The drive itself down the Keys was easy, but navigating while pulling a travel trailer was a bit more tricky. There is one main road that spans the Keys, with no parking alongside, and there are few places where a long vehicle can even get in and out of a parking lot easily, so it proved hard to find a place to stop for lunch. We finally paid the day use fee at a local State Park just so we could get out of the car and have a picnic lunch.
A beautiful spot for a picnic.
The kids tried out the water while I was preparing lunch.
The water was warm, which is so surprising and fun for us used to the cold Pacific. But as you can see from the pic, the water had a rather sickly tint to it, and smelled a bit like sulfur. I was worried about red tide, which I had been researching before this trip, and which has proven to be harmful to humans. (And marine life in general, esp. manatees : (. The tide is mainly on the Gulf side of Florida, and concentrated in certain areas--and is caused entirely by humans and their "water management.") Talking to a ranger, I learned that this was not red tide, and was normal; ocean currents push sea vegetation up against the Atlantic side of the Keys, and as it decomposes it affects the water immediately against the shore. So, not harmful--but I was not tempted to swim in it. And decided we would have to look for beaches on the Gulf side of the Keys if we wanted to swim (avoiding red tide areas, of course).
Even the ride down the Keys was exciting, as the landscape outside our windows became more and more otherworldly. I don't remember at what point the ocean changed from blue to green--all I know is once it did I was enraptured. It was so beautiful, so serene.
And so bizarre. Like this tiny, very precarious-looking inhabited island. What are those structures? Who lives or works there? What happens to them in hurricane season?
We stayed at an RV park right outside of Key West, called Boyd's. It was a nice family-oriented place. It was also the most expensive camping of anyplace we've been--but sometimes location is everything.
Our campsite.
Walking across the way to the water.
The campground had chickens wandering about.
And huge iguanas lounging by the water. Not sure if these images can capture the size of these guys.
iguana photos credit: Merry
The campground also had a pool and rec room, both filled with French teenagers, the children of some French airline employees who were on a special guided vacation around parts of the US. I sat and spoke with the chaperone on duty for a while, a young French female PE teacher. None of the teens spoke much English, so they did not interact with our kids beyond offering them each a popsicle. I must say, it was a little ridiculous how all those French lived up to the stereotype of apparently effortless elegance and beauty. Teenage girls with beach hair and in only tanks and shorts still managed to look like models. The boys too had an air of stylish confidence. There was only one girl who did not naturally embody this--poor thing had glasses, was pudgy instead of slim, sunburnt instead of golden, tanline-free glow, and had an air of earnestness instead of indifference. Of course I liked her. But I wondered about her social standing with the rest of the group.
(You may have noticed I like to talk to people while traveling. I don't walk up to random strangers and strike up conversations, but if there is a good moment, I take it. And when I can't talk to people, I like to speculate about them. ; )
This post is not the most exciting, so I'll keep it short--but it serves to set the stage for our next adventure, which was the real reason we had even come this far down Florida.
I have never been to the Keys. In fact, until this past Spring I had never even considered going--that little bit of the US is so incredibly far away from anything, it felt almost unattainable. It seemed as unlikely a travel destination as the moon, and I wasn't even sure I cared to go. Until a google search for a homeschool project showed me an image that riveted my attention and pretty much immediately awoke a wild desire:
image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/npsclimatechange/25284166739
Fort Jefferson at the Dry Tortugas, the Southernmost of our National Parks.
And now, that crazy dream was about to become reality. So much beauty and fun and history to share in the next posts!
No comments:
Post a Comment