Key West - Finally

Today was a year and a half in the making.  In March of 2022, I made reservations for the Yankee Freedom ferry out of Key West to travel to Dry Tortugas National Park.  Unfortunately Hurricane Ian had other plans and the trip was canceled.  So again in March of 2023 I made reservations and today we will drive to Key West to spend a couple of days.  One day will be in Key West itself and the second day the ferry ride.  Today  pulled out of the campground at 7:00 a.m. heading south for Miami and Key West.  We drove US 27 south until we hit I-75S.

The sun was trying to peak over the clouds in the east.

 

There was a mist rising off the fields.

 

When I think of Florida, I think of orange juice and Florida's Natural Orange Juice Company is located on US 27 south of where we are camped.

We are here a little earlier than other years so the oranges are still green on the trees.  They are hard to see because the green oranges blend in with the leaves but they are there.  The picture below  shows new orange trees covered with bags that protect the trees from insects, deer and provides UV protection to the leaves.

After driving past acres of orange trees, the fields began to be filled with sugar cane.  Domino Sugar Company has a processing plant nearby to process from the fields.  The towns nearby pay homage to the sugar companies by naming their sports fields "Sugarland."

There is new construction everywhere in Florida.  These are located on a waterway.  I loved the pastel colors
US 27 was a nice four-lane highway passing through small and medium sized towns.  We really enjoyed the drive by orange groves and sugar cane fields.  It was good that we were able to relax on this part of the drive because when we got on I-75 South, the traffic and multiple lane changes and routes began.  Sometimes we were driving on six lanes headed south.  I-75 is also known as the Florida Turnpike and is a toll road.  In addition to this toll road there were dedicated lanes that required "Sun Pass Only"  transponders/stickers on which to drive.  We had to be careful not to accidently get into one of those lanes since we did not have a transponder or sticker.  We did all of this on six-lanes of southbound traffic stacked full of cars.  At one point a picture of our license plate was taken and we will receive a  bill from the State of Florida for driving on their toll road.  Through it all, Carol was cool as a cucumber.  I was very proud of him.  On Monday of next week, if we stick to our original plan, we will be driving the motorhome home on these roads.  We did not see any other RVs on these roads so I am thinking here may be a better way to go to the Everglades and I need to find another route. 

At last we made it to Route 1 South which goes to Key West.  

This person lives on his own island.

Above and below are pictures taken along Highway 1.

We made it to Key West at 2:30 and could not check into our hotel until 4:00 so we found a parking place and ate lunch/supper at Sloppy Joe's Bar.  Sloppy Joe's has been operating since 1933 and has live music.

This guy was entertaining us.  The only tables available were close to the stage so it was very loud  Carol had to take his hearing aides out.  

Our food:  Carol had shrimp and chips and I had their "famous" Sloppy Joe's BBQ.  It was very good.

Key West is famous for many things.  One of those things are the chickens that run free in the city,  This mom and her babies were just outside of the entrance to the Fairfield Inn and Suites where we are staying for three nights.

This fellow was right outside the door of our room.

One of the reasons I booked this hotel was the fact that they offer a free shuttle from the hotel to downtown Key West and back to the hotel.  It runs every hour until 10 at night.  It costs $4.00 an hour to park downtown so it will save us a lot in parking fees.  We plan to take the shuttle to downtown and ride the Duval Street Free Bus to the different places we plan to visit.  We are tired and will probably be in bed early so we can be fresh for a long day tomorrow.