Our next stop was about 45 minutes further down the Overseas Highway at another Encore property – Sunshine Key RV resort. This property had a more remote feel and unfortunately no restaurant or bar, but the pool area was much nicer. We met some nice people at the pool on the first day who shared drinks with us and invited us to a party at their site a couple days later. Sandy may have had more tequilla than she could handle and has since sworn off it!
The morning of our second day at Sunshine Key we headed to Key West for the day. We had booked a morning sailing & snorkelling trip the day before. Luckily we weren’t suffering from any hangover and enjoyed the boat trip. Snorkelling itself was so-so, not that many fish but it was still an enjoyable day, which included kayaking around a mangrove island. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Key West, including the famous Mile 0 marker, Southernmost Point, and Duval Street.
Our last day in the Keys was spent visiting the Bahia Honda State Park which was very close to Sunshine Key, in fact we were able to bicycle there. We enjoyed the beach there and a walk up the old historic rail bridge. When we got back we joined our new friends at Sunshine Key for some food and drinks and conversation to wrap up our last day in the Keys.
Leaving the Keys the traffic got quite busy as we neared Miami but we arrived at our next stop just west of Miami in Homestead by mid afternoon. It was another Thousand Trails property that we booked with our camping pass. The park had a more ‘campground’ feel than those we had stayed at in the Keys with large trees all around. It was also basically in the middle of farming country, so was very quiet at night.
On our second day there we took advantage of the relative proximity to Miami to visit Miami Beach. We waited till late in the morning but still encountered heavy traffic in spots, not to mention road construction all over the place. Our walk around Miami Beach was nice, but we wouldn’t rush back anytime soon. The ride back to the campground was even worse traffic wise. We were glad to get back and have some time to relax at the pool and play a round of mini-golf, not to mention do some laundry!
It was time to get back on the road once again, but we weren’t quite done with the Everglades just yet! We travelled West from Homestead across US 41 “Tamiami Trail” – named as such because it was the first road from Tampa to Miami. We opted to stop for a couple nights on the western edge of the park at Collier-Seminole State Park. Using this as a home base we explored some of the sights along Tamiami Trail, including a lovely boardwalk trail through a cypress tree stand. We saw a huge gator right in the parking lot! We also visited Marco Island and got to take our first swim in the Gulf at the lovely beach there.
As we continued further North up the Gulf we drove through the busy town of Naples. It was St Patricks day and there was a parade on, and people and cars everywhere. We kept going and didn’t stop until we got to Bonita Beach where we took Misty out to play at the Dog Beach. She has never really liked water and this time wasn’t much different. We were too nervous to let her off the leash but she did finally get wet and splashed around a bit and cooled off.
Our accommodations for that night was a place we had found on the “Boondockers Welcome” website which allows anyone to invite RVers to stay on their property. It was a pretty remote location out on Pine Island. We had originally planned to stay here three nights but decided to move on after one due partly to the really awful no-see-ums and lack of convenient water hookup. Our host did make a good suggestion to check out Sanibel Island but to park on the causeway heading over.
