The Florida Keys

Florida Keys/Key West/Bahia Honda State Park

March 1-10

We have had a glorious 10 day in the Florida Keys.  This is such a unique area...with the Gulf Coast on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other...often meeting under one of the many bridges on the Keys.  I was surprised how long the Keys are...probably about 130 miles.  Curt really wanted to go to Key West...so we took a day trip to visit the Southernmost part of the United States.  It was an interesting town.  The highlight was having key lime pie after a hot walk on the beach.   We also visited a beautiful botanic garden that was right on the beach.  There are tons of wild roosters in this town...we had to share a picture.

We went on a interesting hike before we left Curry Hammock. It was all in the "hammock", which is a very dense/rainforest like forest.  We hiked on coral that had been over 300 feet under the ocean when this area was covered by an ocean over 100,000 years ago.  WOW!!  It was very humid and pretty buggy...but interesting.  Poor Jordan had a bad run in with the "no-see-ums" here which are a very tiny gnat like bug that comes out, especially at dusk.  Everyone else in the family got bites, but we were not allergic...so we never got lasting spots.  But at last count Jordan had 45 bites...poor guy.  Talking about bites..we also had 2 run-ins with ticks on Abby-girl.(our sweet dog)  Thankfully our wonderful Spokane vet, neighbor and friend, Dr. Ben Hart helped reassure us that we had done the right thing and recommended further treatment.  Ticks are really so disgusting!!(I hope those are the last 2 we see on this trip!)

 The water in the Keys was AMAZING...really so Caribbean like.  We felt like we were on a Wheel of Fortune commercial for a trip we had won.  The water was so turquoise and clear with long white sand bars in the water that went out hundreds of feet.  This picture was taken at least 100 yards from the beach.  The boys loved playing catch and wrestle mania in the water.  There are very few beaches on the Keys...which seems kind of strange...but the one at the state park was beautiful.

Jordan and the boys were trying to catch the fish they saw with this bucket...but they were too quick!  One of the other cool nature things we have seen down here is the pelicans.  They are beautiful birds who are always gliding along the water or diving down for a fish.  It was so fun to see them dive!

 Cannot you just see this picture on a Wheel of Fortune prize wheel???

Tomorrow morning we will head to Everglades National Park.  The boys are so excited to see the alligators and other swampy things.  People have said it is such a unique park...lets hope there are not a lot of  bugs!