Southernmost trip to date...Day 1

Posting a month after the event, today is the 4 year anniversary of our first camping excursion in the Intergalactic Space Pineapple.  23 trips including a 2 week one in 2017 for the Solar Eclipse!  Almost 1 every two months, but more as she was in space dock for 4.5 months getting repairs (2 times).

Anyway, the keys!  The first trip south in the Pineapple, as all others have been north.  Bahia Honda State Park is a tough place to get a campsite.   You can either book one out as they come online 18 months out, or wait and hope for a cancellation.   I occasionally check for those and grab them if they come up as they are gone in minutes.   I got so lucky back in April as 5 nights in August came available.  Now the keys in Aug can be brutally hot at Latitude 24.7 in the depths of summer, but hey, I have AC!  So I booked a Thursday through Saturday night as 3.5 days in the park would be plenty.   As soon as I booked it for Aug 15th, I checked the school calendar.  DOH!  school starts 3 days earlier.  Oh well kiddo, looks like you are skipping school the first week.

She went in for a half day on Thursday and then missed Friday so it wasn't that big of a deal.  I took the whole day off Friday and spent the morning loading up the coach and was shooting for a noon departure to put us through Miami at the lightest traffic during the day.  We got out pretty well at 12:30 and made great time until we went around the big bend on the Turnpike Extension.  By the time we got to Doral it was raining.  A few miles later by the 836, it was pouring and by the time we got to Bird Road it was raining so hard I could see about 30 ft and was passing people but was only going about 20 mph.  It was THICK. 

It lasted all the way down past Cutler Bay and by Homestead the sun was back out and we were rolling along, however, it cost about 30 minutes of drive time with the slow down.   We stopped off in Florida City and gassed up.  Pro Tip:  drive to Tavernier if you can make it (about another 35-40 miles) as the gas was 15 cents less a gallon!

Back on it and over the 18 mile stretch....

Tommy, Freddy, and Hugo were on the lookout for Crocs even though I told them it's hard to see them when you are whizzing by at 65 mph. South FL is the only place on Earth where alligators and Crocodiles live side by side.

Now that the road is divided and there are several passing zones, you can almost take a nap as the road is laser straight for most of the 18 miles (a few curves as the land bends).  As you can see Thursday around 2 is a good time!

On the port side of our shuttle you will notice Card Sound and a forest of mangroves (the sound is on the left in the photo). There is another toll bridge that way but it's longer.

Passing over Jewfish Creek which is the divider between the mainland and Key Largo.  Freddy wanted to stop for a swim, but we had to keep pushing on.

The first exit in Key Largo and a commanding view of Lake Surprise from the flyover bridge (about 70 ft up).  The story with Lake Surprise was back in the early 1900s when Henry Flagler started to build his railroad to Key West, they surveyed and thought this area was all land as they sailed all around it.  They started to cut down the trees and SURPRISE, a big fat lake.

As luck would have it, we approached Plantation Key right as school was getting out.   Another 20 minutes of traffic!   My buddy Mike is a teacher at the High School there and while sitting in traffic he calls my cell.  Sure enough, I was spotted!  Actually, his son said, "Hey Dad look at the cool rig" and he was oh that's Sprocket!   Almost Famous, lol.

Breaking free of the traffic as soon as we passed the student pickup turn in, we were back to buzzing along in light traffic.  

 The power poles are where the railroad bridge used to be.

If you have never made this drive, put it on your bucket list.  It is truly an amazing experience (unless the traffic sucks).  The last pic here is the flyover on the 7 mile bridge (yes, its that long).  Off to starboard you see the original Florida East Coast (FEC) railroad bridge built over 100 years ago.  The span was removed for boat traffic as this bridge is out of use and going back to nature.   After the 1935 hurricane, it was converted into a highway for cars.  Here is a newsreel from a few months before the storm.  They started to build a road as well, but after the railroad was destroyed Flagler donated the bridges and they  were swapped over.

We made one more stop just before the 7 mile bridge for ice (20 lbs, it lasted the full 3 days we were there!) for drinks.

We made the park at 4:50.  Only about an hour behind schedule but still plenty of time.  The campsite was nice and big, but we had to cram onto one side and corner (close to the road) in order to have the water hose and power reach. You can see the orange water hose stretched all the way out.

 The park ranger filled us in on the 'updates' to the park thanks to Irma 2 years ago and we immediately made a drink and headed to the beach by the campground.  The beach was improved by the hurricane and was the busiest I have ever seen it.   The water was bathtub warm but felt good after the 4.5 hour car ride with no AC. 

You used to be able to walk out the end of the span, but it was blocked off (See pic below, the whole part over the water on the left was blocked).  I thought it was storm damaged until I saw pictures in the nature center taken a day or two after the storm and saw the barricades already.  The ranger informed me it was closed just before the storm as they have to do periodic inspections on it.  Since the storm, it has fallen to the bottom of the priority list as they rebuild.  Soon she said...It's my favorite view in all of the keys.

Not one of the spectacular sunsets that we are used too.   The storm rolled up out of the SW and we watched it go by on both sides of us pouring rain, but we never got wet.  As we were up there on the bridge, the lightning was a few miles south of the bridge so we hightailed it back to the campground to make vittles.

 Couscous on a skillet!, it got transferred into a pot for the rest of it. 

 Normally, the LED Pineapple is by the door, but it was moonless and DARK, so I rigged it on the ladder so I could see what I was cooking.

Smoked sausage, getting more smoke.  This little unit is great.  It's a grille, it's a wok, it's a burner or a pot.  Super versatile and folds up into a nice little package that stores easily.

Tommy having a glass of Vino with his salad.  He thinks we are gross for eating meat, but he's just a bull.

We went out for another bike ride to see the Milky Way at the beach, but more rain came so we cruised back to the coach and bedded down for the night.