July 12, 2012 Key West to Biscayne National Park, to Melbourne FL

Up early, loaded the car and then, more rain!  The weather map shows showers and thunderstorms for the next few days, and we got to drive through some more on our way out of the Keys and beyond.

Patti was shocked to realize  while reading tourist information when we were in Key West, that we had missed the photo opportunity while driving down in the rainstorm of a close encounter with Betsey the World's Largest Lobster.  Betsey is 25 feet tall and 35 feet long and anatomically and biologically correct.  How could we have missed her?  Luckily, we got another chance to the way back out.

One of the day’s real highlights was a stop at Big Pine Key to visit the Key Deer Sanctuary.  Key deer are tiny little white tail deer, probably one a foot and half tall.  Because they were so isolated here on the islands, they adapted and became quite small, but also great swimmers and can swim quite far distances between islands.  They are endangered with only between 600 and 700 living in the world, all in the middle Key Islands.  Their only real predator is cars, and there is a sign up as to how many were killed last year (150) and this year so far (65). 

The staff person at the visitor center gave us a map and directions of where we could see deer, even though we protested that we had only a short amount of time.  She pretty much guaranteed we should see them, so we drove a little ways up a country road and there was a lovely little full-grown deer.  It looked just like a baby fawn.  It posed for us for some time while we took photos, and we glimpsed another one behind us.  We knew if we could stick around for a couple hours we would probably see many more.  Very special opportunity.  Our good luck with wildlife continues.

Once we were off the Keys, we made a quick stop to another amazing National Park: Biscayne.  This part is 95% underwater.  The primary way to see the park is boating or diving.  It was really pouring rain, so we mostly got to experience the water nature of the park through the rain.  Patti was pleased to be able to try on a real ranger hat.

We were able to get around the Miami traffic without real trouble.  The traffic has been compared with Los Angeles, so we were glad to be going around and getting through by about 2:30.

The remainder of the day was spent driving in and out of rain.  We thought we might stop and see some lighthouses or beaches, but with the rain, we just wanted to arrive at our hotel, which we did at about 4:30.  This gave some relaxing time to cook dinner, go for a swim and kick back.  A quieter day, but another nice one in Florida.