Key Largo, Florida…

One last morning I enjoyed watching the sunrise and boats navigating their way through the St Lucie Locks. Sharon and I had breakfast afterward and hit the road. It would be a long drive down the congested Florida toll road to Miami until we pulled into our next campground for a one night stay at Larry and Penny Thompson Park in south Miami, FL.

Larry and Penny Thompson Park is a reginal park near the Miami Zoo.When we arrived it was under massive renovations as many of the campsites were unavailable. The campsites are arranged in circular pods and after checking in we pulled into our site for a night. There are some great walking/biking trails adjacent to the park and after strolling around we decided this would be a good spot for an extended stay. Maybe, next time…

The next morning we made our way down to Key Largo, Florida in the northern Keys to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, We set up camp and didn’t do much for the first few days as the weather was stormy. It rained intermittently throughout the day. but we were happy to be chilling in the Keys nonetheless.

Key Largo is more populated than anywhere else in the Keys but still has the scenery making the Keys what they are, a tropical paradise. We took many walks in and around the park taking in the sights, This state park has a few nice but short trails with one doing a great job of identifying the vegetation of the hummocks in this part of the Keys.

This park is known for its snorkeling but don’t expect as we did to see anything near the shore within the park.To really have the great snorkel experience, one has to go out to the reefs about 7 miles offshore. We did a little snorkeling off the shoreline of the park and although we saw a few fish in the sea grass covered bottom it really wasn’t worth the effort.

Sharon’s snorkel disintegrated while she was snorkeling meaning we would need a new one should we decide to do anymore. Fortunately we discovered the park has an on premise dive shop with decent prices for snorkel gear. However, after watching a few of the chartered snorkel boats leave the docks packed with people we decided in this Covid world we wouldn’t charter a boat to the reef this time around.

While we totally enjoyed our stay in Key Largo we were certainly disappointed that we didn’t get in any quality snorkeling and with the windy, choppy sea days we also didn’t bother to inflate our inflatable sea kayak to tour the mangroves. To add to the depressing circumstance of our Covid world , the park had a ghost town feel to it as we never saw more than one charter go out daily, There is also a free aquarium within the park which receives high reviews but is closed due to the virus. The normally happy, bustling park was very quiet indeed..

However, there were also highlights. We enjoyed driving further south on highway 1 savoring the views of the turquoise waters while stopping to stroll on the abandoned bridges. Our morning walks were delightful as we often saw interesting birds and even saw a foraging Ray in the sea grasses just offshore.

Best of all we were able to enjoy some little tiki bars with outside decks overlooking the waters offering that wonderful, relaxing Keys experience.Our favorite was Sharkeys! Other days just simply sitting outside at our campsite watching the birds and the iguanas in the mangroves was very entertaining. . While the green iguanas are an invasive species they are still great subjects for photos and as we watched them we couldn’t help but see the miniature dinosaurs they really are…

NOTE:  We are currently in Alva, Florida at the Franklin Locks COE Park.