We left the rig at 6:00 am and if you know me that was not easy. My normal wake time is 9-11 am. We had a quick breakfast, filled a cooler and finished packing. Off we went down Us Hwy 41. It is a nice highway and we went south through Bonita Springs and Naples toward the Everglades. The day was supposed to be sunny but as has been the norm since we arrived in Florida it was cloudy.
We got fuel in Naples and drove to a visitor center in the Everglades. It was only 7:30 am and the visitor center was closed but we took advantage of the restrooms. There is a boardwalk along the canal between the highway and the visitor center. We started walking toward it and found several birds there. I mentioned that I wished I had my camera so Denny offered to go get it.
Denny brought the camera back and the birds were still there. I was able to get pictures without knowing what they are. If you know what these birds are please leave a comment so I can lable them.
These birds are the female Ianhu. The female has the brown neck and the male's neck is black. They dive into the water for food but they have no oil on their feathers so they must open their wings after feeding to dry them.
Green Heron, also known as the Louisiana Heron
I believe this is a great blue heron. He was just hanging around and doing some fishing. He didn't seem to be afraid of the aligators that were there either.
Of course the aligators were pretty cool, being the first we've seen in the wild.
After an enjoyable time and snapping lots of pictures we got back into the car and headed toward Homestead.
Once through Homestead that was hit by Hurrican Andrew in 1992. Most of the city has been rebuilt and very few remnants of the hurricane are visible. We headed south on hwy 1 into the Keys. There was a lot of traffic and some construction as we entered the first key. There were lots of campgrounds along the way. Most of the way the gulf was close on one or both sides. The keys are a series of islands that seem to be mostly tourist traps.
We stopped at Long Key State Park thinking we might enjoy it. We paid our $6.00 fee and drove in after asking the ranger about volunteering. We drove through the park to check out the campground. It was locked. We thought we would park and walk into the campground to see it. As we were getting out of the truck, a camper was leaving so we flagged them down and asked if we could walk through. The camper (from Florida) rudely said "no, you have to get a pass. We don't want just anyone coming in, people could steal everything we have."
It totally left me cold I told Denny I don't want to stay here. We'd paid our fee so decided to check out one of the trails. Most of the trail was a boardwalk that goes over the high tide. It was nice but with stagnant water everywhere I looked I wasn't impressed. We walked to the gulf but you couldn't get close. Most of the area along the keys have few beaches. This was no exception. Just mud leading into the water. We walked back and chalked up the money we spent to a good lesson learned. There are several more small state parks along the way but we didn't expect anything different so didn't stop.
It was cloudy most of the day. Disappointing considering we were supposed to have sun all day. We weren't impressed with the gift shops along the way either. There are lots of hotels and resorts with a few residences and several large seasonal homes.
We drove over lots of bridges of course. 
Denny says he has driven over so many that they really don't bother him anymore. We made it to Key West. Wow!! Lots of traffic and people of rented scooters were everywhere. Most didn't know how to drive those things. We got into the older part of town and found very narrow streets with tourists everywhere. The roads weren't well marked and we had no idea where to go. 
There was parking along the streets leaving little room for vehicles on the road. I was really glad Denny was driving because I would not have been comfortable driving the dually in those narrow lanes. 
We ran into another very rude resident. We were driving down a street that we thought was still Hwy 1. It turned out that it was a dead end onto a beach. There were no signs and no place to turn around.
There was a scooter rental firm there and there were scooters parked everwhere. Denny asked a man in a booth at the entrance to an apartment building "How do we get out of here?". This guy looked at Denny and said "That's your problem." 
We drove into the apartment building parking lot thinking there would be a place to turn around. Wrong!!
He does an amazing job with that big truck. He tried to pull into a parking slot so he could back out and turn around. There wasn't enough room for him to turn around. I got out to watch that he didn't hit anything. He decided to try to back out and turn around next to the bottled gas truck that was parked along the entrance drive. He had to drive over the curb of the small decorative island in the parking lot but he got turned around.
Two more strikes against Florida. Rude people and crowded streets with poor signage.
I took pictures from the window of the truck because there was no place for us to park the truck safely. Of course, after the dead end we really didn't want to park or walk around. We had seen enough. There are quaint original buildings there and I am glad we went but as our neighbor here in the park said, I was in Key West twice, both on the same day, once when he got there and once when he left.
On the way into Key West we saw some colorful new homes with a habitat for Humanity sign on one of them. I took a picture as we left the town.
We were going to eat in Key West but didn't see anything in time on the way out of town that we felt was worth the hastle of turning around so we decided we would continue to drive back and find something along the way. We found Chappys Steak and Seafood Restaurant right on the Gulf.
As you can see it is an open air restaurant with a thatched roof. They drop plastic covers over the windows and railings during inclimate weather. I took a picture of the inside of the restaurant.
The Gulf is outside the windows. We drove back to Homestead hoping to get there in time to see the Coral Castle. We found it too late to see it. Denny said if I want to go back he will take me. We thought we should keep going because it was getting close to dark and we weren't sure about driving through the Everglades at night. It was fine and there was quite a bit of traffic. We got home around 9:00 pm. A long day but enjoyable as a whole.
Dad called Friday and asked if we wanted to go to the Shell Factory. We had no idea what it was but said yes. Dad and Juanita drove. The Shell Factory is in North Fort Myers. Quite a drive. It is basically a store full of souvineers, jewelry, and there are displays of animatronic pirates and stuffed animals from all over the world. There is also other areas that have entrance fees. It began to rain so we stayed inside the shopping area and Denny found two hitch covers for the rig and truck. They say "Old Fart" and the other says "Grandpa has rules, Right Grandma."
He has been looking a long time for hitch covers and I think he is happy with these. I think we will continue to look though. He saw one that said "Yes, it's a nice truck. No, I won't help you move."
Yesterday (Saturday) we went to the outlet mall. Stacy has asked that we wear light blue to the wedding so we had to buy something. Neither of us have anything that color. I found a knit top that may not be dressy enough. Denny found a Florida style shirt that is solid color and made to be worn loose and not tucked in. It looks nice on him. I have to find something for Dad now.
While at the outlet mall we stopped in the Bose store. We love their soundsystems and it is always nice to look. They have portable ipod speakers. We have a zune. Denny's zune speaker system is no longer working. We asked if there was an adapter for the zune. They explained that we would have to hook it up through the earphone jacks. Denny went back to the truck to get his zune. I checked out a couple more stores while he was gone.
Denny came back and we hooked up his zune. WOW! What great sound. We bought a "refitted" system. It is a system that was either a floor model or a less than 30 day returned item. It carries the full warrenty and was exactly what we wanted. We saved $50.00 and bought it. It was sure nice to have music today instead of the TV always running. In fact we didn't turn the TV on until after 7 pm tonight. A little expensive but it will get used a lot. And it is portable so we can use it on the re-chargeble batteries. Nice.
Today we went to Coconut Point Mall to a book store. We have been needing some reading material. I spotted a CJ Banks out the window and said I wanted to go over there. We got the books we wanted and headed to the cothing store. I love that store. I was hoping to find something else in blue that might be more appropriate for the wedding. I saw a couple of things and tried them on. There was a buy one get second 50% off so I bought a blue 3/4 sleeve blouse and a white tank to go underneath. The tank will come in handy this summer and the shirt should work with black pants for the wedding.
My induction plate died. I don't know what happened and of course it is older that 90 days old so no longer under warranty. Denny and I loved it so I was hoping to find another at Target. They have them online. The store didn't have any but I found some snacks for the rig and bought them. We came on home and had a late lunch, enjoyed our music and watched a little TV. The sun was out today but it was cool in the shade.
It's time to go to bed. Watch for more adventures to come.
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