Greg & Camille Go Bike

We woke up pretty early in Bahia Honda hoping to get a lot of biking in during the cool morning air. We packed up camp pretty excitedly, feeling plenty of fresh bites from the no-see-ums. Just after dawn, we were on the road biking again through the keys. The route felt pretty similar to what we'd experienced the last couple days with stretches on the shoulder of Route 1, some separate pathways running parallel and old railway bridges running parallel to those carry traffic. One particular nice stretch darted into the woods and we could barely hear or see the main road for a few miles.

After 23 of our 38 miles today, we stopped at Baby's Coffee for Greg's first 2 cups of coffee today. We setup on the picnic tables outside. Camille started up a conversation with another biker sitting on a bench nearby. His name was Don and he was excited to hear about our trip. Apparently, he's retired military so was able to park his RV in one of the military bases for a cheaper rate than usual during the winter. He also talked about how he'd taught just outside of Dover, DE when he was younger. We probably spent half an hour chatting about various topics with Don before moving on. He offerred us a place to relax/recharge devices while waiting for the ferry later in the day if we wanted. We didn't end up taking him up on the offer, but it was a great chance encounter.

Leaving Baby's we biked another 10 miles or so until we reached the Key West Tropical & Botanical Center. There was a fair bit of variety to the flora and most of the center was well shaded. We wandered their grounds for maybe an hour and a half snapping pictures before finally moving on. Next, we continued on the actual end of both ACA's Atlantic Coast route and East Coast Greenway. Leading up to it felt pretty exciting. There was a long stretch spent biking a few feet from the water on a nice off-road trail, followed by a really busy stretch along the beach. Our final destination, the southern most point of the United States ended up being pretty lame though. There was a red pillar with some writing on it with long line of people waiting for selfies.

Next, we biked over to Fort Zachary Tailor State Park. Don had recommended it as a nice place to escape from the crowds of Key West. We snacked on the rest of our food here (worried about the limits the ferry had on bags), explored the fort a little bit and took some pictures on the beach. We decided the beach felt like a much nicer final destination for our trip than a monument.

On the way to the ferry, we biked through Duval Street. Everyone kept talking about how hectic it was and it felt like something we had to at least see while in Key West. It seemed like a pretty typical touristy main street in a beach town, with one exception. There were chickens and roosters everywhere! We'd noticed them intermittently throughout the keys, but they were especially common in Key West. Don had mentioned earlier that they were initially brought in to control the bugs and they're protected by the local governments now.

We arrived at the ferry with a couple hours to spare. I'm not sure why we were so worried about the baggage rules. They ended up not being very strict at all and the ferry ride over was pretty uneventful. We arrived in Fort Myers Beach around 9:30 pm and checked into our hotel.