Jan 28th Still Hangin’ Out

Happy Hour on the dock

Not too much goin’ on, but I guess that is why we came here. It has been a mix of weather more cold and wind than we would like, but we have had the odd warm day as well. By cold we mean it has not gotten above 70 degrees. Any temp below that seems a bit chilly to us. It is amazing how fast one can acclimate in this climate. It will be an adjustment once we get back into the colder climes.


We have taken more day trips. Ben and Dot were down for a few days and we toured the upper keys. We took a glass bottom boat trip to the reef one day and got to see lots of manta rays and other reef fish: barracuda, grouper, wras and parrot fish.


Everglades Air Boat


We went up to the north end of the Everglades and visited a Miccosukee “Indian village” (tourist trap), and we took an air boat ride into the glades which was really a lot of fun. The guide book we have doesn’t think the air boat concessions are particularly ecologically correct, but they are a lot of fun and they don’t seem to bother the wildlife. The gators and birds pretty much stood their ground as we went whizzing by. This part of the Everglades is pretty much a sea of grass standing in a few inches of water. Occasionally there are “hammocks” small islands of hardwood trees that have a bit of soil and are above the water. The Miccosukee Indians hid out in these hammocks to escape being deported to the west in the early 1800s, and lived in these bits of land until as late as the 1950s. The guide said that this area is actually a very wide river that flows from central Florida to the coast through the Everglades.

Sea of Grass

We took another trip to Key West to check out RV parks and places closer to Key West than we are now. It is about a two and half hour trip from Key Largo to Key West and we want to check out the lower keys while we are here. We found a park about 20 miles from Key West that we could get into mid February for a week.

While we were there we stopped by the marker designating the most southern point of the US. ( I don’t think they’re counting Hawaii) Everyone in the neighborhood is cashing in on the location, advertising “the southern most house”, “the southern most hotel”, “the southern most gift shop” as if “southern most” was an attribute that would that should be highly prized by gullible tourists.



"Southern Most" Gullible Tourist