Greg and Dave's Last Day in the Keys

On Monday, Greg and Dave spent their last day in the Keys at John Pennekamp State Park.

They began the day making pancakes (Dave's special recipe). The results  were so good, they decided to take their cooking up a notch and tackle making homemade bread. About 10 months ago, Greg (who has never baked bread in his life!) cut out a recipe from an insert in the Star Tribune and said, "I might try making this when I'm in Florida."

Well, lo and behold, they did successfully make bread and both declared it to be the "best bread they've had in a long time." After a month of carefully watching what he has been eating, Greg was on the slippery slope of "binging on hot baked bread." :-)

All the bread eating necessitated some bike riding in the afternoon . . . . and then the evening was spent packing up and getting ready for an early morning departure.

On Tuesday morning, they started their journey northwards to Sebastian Inlet State Park arriving there in the early afternoon. They did some penance for all the bread eating with some more bike riding . . . . and then finishing off the second loaf!

This morning, they are leaving to travel to northern Florida where they will spend the evening at Suwannee River State Park.

A Passing of the Guard

Well, Saturday morning was a time for the "passing of the guard" at the motor home. After one last breakfast, we took off for the Miami Airport where Greg dropped off Betsy to fly back to the winter wonderland in Minnesota. Wait! Temperatures in Minnesota are above 60 degrees? What happened? Betsy won't be suffering as much as she anticipated. :-)

Note, my trip back was flawless, and the temperature was indeed 66 degrees when I arrived in Minnesota. Florida trip extended . . . .

Greg then had a couple of hours to kill before picking up his friend, Dave Larson, at the Miami Airport. Dave and Greg have been friends from junior high . . . . and we all went to college together, too.

So he headed off to Shark Valley which is located in the northern region of Everglades National Park. There is a 15 mile bike loop at Shark Valley where you are almost guaranteed to see lots of Everglades wildlife. Greg wasn't disappointed!

After hanging out with the wildlife for a couple of hours, he headed back to the airport to pick up Dave.

They then made the trip back to John Pennekamp State Park and enjoyed a meal in the motor home.

Kayaking Today!

We heard rain at about 5:30 a.m., but when we were ready to get going for the morning, it was  beautiful outside! The sun was out, the sky was clear, and the winds were finally down.

We spent the morning kayaking through a variety of trails that are part of the park. It was beautiful . . . . we decided we really like kayaking!

After lunch, we went biking on the trail out of the park. It was fair - it runs along Highway 1 that has lots of heavy traffic, and the trail didn't really have any scenic or interesting stops. Even so, it was great to get out and ride again on this beautiful day.


At the end of the afternoon, we took our mats and books down to the beach and read for about an hour. I will probably finish my book tonight - it's been great!












When we came back to our campsite, we saw some really beautiful birds in the pond nearby.

A Low Key Day in the Keys

Here's a picture of our site at John Pennekamp State Park - it is a much larger park and there are a wider mixture of ages. We're seeing some families with small children, young people in their 20's as well as people our age and older. As you can see, the campsites are closer together without the same kind of privacy that we had a Curry Hammock.

The beach is about 3/4 of a mile a way - so you have to walk or ride your bike to the water versus having it right outside the back of your campsite!

We decided this would be a good morning to make pancakes.
After breakfast, we did some laundry.

 After a lazy morning, we rode our bikes over to the Visitor Center and spent some time in the Aquarium where there was lots of information about how the Keys got formed as well as the current ecological concerns that are impacting the Keys - primarily caused by humans!

We got to hear a talk about the amount of garbage that gets into the ocean - particularly distressing is all the plastic that is floating on the ocean - some of which ends up in the mangroves that border the shores in the Keys.

After we spent time in the Visitor Center, we had a chance to walk on a Mangrove Trail. We also checked out the kayaking options and are planning to go kayaking tomorrow morning.

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at one of the beaches here - you can see from the person trying to lay down her towel that it is still windy. We really enjoyed our time, though - I'm reading a really good book about Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth back in the 1570s. Love that historical fiction!

Moving Day!

After we got our motor home and trailer packed up, we decided to brave the winds one more time and bike into Marathon for breakfast at a place we had seen right on the water - The Island Fish Company.

We had a hearty breakfast - we knew it would also serve as our lunch - and then biked back to Curry Hammock, once again into a 35 mile per hour headwind!

One of the really fun things about Curry Hammock was how friendly everyone was. Greg became a bit of a "celebrity" - first of all for his daily windsurfing with Jay, and then because of the rescue that was necessitated the other day (which almost the entire campground witnessed when they were watching the concert on the beach.)

Because most of the campers were a bit older than us, they were almost parental in their concern for him checking to make sure he was all right. ;-)

We had Jacky and Jay over for dinner last night - they are just delightful. Jay is really encouraging Greg to get some "updated windsurfing equipment" - so we spent time talking about windsurfing and looking at pictures of our families.

Here is a view of our motor home all packed up - you can see the how close we were to the ocean.

I have loved Curry Hammock and would definitely come again. The people (many who know each other from years of camping together) were warm and welcoming to us. We had lots of fun!

We arrived at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park at about 3 p.m. It has a very different feel than Curry Hammock - sites are not like a KOA, but definitely not as private as Curry Hammock. Well, we're here to take in each experience and make the most of this time at this park.

We have been cooking almost all our meals in the motor home versus eating out - but we did decide if we were in Florida, we needed to have some seafood. So today, we stopped at the grocery store and got some shrimp and scallops. With trepidation, (mostly because we are very inexperienced seafood cooks) we prepared a stir fry dinner. It ended up tasting really good, so we felt successful!

Our Last Full Day at Curry Hammock

We woke up this morning thinking it wouldn't be as windy as the last few days, but we were wrong! Many of the "regular campers" here we've talked to that come year after year say this time of the year is typically very windy.

We decided to go for a bike ride to explore some different beaches around Marathon knowing that we would have a tail wind on the way out, but would be riding into a head wind on the way back.

One of the fun things I've been doing is recording our bike rides and walks using the GPS on my phone and the website MapMyFitness.com. We've logged about 70 miles since March 1 - so I'm definitely getting more activity than my normal lifestyle. Love it!

One of the beaches we saw was the Coco Plum Beach. You can see how great our bike trailer is, too, for hauling beach supplies as well as groceries!

Here is Greg at the entrance to Coco Plum Beach - you can see how beautiful it is!

You can imagine that we were a little surprised to see a totally empty beach!

But once we stepped onto the beach, we knew why! It was so windy!!

(As a matter of fact, after we biked back to the campground in the head wind, we stopped at the ranger station to confirm what we already thought -  The winds today were 30 miles per hour with gusts between 35-40!)

With all that biking in the wind, we decided to stop at Leigh Ann's Coffee House and get some coffee. It was a very fun place - it looks like they also do wine tastings as well as serve coffee, sandwiches and salads.

Here we are resting up and enjoying our coffees before the final bike ride back to Curry Hammock!

We're having some guests for dinner tonight, and then tomorrow, we'll be leaving for John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park.

Some Excitement at the End of the Day

When we got back to the campsite at about 4:30 p.m., Greg was anxious to go out to windsurf again. He left and I made an appetizer to take down to the late afternoon music concert on the beach.

Visiting musical campers take turns doing concerts on the beach and campers bring appetizers to share.

When I arrived, several people mentioned that they had seen Greg way out in the ocean, but were having difficulty seeing him now.

Eventually, we spotted him in the water on the board with not sail, so we speculated that the mast had broken. He appeared to be a least a mile out in the ocean and it looked like he was trying to swim the sailboard back.

After I located him on the horizon, I kept my eyes fixed on him. After about 45 minutes of watching him, the campground hosts decided it was time to call the ranger and to get a boat to take out to him.

We were very lucky - about an hour and a half after the group first spotted him in distress, the ranger reached him and was able to pick up Greg and tow the sailboard into safety.

I am very grateful for the wonderful group of concerned campers, campground hosts and the ranger - and Greg is thankfully safe and sound!

A Visit to Crane Point

After a front moved through yesterday that resulted in some rain and a big temperature drop, we woke up today to another beautiful day, albeit, cooler.

After each doing some things in the morning, we decided to ride our bikes to Crane Point that we had read about.

In 1978, a group of concerned citizens formed the Florida Keys Land & Sea Trust to save the hardwood hammocks of the Keys. In 1989, the Trust purchased Crane Point, saving this 63-acre ecological treasure from being developed into private homes and shopping malls.







Here is the entrance into Crane Point.

Here is what is right across the street  - shopping malls, gas stations, etc. - all built on land where the hardwood hammocks were bulldozed down.

The tropical hardwood hammock is an ecosystem consisting of broad-leafed trees, shrubs, and vines, nearly all of which are native to the West Indies. Hardwood hammocks form a dense canopy with a tangle of shrubs and vines at the ground level and its outer edges.

Crane Point was a step back in time to when all of the Keys was undeveloped. We saw all kinds of folliage and trees and had the chance to walk on paths through the canopy of shrubs.

  Finally, we reached the point that provided a beautiful view of the ocean.

 

 After an afternoon at Crane Point, we rode back to the campground in a 20 mile per hour headwind!

Another Day in Paradise

We woke up to another beautiful day weather-wise. So we decided to hang out at the park and base ourselves at the campground today.

We started by doing a little laundry - you can see the conditions are perfect for drying on the line - hot sun and a steady breeze dries the laundry in no time!

I took another long walk and worked on my Spanish.

 Greg had fun windsurfing with his buddy Jay. Greg is the orange sail and Jay is the clear sail. At 82, Jay has been windsurfing for more than 30 years. He has been teaching Greg how to do a "beach start."

While Greg was windsurfing, I spent time on the beach starting my second book of the trip and talking to Jay's wife, Jackie.

Everyone seems very friendly and interested in talking and sharing information about things to do and places to go.

At about 4:30, we decided to ride our bikes into Marathon to eat dinner. We got a restaurant recommendation from our campground hosts, Rick and Paula (who are from Minnesota by the way).

Sparky's was just as good as they promised - we split fish tacos and a "Frueben" which is the catch of the day prepared like a Reuben (per Rick and Paula's recommendation).

Even though I'm a "chocolate gal," we had to try a piece of their special home-made Key Lime Pie. It was delicious!

Good thing we were riding back to the campsite to work off some of the calories. :-)

As planned, we got back to the campsite just in time to see another beautiful sunset . . . . and get into the motor home before the no see ums emerge at dusk!

The strategy is working and I don't have anywhere the number of bites I did last year - Thank goodness!!