Saturday was a pretty lazy day around the campground. We slept in fairly late for me (9 ish), and had a slow breakfast and took a shower. If you have never been to the keys in the middle of summer (especially August) it is BRUTAL from 9 AM until about 6 PM. The sun feels like it is on top of you and unless you are on/in the water (our site was not), it is just hot hot hot.
After breakfast we took a ride over to the nature center and spent about 1.5 hours there. First we talked to the ranger about hurricane Irma and looked at the many before/immediately after photos of the park. It was here I learned the bridge had been closed for a pending inspection just prior to the storm. Due to all the other rebuilding, 2 years later, it still hasn't been inspected as they hit a reset button on everything post storm. The ranger said that they had just re-submitted the paperwork for it to happen, so hopefully it'll be open again soon.
Back in July at JDSP in Hobe Sound, we started a 3 part series about the history of the FL State Park system (orig shown on PBS). We watched the 2nd chapter here, so we have one more to go at the next park. Each one is about 30 min long. We would have doubled up, but they were closing for lunch. So we headed back to the gift shop and had ice cream cones for lunch as they are the cornerstone of every nutritious meal. and bought a fridge magnet for our visited parks collection.
We then pedaled around a little, but it was hot and we didn't want to hang in the sun after the day before, so we became hermits and went back to the coach and enjoyed the labors of our 15K BTU AC unit straining to keep up all afternoon. It never cycled off all day and kept the coach at 80 (it was 96-97 out). Later, once the sun went down it got cool inside in a hurry and both Sat and Sun morning the coach was covered in condensation until the sun got up.
Late in the afternoon, we appeared around 5pm and headed to the beach between the bridges.
I discovered a fantastic use for the boogie board, floating bar! The water was bathtub warm, it had to be over 90 here at this beach.
Naya snorkeled around the jetty and saw lots and lots of fish. She kept giving me the mask so I could id the fish for her. Will have to take her snorkeling around up here more often.
Other people's trash can be entertaining. This water bottle went floating by so of course we removed it, but only after using it as a water cannon.
Relaxing in the warm water, you can see the nature center building in the background.
Naya had caught a big hermit crab and here she is putting him back where she found him. I had already gone topside. The walk up to the bridge used to be under an arching canopy of trees, which of is long gone from Irma now but will grow back eventually.
Selfie time. Our campground is just beyond the jetty where Naya snorkeled. It marks the marina entrance.
Part of a series I'm working on called Disinterested Teenager....
I think a smile would have cost me $20 she was being so uncooperative...
The time is getting near. With so much summer rain going on, there were no real spectacular sunsets, but this one was looking like the best of the 3 we saw this trip (it was).
Having many photos from the top of the bridge, I went down to try some different perspectives this time.
Here is the best one of my artsy fartsy photo shoot....
About 60 feet away I finally get a smile!
Yeah the bridge is fairly high!
Here you can see the tall coconuts paid the price for being taller than the bridge during Irma. The wind came from left to right in the photo so all the trees that were below the top of the bridge got a bit of a break from the wind.
From the available data, it looks like the park had about 110-120 mph sustained winds and gusts up to 160 mph as the eyewall rolled right over the key.
Back at the site for dinner, I had to move the LED Pineapple closer in as the moon was not yet up. The friendly neighborhood cicada showed up would fly into us every couple of minutes. He was good for a few laughs.
After dinner it was back up to the bridge to watch the moonrise (camera phone doesn't focus well on a dot 250K miles away). After that back to the coach for some cocktails and more relaxing.
Our final day was a short one as we had to pack out and drive home. I was shooting for an 11:30 departure in order to get out of the keys before the weekend exodus back to the mainland. We were up at a reasonable time and got things started packing up then went for a ride.
As Naya has outgrown the muscle bike, we now take turns on it. Here Lucy is Geo-Caching and driving....
There are a couple of Geo-Caches in the park. While they were looking for it I took a couple of pics hopping over rocks at low tide. I didn't get wet (bigwin). I finally went over to see what they were doing hunting around in the bushes and found the first one (I'm the disinterested one) right next to the sidewalk. We then swung by the nature center in time to get a ranger led ride through the Sandspur camp loop which Irma destroyed and it has been closed to the public for the past 2 years.
Here is the road as it turns to where the old Sandspur camping loop started. Nature has been busy as all of this was barren after the storm.
If you zoom in on this pic, you can see a pelican diving in for his/her lunch. They were feeding about 4 ft off the sand in very shallow water. This was the middle of the camping loop. The wide beach is where all the Casuarinas and tent sites used to be.
Petey Pelican eyeing up another snack.
This was the middle of the parking lot for the day beach at the end of Sandspur. 75% of the pavement is gone and it's a wide beach now. The mounds is where they pushed the sand off of whats left of the the road for access.
Pristine beach that other than rangers has not been used in two years by humans. It was beautiful except for one thing....
Plastic everywhere washed up in the seaweed. We spent 5-10 minutes walking a small area and collected enough to fill a grocery bag. We have to be better stewards of our planet!
What a great way to wrap up the trip!
View of the bridge returning from Sandspur.
Time for Tommy and Hugo's modeling session.
Work that camera boys!
A couple of law breaking stuffies!
Pineapple glamour shots too!
Saw this as I got back in to leave, love this picture. Need to work on that curtain though...
Aloha, see you next time....
The ride home was longer than hoped as there were two accidents in Islamorada and then the stretch was backed up se we got off at Gilbert's and turned around and used Card Sound and then motored all the way back home...
Back at space dock, unloading all the dirty dishes, etc. Another successful sortie for the Space Twinkie. Stay tuned for the next installment!
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