Amy's Rear View Mirror

Key West, FL ...
8/3 - 8/13

Key West, FL

Finally, a vacation ... a real vacation ... it's been waaaayyyy too long ...

We went to Key West for a week and stayed at Boyd's Campground with Phil & Diane Rohman and Joe Lewis. There was a lot of company around the first weekend ... we had friends we've met over the years staying with us: Atilla Toke, Bud Watkins and Jerry (uh, uh Miller, yeah Miller), Phil & Diane had Phil's brother Chris staying with them, and Joe had his sons and their friends. Pam & Emery Davis drove their motorhome down and brought friends Lois & Daryl with them.

Joe & Phil were in sites next to each other and parked their motorhomes in opposite directions so their awnings would face each other. Joe put up his canvas shelter across the far end of both awnings. This gave us quite a large covered area for cooking, eating, etc when it rained and to stay out of the sun. We were in the site on the other side of Phil.

Boyd's has all the needed amenities ... boat dock, marina, email access, fax services, store, etc. They even had a chiller on the pool so it stayed a cool 70 degrees ... what a wonderful way to end a hot day.

Jim went diving and lobstering all week with Joe and Phil. Joe taught him how to catch the lobster. During the day while the guys were diving and fishing, the ladies either went to the pool or into town shopping ... I think I ended up going to  the Kino store 5 times during the week!!  In the evenings kept us busy with cooking dinner; making rounds of margaritas, pina colodas, and mai tais; games of Hand & Foot and 10,000; and just visiting.

One day when the water was too rough to go out Jim & I went into town and did the tourist stuff:
Conch Train tour - covers the entire island with an explanation of the different neighborhoods and villages
Shipwreck Historium - the story of Key West shipwrecking and how it made the town wealthy
Aquarium - features the animals of the area waters with a touch tank and shark feeding
Later that evening we went to Louis' Backyard for dinner ... a very nice restaurant on the south end of the island in an old house in the middle of a neighborhood. Most of the house is the kitchen now and the tables are on the back porch and patio. There's a full bar out back on a dock overlooking the ocean. It was a great spot to sit and relax and watch the sunset.

Another day we took the FastCat to Ft. Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas.  They served us breakfast on the ride over (2.5 hours) and then lunch at the fort after the tour, as well as supplied us with snorkel gear to check out the reef for a few hours before returning to Key West. It was a lot of fun and well worth the trip.

Everglades National Park, FL

We toured the COE Visitor's Center and I got my passport stamped. The visitor's center had some very interesting information about the water shortage through the everglade region.

We drove the 38 miles to Flamingo taking every side road we found. There were some really nice places to stop and watch the wildlife as well as walk trails. We didn't do either since the mosquitos were so bad. But from the car we were able to see Egret, Garr, Turkey Vulture, and Hawks. We had packed leftovers from Key West in a cooler and had lunch in the car as we drove around the park.

We drove through 2 of the campgrounds. They looked pretty rundown and didn't have any hookups. Some of the sites were long enough that our motorhome would fit. If the campgrounds were in good shape they'd be really nice places to go ...  too bad they haven't been kept up.

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