First day we caught the most fish, 1 Cravelle Jack, 3 spanish mackerel and 1 mangrove snapper (the best tasting). Had a lot of fun and the fish fed us for 3 meals. Next day tried again but zero luck. I did manage to hook a small hammerhead shark but it fell off my line before I could reel it up....I was glad it did because didn’t want to deal with releasing it.

Also spent a day trying to go to the beach. A friend (you know who you are Petey!) recommended Bahia Honda State park. At one time, apparently back in 1992 it was voted the best beach in America. Well, Pete must have been there then because it’s sure not the best beach anymore. Either it’s really gone downhill (seaweed everywhere) and dead fish (but that’s due to the recent cold) or we just managed to visit at an OFF time. We were hoping to snorkel when we went there but the beaches were all closed because of high bacteria counts. Figures! We did find a pretty nice beach in Marathon though, close to were we were camped.

So sure the keys are tropical looking and warm but again, unless you’re a senior citizen who likes to stay put or more active and into snorkeling, boating, kayaking etc big time which again requires money and equipment, I don’t think we’re ready to come back for a long time....too many other interesting places to explore and see.

Check out the PICTURES!

Next stop, Fort Myers to hang out with Ruth and Brian and Al and Gloria (my in-laws/ Dave’s family) for about a week. Looking forward to going back to Costa Rica on the 15th!