More Time in the Keys

We only had one night at Bahia Honda State Park. Friday we were set for Long Key State Park, which is about a 40 minute drive north.

That’s the view from Bahia Honda’s Sandspur Beach, where we spent the bulk of our day. The rule here at all the Florida State Parks is that you have to be out of your campsite by 1pm. You don’t have to leave the park until sunset. So we could have stuck around for longer – and wanted to, as this park is gorgeous, and the water was amazing. Around 2:30 or so we headed out north, towards Long Key. This was actually a mistake. We should have headed straight to Key West, and just checked in over the phone at Long Key, which you’re allowed to do.

Hindsight is always 20/20.

Anyway, we checked in at Long Key, spent about 5 minutes there looking over our site, and headed towards Key West at 4pm. It’s a 90-minute drive and we wanted to get there in time for Sunset Celebration, and this was cutting it a bit close, but still workable.

We arrived at Mallory Square at 5:45 (sunset was at 6:30). We walked the area a bit and saw a few buskers, although I did not find the cat wrangler.

We ate fresh guacamole (sooo good!) and I was part of the act for a ridiculously funny British magician. Oh, and the sun set and then everyone applauded.

Michael had never been to (much less heard of) Sunset Celebration before, and he thought it was awesome.

So there we were, downtown Key West, on a Friday night. Time to check out Duvall Street!

I tell you, I’ve never seen so many drunk middle-aged adults at 7pm before in my life. I’ve seen more sober people at weddings. See, the entertainment district has the same type of booze policy as New Orleans, so you’ll see people walking down the street with beers and mixed drinks in their hands. Maybe the drunks just started a lot earlier? I mean, you can’t drink all day if you don’t start first thing in the morning.

We didn’t see too many buskers along Duvall, but this van was pretty neat…

and it’s not every day that you see Darth Banjo.

We walked past Sloppy Joes and the Hog’s Breath Saloon. There’s a Hard Rock Cafe, too. We were getting hungry but didn’t want to spend money in any of those tourist traps. Eventually we found a place just a block off Duvall called Amigos Tortilla Bar. They actually make their own corn tortillas (a process I got to watch as I waited for the bathroom). Their tortillas are square so they hold more food, and since they are made fresh throughout the day they are soft and delicious and not crumbly. I wish I could say the food was fantastic. The chorizo/potato taco was amazing, but the fish taco was a little meh (which seems like a pretty big sin. Being right on the ocean and all, your fish tacos should be awesome), and the fried avocado taco used an under-ripe avocado, so that one just wasn’t very good. Michael said his chorizo/potato taco was the best of his three, with the chicken taco and carnitas taco both coming in at “okay.” All in all…. I’d say Amigos was not bad. We sat out on their little patio and the people watching was excellent.

Once we remembered that it’s a 90-minute drive back to Long Key, figured it was time to head out. Most of the middle-aged drunks had disappeared by this time and the younger crowd was showing up. Not that this was actually better. As we walked along Duvall heading back to where we parked the truck, we saw a big SUV stopped at a traffic light ahead. A guy was leaning out the back seat window…. Puking his guts out.

Good times.

Anyway, we got back to our site at Long Key around 11:30. The campground at Long Key State Park is a fairly narrow area. As in, it’s spitting distance from the highway and the traffic is definitely noticeable. There are about 60 campsites here and they are all right on the water, which is amazing. The wind had picked up a bit, and while it didn’t drown out the highway sounds, it made for perfect sleeping weather.

Even better: Elvis slept in the back of the truck. Who knows why he’s okay with it now, all of the sudden, but our theory is that it’s because Elvis doesn’t sleep while the truck is in motion. He’s a nervous and twitchy little dog, even in his old age, and traveling freaks him out. So big driving days tend to exhaust him. Poor Elvis, but lucky us.

After setting up camp, we walked both dogs so they could potty, then loaded them up in the back of the truck. Elvis protested for about 30 seconds before crashing out for the night. Victory! Hopefully this is a trend that will continue.

The next morning we checked out our surroundings. There was this cool cypress tree right in front of our campsite, and I took pictures of it as the tide came in.

Michael liked that tree too, so he played his mandolin for it.

So it was Saturday morning and we’d only managed to reserve one night at Long Key State Park. Now, I’m not exactly sure how this came about – the conversation must have happened when we checked in – but at some point that morning we rode our bikes to the entrance station specifically to ask if there were any cancellations. We were told there was a good chance, just at a different site. No problem. We went back to camp, packed up, and drove back to the entrance station at 1pm. Success! We moved over to site #60, all the way at the end, for at least two nights, possibly three. We were told to come check on Monday before 11am.

At this point Michael and I decided that we’d stay in Long Key as long as we could. Paying for camping is destroying our budget, but both of us had complained about our whirlwind tour of the Keys. We wanted more time here! And now we had it.

While spending so much time in the entrance station, I saw a flyer for a place called Keys Marine Laboratory. They just happened to be holding an open house on Saturday, March 4^th, from 1-3pm. We were all set with our accommodations, the truck was loaded up, and it was Saturday, March 4th, at 1:30. We headed over.

Key Marine Laboratory (KML) is an incredibly cool place. It’s an independent research facility that works with various colleges and universities. Researchers come there for their projects – KML can provide boats, dive equipment, holding tanks, as well as a full laboratory and all the equipment. There’s a dormitory too, if people have larger projects.

It was fun to learn all this (it reminded me of why I studied wildlife biology, in all honesty), but the best part was the tidal pool. I’m a hands-on kind of girl, and KML has their own tidal pool with sea cucumbers, sponges, spiny lobsters, conch, and a reclusive stone crab. Staff was on hand to show/teach, and I learned that stone crab have one normal claw and one giant claw. And if you break off the giant claw at a particular place, the claw will grow back.

After a quick trip to the grocery store we headed back to camp to relax and watch the ocean, and the wildlife, and finally the sunset.