Key West-Florida

This part of our journey is where we found finding a camping spot really difficult. Using our trusty RV Stays app Rose rang every park on the Florida Keys looking for a camp site. Apparently in February, unless you book well in advance you will not be staying on he Keys. Best we could come up with is a suburb of Miami called Homestead and that was it and it was only for 4 days at that. As we approached the park we looked at one another, mmm intersting to say the least. We pulled up to the gatehouse that houses a fulltime security guard, that tells us something! We passed identification and were told the gates shut at 6pm and you will need to call the security guard for access after dark, great what have we got ourselves into? We found our site, it was an abandoned mobile home site, but it was rather large. This was it no other choice so we settled in. 

Our Homestead Site

Our first trip was to Key West, a short 120 miles south a long drive but we were as close as we were going to get to it at this time of year with a fifth wheeler so a day drive was it. The road is no interstate, generally a two lane road with low speed limits so it took us a good two and a half hours to even get there. We had no trouble finding a parking spot right in town so a walking we did go. The first point of interest is the marker showing the USA southern most point. There were lots of people there and there was a lineup to get your photo taken. The good thing about the line is it gave you time to meet the person behind you and arrange for then to take your photo and you for them a great show of people working together from all over the world to achieve the same thing, a simple photo. 

Only the second time we have had shorts on

For lunch the obvious choice was the Southern most point pub so we went in sat at the bar and ordered some bar snacks and of course a couple of drinks. This place must be a goldmine it wasn't exactly hot but it was pretty busy so come summer it must really fill up. Lunch done it was time to see more of Key West. Its not to many places you can go and see chickens walking the streets and crossing the road to get to the other side and everyone gave way to them it was hilarious to see. As we walked the streets we found a line up of people near a brick fence and of course it got our attention. For those book readers we found the house of none other than Ernest Hemmingway, I must admit I don't think I have read single book of his but I did know who he was. It was an intersting site but not enough for us to pay to see. We walked a few more blocks and just enjoyed the warm day and the architecture that was Key West. 

Why did the chicken cross the road?

 

Stopped and chatted to this bloke carving

A typical Key West Street

As the day was Superbowl day we were mindful that we wanted to be back home to watch it so we needed to allow at least a couple of hours for the trip home. There keys were pretty amazing and i was so surprised how far it actually was to Key West, but we did it. We did stop on the way home to admire and take photos of the journey.

One of the many bridges to Key West

The water was so inviting

Although our stop was short we enjoyed it but due to the availability of sites it was just impossible for us to stay longer. Rose has again been on the phone attempting to find a spot further north up near Orlando as we need to be in the Orlando area as we have special guests from Austraila coming to stay with us in a few weeks. So its on the phone again for poor Rose as in the morning we leave and we still have no site to go to, fingers crossed we will get lucky in the next few hours.