Florida Keys

Tiny rainbow

Wednesday morning started out before first light, this going to bed because it is dark and I don't want to waste my batteries means I'm up really early (just after 5am on this morning) and me worrying about if I let myself get to low on gas driving around the park, my biggest worry as I head out is will I make it to the gas station without having to call AAA?  Yes I did.  And I'm not sure how much further I could have gone but I wasn't yet coasting in on fumes which is good.  Filled up the tank and on my way south, Florida keys here I come.  First bridge and my low tire light comes on, so first gas station I pull off, can not tell which tire it is so I add air to all of them (which reminds me I haven't gotten a oil change since before leaving California and it's due, I should do that latter this week.)  Whatever I did made the light go out and stay out so I'm happy.  Continue down, watched an unimpressive sunrise over the ocean.  Then it decided to sprinkle a bit and I saw a little chunk of a rainbow.

Pretty islands

Where does the land end?

The keys are not just a string of islands like it looks on the maps of Florida, those are just the largest.  There are actually many islands between the main land and the string.  And florida/gulf of mexico here is so flat that one could basically walk from the keys to the mainland.  You would get wet but the water is not all that deep.  Which brings me to the question of where does the land end and the water begin.  Most of southern Florida is marshland in that it is covered by a couple feet of water, and most of the gulf here is shallow in that it is flat and less than 6 feet deep, then there are the plants that grow in a couple feet of water, like the mangroves.  So some of the islands of plants that look like islands don't actually have any ground above water so is it land or not?  Wow Florida is flat and the gulf of mexico is flat and just a foot can mean a very different habitat and different plants that can grow there.

This extra toed cat let me pet him for a long bit.

The drive from the mainland is 100ish miles along the keys, this is 100 miles of tourist town, you have the little shops trying to sell you anything and everything under the sun.  Because this is kind of close to the Caribbean there are some that throw in the pirate theme, but for the most part it reminds me of Santa Barbara except that there is less Spanish influence and more southern feel to the architecture, no red tile roofs here but we do have wrap around porches and fans.  I made it to mile 0 of highway 1 in Key West.  Found myself some parking and went to the Hemingway Home and Museum.  It was interesting to learn more and I got to pet many cats, some of them even had extra toes.  I had been feeling a bit cat deprived so I sat and petted as many of the cats that would let me until I felt less kitty deprived.  I walked along Duval street. I had a piece of real Key lime pie for lunch, it was good.  And had had enough of the tourist town, I mean really if I wanted fabulous beach tourist town I would have stayed home.  And with the humidity (everyone claims it was nothing, but more than I'm use to) and the eighty degree temperature I was hot and sticky and ready to head back to cooler weather.  So I was on the road heading north again around noon.  Stopped along the drive back to the mainland and tried to see some key deer but they were not out, but had a nice walk anyway and saw some turtles at the watering hole.  The ranger claimed that the watering hole was both salt water and fresh water with the fresh water sitting on top of the salt water and that they didn't mix so the bottom of the lake had salt water fish and the top had fresh water fish, I need to do some research but I don't quite believe that is possible.  On my way out, I got stopped by the drawbridge and then I continued out of the keys.

Look I'm at the front of the drawbridge line.

 Once out of the keys I was going to stop for the night at a hostel the internet had told me about (I wanted a shower) but the place looked really bad, so I decided not to go there.  I had a back up plan of going to one of the free campgrounds in the Water management district (there are bunches of them) but when I got there I found it was closed for general camping for hunting season (bad internet, no cookie) so I found a very nice rest area somewhere outside Orlando and called it a night.