Days 20 & 21, Feb 14 & 15: Driving The Florida Keys

 Just what is the difference between a key (cay) and an island, you ask?  Well, I asked too, and here's what I learned.

An island is formed from changes in land masses, so geologically.  Think volcanoes and Hawaii.  A key is formed biologically when plants and trees spring from a reef which is also composed of living organisms. The Florida Keys are comprised of 800 mangrove and palm islands formed along a 100+ mile reef, an outstanding formation with exquisite beauty.  Leaving the mainland, one drives the 113 mile Highway 1 also known famously as The Overseas Highway which was built in 1912 as a rail line from Key Largo in the east to Key West in the...um, the west.  

First, please allow me to interject a word about yesterday.  Once a week I've scheduled a P-Day, a preparation day where we do laundry, grocery shop, gas up, run errands, and cook & freeze meals for the day ahead.  I was so proud of myself for finding the cleanest most efficient laundromat we've ever experienced on our adventures. Rotated tires, got an oil change, enjoyed a Costco dog, and otherwise completed an exhaustive list of errands and chores.  Finally sitting down to a hearty dinner after putting away laundry and packing tents, sleeping bags, rat-proof containers of food and clothing in our backpacks, Aaron turned to me and asked where his 3 nice white shirts were.  Yikes!  I'd inadvertently left them at the laundromat!  But because we're out in the boonies of The Everglades, said laundromat was an ours drive away.  By the time I'd drive in and back to retrieve the shirts, it was past 10pm.  Oh well, at least I recovered the shirts.  Good deeds for P-day include tipping an Uber driver $20 for a $8 fare when he drove me from the laundromat to Costco to catch up with Aaron who was rotating tires.  I figured he an use the $20 more than me.  I also took it upon myself to clean up after the slobs who left a Costco table next to me full of their crumbs and pizza oil and even garbage.  The next family will have a clean place for lunch.

Stops along The Overseas Highway:  Dagny Johnson Hammock Botanical Garden on Key Largo for a morning stroll and The Blond Giraffe Key Lime Factory for Key-Lime flavored pecans and a slice of Key Lime pie drizzled with chocolate and topped with stiff cream. More stops included the Rain Barrel Sculpture Gallery with its iconic 30 foot lobster, the lovely Long Key State Park with its mile-long nature trail through a mangrove swamp and along the beach, and across aquamarine waters on the Seven Mile Bridge.  

Finally we arrived to spend the afternoon in Key West checking out The Harry S Truman "Little Whitehouse" visited by several US Presidents as well as The Ernest Hemingway House and Museum.  Key West is full of lovely unique architecture as well as thousands of tourists and dozens of old hippies who make Key West their home.  Off tomorrow to The Dry Tortugas!

Good deed:  parking in Key West is no easy endeavor.  After trolling a parking lot hawking for spots, a kindly man and his wife motioned us to follow them and even waved off another hopeful parker so that we could finally secure our spot.  Such kindness needed a reward, so I gave them an overpriced container of Key Lime Pecans which Aaron had purchased.  I suppose the credit for this good deed belongs to Aaron for lovingly allowing me to donate his treasure. 

Three amazing things:  1- The Keys are all I expected them to be:  full of tourists and snow birds and hippies and beauty and wonder all surrounded by an impossibly-blue ocean.  2- The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me.  3- That the woman running the ticket booth for the Dry Tortugas Ferry manages to keep her job; she was the most sour, unhelpful, and full-of-attitude service representative I've come across in a while.  She must not be as blessed with love in her life as I am.