To Mile Marker 70

It's Saturday and once again, a moving day. We moved a whole fifty miles today, up the Overseas Highway (US 1) from Sugarloaf Key to Long Key and Fiesta Key RV Resort.  We are now at Mile Marker 70, about the midway point of the Florida Keys.

As you drive through the Lower Keys, you start running into these interesting signs. There are many miles where the speed limit is 45 miles per hour during daylight hours and 35 miles per hour at night. The way the signs are made, at night ONLY the 35 miles per hour shows.

 The signs are because this whole area is part of the National Key Deer Refuge for this endangered species. The deer are a sub-species of white-tailed deer that actually swim between the islands. We've not seen any, but I found this picture on Wikipedia --

A Key Deer Buck seen on No Name Key

 While the deer have no natural predators, the largest number of fatalities are caused by automobiles, so there is a great deal of effort put into trying to prevent collisions.

This is Seven Mile Bridge that is basically the division point between the Upper and Lower Keys --

And here is Auntie Violet, in her site along the canal that is the back entrance to the marina. It was 80 plus degrees this afternoon. It was so pleasant to sit out on the grass with a can of lemonade and my Kindle, watching the pelicans flying back and forth.

Finally, THE KEYS!

It seems like we've been heading in this direction for a l-o-n-g time and now, we are finally in the Florida Keys! We're a long, long way from Washington State.

We basically drove down Highway 1, which goes all the way from Homestead to Key West, the end of the island chain that makes up the Keys. The mainland portion of the highway skirts Everglades National Park and is very swampy --

As you get further down the Keys, the highway is a two-lane road with a blue concrete barrier down the center line. (I have a feeling that there used to be head-on crashes from impatient drivers...) The Atlantic Ocean was on our left and the Gulf of Mexico was on the right -- as we crossed the many bridges we could see them both at the same time.

The battery on my camera went dead, so I didn't get any more pictures until we got to Sugarloaf Key where the KOA is located. Believe it or not, these are residents of the RV Resort --

 I think we spotted three roosters and the one lone hen strutting in and out among the RVs --

It was getting towards dusk when we went for a walk around the park. This Brown Pelican flew into the mangroves to roost --

I almost missed getting a shot of this one, beginning to show breeding colors on the head.

This is the swimming area at the park --

And here's one more Brown Pelican (the American White Pelican is not on this coast) sitting on the bridge --