We said good-bye to Cedar Key but we weren’t ready to leave Florida entirely. We wanted to drive as close to the water as possible to see the lovely white beaches in the Florida panhandle. Our search for lunch made us miss a turn which resulted in a short visit of Tallahassee, the capital of Florida. Truth be told, we only had a glance from the Interstate and then returned to the smaller more coastal highway.

We stopped and saw a post showing how high the water can be during a hurricane!

Seeing all these nice beaches and white sand makes you want to take a break for a nice coffee and smoothie. Port St. Joe is a quaint little town with eclectic little stores. You could tell that it wasn’t the main season as some stores where closed and the old movie theater was abandoned. The coffee/smoothie store (bin 4eleven) was new and was doing quite well.

Time was running out so we continued on our beautiful coastal highway (US-98) without stopping at stunning white sand beaches along the way in the Mexico Beach and Panama City.

We were rewarded by getting a great camping spot at Grayton Beach State Park. Thunder and lightning prevented us from walking around too much that night but there would be tomorrow morning.

Today we took a vacation from our vacation.

No driving, no planning, no sightseeing, no musts. We had a nice scrambled egg breakfast on our own dock overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. A gentle breeze kept us nice and comfortable.

After a very short walk and some ice cream we set up the hammock and took turns reading and softly rocking in the wind.

After this strenuous activity and a cheese sandwich we desperately needed a siesta (aka an afternoon nap) in air conditioned comfort away from the heat. In the late afternoon it was cooler again and it was time for some exercise. We walked to downtown Cedar Key learning a bit about the history and looking for a seafood restaurant to have dinner at. Cedar Key was a railroad town at one time and had a thriving fishing industry until net fishing was prohibited. Tourism was the next source of income and is now accompanied by farming clams and oysters.

The town has many restaurants and bars and shows its late 19th century architecture well. There is even a very haunted hotel.

We chose a restaurant right at the waterfront and enjoyed a delicious dinner of shrimp, scallops and iced tea.

Now we just needed to walk home and enjoy the sunset from our dock.

We got up bright and early as we had to report to the ranger office to pay for the previous night camping fee. After this we discovered what the historic site was all about.

Dr. Cyrus Teed led his followers to Estero in 1894 to establish a community based on his religious and scientific ideas, a community free of crime, tobacco and drugs that was to be the New Jerusalem. Dr. Teed took on the name Koresh which is Hebrew for Cyrus. The community had a large focus on education, philosophy, art and theatre. Those who joined the religious order lived in the settlement and were celibate.

We continued on US-41 and had lunch at a nice Italian restaurant close to Sarasota called Carrabba’s. After lunch we decided to take the Interstate to speed our trip to Cedar Key.

We found out about Cedar Key in one of our RV magazines.  It is a small rural artist town on the Gulf of Mexico. Our RV campground for the night is the Sunset Isle RV Park and Motel which is right on the water. We had dinner with a nice bottle of red wine, right on our own dock and watched our neighbours fish catfish and crabs from their docks.

Today we wrestled alligators.

If you believe that we have some fine Florida swampland we’d like to sell you.

We did start our journey North. In a way we were happy to leave the Keys and see something new. We crossed the lovely 7-mile bridge again and discovered that the old bridge was in fact a railroad bridge.

We again avoided the interstates and followed SR-997 for a while.  They are a huge number of nurseries, orchards and fruit stands along this highway and eventually we had to give in and stop to buy some excellent mangos and milkshakes. Velfa, the beautiful girl who looked after us, educated us about the different mango varieties and helped us select exotic fruits for our milkshakes. We ended up choosing Mamey and Guava.

With renewed energy we continued our journey and turned onto US-41 which led us through the Everglades and to Clyde Butcher’s Big Cypress Gallery. This was the third gallery we visited in Florida – the other two being the Peter Lik Gallery and the Jorge de la Torriente Gallery, both in Key West. Clyde does amazing black and white work with view cameras and produces stunning mural sized prints costing up to $35,000.

His swamp images inspired us to ask at the visitor centre where the next swamps where. Sure enough, two were close by and had nice boardwalks to keep us dry and away from the messy bits.

The posted signs scared us a bit – with mention of black bears, panthers, alligators and white tailed deer thrown in for good measure. We were ready to risk life and limb to get exquisite photographs of all of them. We ended up with a nice portrait of a locust and a couple of alligators of different sizes ranging from about two feet to about eight feet.

The swamps themselves were interesting from a vegetation perspective as well.

Exhausted, hot, sweaty, mosquito bitten, tired, thirsty and hungry we were ready to find a home for the night. This was not an easy task as several of the state parks were closed for the season or renovations. We finally arrived at the Koreshan State Historic Site at 8:30PM, ten minutes after sunset when the park closed. The gate was still open and we surprised the ranger who was just closing his office. He was kind enough to let us stay the night.

Did we find the perfect solution to see Key West after all!  As good doggy parents we left Pepsi in the air-conditioned van on our campsite and took the bus to Key West.

The super-nice bus driver dropped us off close to the trolley stop where we purchased tickets for the 13 stop hop-on/hop-off tour as well as tickets to see the Hemingway house.

Since we were early enough we did not have to stand in line to get into Hemmingway House. We had a very nice and knowledgeable guide who didn’t just tell us about the house, Hemmingway’s way of life, his four wives and the six toed cats but made reference to his literature and historic facts.

Hemmingway was very much into boxing and had a boxing ring in his garden. His second wife, quite upset about his one year reporting assignment with a very dear colleague (soon to be wife number 3), had a large pool built to replace his boxing ring. This was the first pool ever in Key West and cost a fortune. Hemingway was furious when he came home with his new boxing gloves and found a pool instead of his boxing ring. He accused his wife of spending his last red cent and threw a penny on the ground. His wife had it permanently cemented into the patio in front of the pool and pointed it out at all of her parties after their divorce.

We had a late breakfast at the Six Toed Cat and then hopped on the trolley for the remainder of our tour of the island.

Key West is full of Hemingway stories and the famous bar Sloppy Joe’s is one of them. The owner of Sloppy Joe’s was upset at a $1 a week rent increase at his original location so he purchased another property down the street with Hemmingway’s help and the night of his lease expiry asked his customers to pick up their drinks, chairs and even the bar and move them to the new location where it continues to be to this day.

There are two kinds of animals roaming the streets that you don’t normally find in other cities. Chickens, roosters and iguanas. Iguanas are not protected by the city but chickens and roosters are. The question of why did the chicken cross the street is very real here.

Key Lime pie is of course another feature of the Keys and the place that makes the best pies (according to our guide) is Kermit’s Key Lime Pie Shoppe. Kermit can be seen advertising his pie on the street.

Key West is most southern point of the US and is full of the most southern places – most southern house, hotel, restaurant, etc. A buoy marks the most southern spot and tourists line up to have their picture taken here. The actual most southern point of the US is on a military base, but civilians obviously aren’t allowed there.

At 3PM we took the bus back to the KOA where we had spent last night. By sheer coincidence this is the most southern KOA in the US.

As it was Sunday night, there was a special chicken dinner available in the pub. All proceeds go to the KOA kids camp to benefit kids with terminal illnesses.

We liked this campground and here are some visual impressions:

Tomorrow we leave and the KOA has helpfully provided a departure checklist:

No map today as we didn’t drive anywhere

Today was a leisurely drive down the Keys to Key West. The colours of the water were beautiful to see.  There are a number of places where one can see the older bridges that have now been replaced.  One was seven miles long.

We again tried to stay at a State Park – this time the Bahia Honda State Park but again it was full. It turns out there is a mini lobster festival for the next two weeks which explains the number of people here.

We stopped at the most southern KOA Campground and secured a spot for the night close to the beach and the boat launch and then continued our trip to Key West. Key West was a dud today – it was hard to maneuver the RV through narrow and very busy streets and we spent a long time looking for the Eco Discovery centre which we had been told would be a good place to park. It was very hot and humid and the three of us decided Key West wasn’t to be today.

We drove back to the KOA, had a nap and then inflated the kayak and went for a paddle until the sound of thunder announced it might be a good idea to head back to shore. There we went for a swim in the bay and then in the campground pool.  The thunderstorm never really materialized.

Ruth was brave enough to cook in the heat and we had a nice pasta dinner outside.

It was a good day after all.

We got up bright and early this morning and went for a wonderful swim in the Atlantic before even having breakfast. The showers at the beach weren’t working but we had a nice shower once we walked back to the campground.

We drove to St. Augustine and had breakfast in town. Because we had Pepsi with us we weren’t able to go into a restaurant so we stopped at a bakery/cafe that offered take-out. It took over 30 minutes from the time we ordered to the time we got our breakfast burrito. Martin got to read the newspaper (aka local fish wrap) before we got the order. News – George H.W. Bush (aged 91) fell and broke a bone in his neck. The king and queen of Spain are coming for a visit in 2016.

Once we finally had our burritos we sat outside only to have it start raining – lightly at first to give us time to get back to the van and then in torrents. What a downpour and flooded roads.

There was no sense for us to stay in the rain so we began our long drive to Key Largo. Along the way we had another two torrential downpours.  The van is nice and clean now.

Miami was very slow and tedious to get through given it was rush hour but we finally made it into the Keys. Our first choice for staying was John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park but it was already full.

We then decided to stay at the Point of View RV resort where our next door neighbours spend 4 months each winter. We got the last site there, right next to the dog walk and the private latino music festival.

We had a nice dinner at Mrs. Mac’s Kitchen before a thunderstorm rolled in and we had our Key Lime Pie dessert in our van. Pepsi doesn’t like thunderstorms.