Key West, Florida - April 22nd to 25th, 2023
Key West is definitely a party place. The atmosphere is lively and there are crowds of people everywhere. However, even if you are not the partying type, there is still plenty to see and do. The place is full of history, wonderful weather, nice restaurants, and an ocean for recreation.
Saturday we drove from Fiesta Key to Key West. Our campground reservation was for Leo’s Campground. To get there, we crossed several bridges. The longest one was Seven Mile Bridge. An old bridge is still somewhat standing next to the current bridge. People can walk or ride bikes on the old bridge from the northeast end out to Pigeon Key, which is less than one third of the way across.
Before checking in to Leo’s Campground, we stopped at Home Depot. We needed some screws to complete the repair of the stretch net under the dinette bench. From the Home Depot parking lot, we could hear roosters crowing, though we couldn’t spot them. Welcome to Key West.
We knew Leo’s was a no frills campground. It was full hookups, but no bathhouse, meaning no showers and no toilets. There is a small laundry, but the machines didn’t look like they were in the best of shape. However, the campground is very cute.
Colorful murals decorate the fences and buildings. A water fountain flows in the little waterway lined with mangrove trees. A few lounge areas, including porch swings under a cabana, provide places to sit, relax, and enjoy the view of the water. Large iguanas were roaming around everywhere. So, despite being in a highly populated area, right next to the highway, the back side of the campground seemed very peaceful in a natural setting.
Sunday we rode our bikes into Key West. From Leo’s Campground, it was only about a 40 minute ride to get to Flagler Ferry Terminal, where the Yankee Freedom boat to Dry Tortugas National Park departs from. We had a reservation for the following day, so we wanted to see if riding our bikes to get there would be an option. Parking an RV or any large vehicle near downtown Key West is an issue. There is a parking garage near the terminal, but our RV is too tall to fit and probably too long to fit into a space. Biking is an option, but check in time for the boat is 7 am. A morning ride at 6 am didn’t sound that appealing to us, so we scheduled a Lyft ride for Monday morning. It is less than a 15 minute drive. We tried reserving an Uber, but Uber would not let us select Leo’s Campground as a starting point.
There are plenty of bike racks near the ferry terminal, so we locked up our bikes and walked to Deval Street from there. Deval Street is the main street of town, lined with shops, restaurants, bars, and hotels. It definitely has a party atmosphere. Duval is about one mile long. At one end of the street is Mallory Square on the Gulf of Mexico. At the other end is Southern Most Point, on the Atlantic Ocean. In addition to cars and trucks cruising up and down the street, there were more golf carts, bikes, and scooters.
Once we reached Deval Street, we searched for a restaurant for lunch. We ended up at a nice shady outdoor table at Fogarty’s. On the ground, a rooster walked around our table. Keith had a fish sandwich with fries while Ann tried the Cuban pork bowl, with rice, black beans and fried plantains. The pork was not spicy, but was full of flavor. Ann wasn’t sure what spices or seasonings they used, but it was delicious. The menu said it was Mojo-marinated, but we are not sure what that means.
After our filling lunch, we needed to walk off some of those calories, so we strolled the full length of Duval Street. Then we hopped on the Conch Tour Train for a narrated tour of Key West. There are two different narrated tours of Key West, the Conch Tour Train and the Trolly Tour. They are both run by Old Town Trolly Tours that run trolly tours at various locations throughout the country. The Conch Train tour is 75 minutes compared to 90 minutes for the trolly and is slightly cheaper. We picked the Conch Train because it is the traditional tour of Key West. The Conch Train started running in 1958. Our tour guide provided us with a lot of information about the points of interest and history of the places we passed by along with some stories. We definitely recommend the tour as we found it very interesting.
The tour starts and ends near Mallory Square, so we walked over to check out the square. During the day, Mallory Square is pretty empty. It is where everyone gathers each evening to watch the sun set. From there, we walked over to Whit’s Frozen Custard. We’re big fans of Whit’s, which started in Granville, Ohio, a place we’ve visited many times as we have family that lives in that area. However, we were a little disappointed with the Whit’s in Key West. The custard didn’t seem to be kept at cold enough of a temperature. Ann had to quickly eat her dish of custard before it became soup. However, we did love sitting on a bench outside of Whit’s, across the street from the Green Parrot Bar, listening to the bar’s live music. A jazz band was playing, a type of music we really enjoy.
We called it a day and rode our bikes back to Leo’s Campground. After cooking dinner and hanging out a little while, we went to bed early. We had a big day ahead of us which required an early start.
Early Monday morning, our air conditioner kicked off. We weren’t sure why. So we cracked some windows and turned the MaxxAir fan on when we left at 6:30 am to catch our Lyft ride into town. We’ll cover our visit to Dry Tortugas National Park in the next blog post.
After returning to Key West from Dry Tortugas, we found a place for dinner. A woman on the boat recommended the Waterfront Brewery. Since it was only a couple of blocks from the ferry terminal, that sounded perfect. We didn’t feel like walking very far. The food was pretty good. Ann enjoyed her Ropa Vieja along with the views of the harbor. Ropa Vieja is like a flavorful beef stew, which was served with rice, spicy black beans and fried plantains. Keith complimented his catch of the day meal with a Passionfruit Shandy. A shandy is a beer mixed with fruit juice. It is similar to a radler, which Keith enjoyed many times while we lived in Germany decades ago.
From there, we strolled along the historic waterfront and over to Mallory Square. The square was much different than the empty one we visited the day before. This time it was filled with street performers, food and drink vendors, and people. As we watched the sun set, quite a few sailboats, including schooners, were sailing around the area, adding to the beautiful scene. There was a bank of clouds at the horizon, so we didn’t get the definite setting of the sun as it disappeared behind the clouds. We’ve heard that people usually cheer as the sun dips below the horizon, but we did not experience that.
Another Lyft ride took us back to Leo’s Campground. It was an exhausting but rewarding day. We were able to turn the air conditioner back on, thank goodness, to cool Red Tail (our Winnebago EKKO) back down. Then we turned in early.
It rained Monday night and most of Tuesday morning. We needed time to just relax, so we didn’t mind just hanging out in the morning. However, we regretted leaving our e-bikes out and locked to our back bumper. We checked the weather forecast for Monday when we left the bikes out on Sunday, but didn’t check the weather again when we got back late on Monday evening. Our bikes dried off fairly quickly when the rain stopped around lunch time. Still, we coated our bike chains with T-9 to prevent them from rusting.
We think we figured out the issue with the air conditioner. We had been setting the fan of the air conditioner manually to low instead of letting it come on automatically. When the fan is set to automatic, then the fan turns off and then the fan and compressor turn on at the same time, which is quite a startling noise during the night, making it hard to sleep. When the fan is set to manual, then it stays on all the time and the additional noise of the compressor turning on is not as startling. In addition, we were closing some of the air conditioner vents to direct the cold air where we wanted it. However, if the air conditioner does not get enough air flow in a humid environment, water starts building up on the coils, causing the unit to freeze up and turn off. After making sure we don’t close any of the vents and setting the fan to high instead of low, we haven’t had any issues of the air conditioner shutting itself off.
In the afternoon, we rode our bikes to Key West. This time, instead of turning onto Palm Avenue like we did on Sunday, we stayed along US 1. After a few blocks, the sidewalk got narrower and the road went down to two narrow lanes. The markings on the road indicated that they wanted the bikes riding in the street, but there was too much traffic for us to feel comfortable. Instead, we turned south onto White Street, taking it over to Higgs Beach. At the beach, we checked out the AIDS memorial and the African Cemetery. The story of the Africans buried there is quite interesting. In 1860, the US Navy intercepted three American-owned slave ships. The Africans on board were taken to Key West where they were provided food and shelter. Unfortunately, hundreds, mostly children, of the almost 1500 Africans died from the poor conditions of their ocean voyage. The US then shipped the survivors back to Africa, to Liberia (instead of the countries they came from) and supported them for a while. Note 1860 is the year Abraham Lincoln was elected president and just before the start of the Civil War.
We continued riding along the coast to the Southernmost Point. From there, we rode down Whitehead Street to the gated entrance of the Truman Annex at Caroline St. After locking up our bikes, we strolled through the Truman Annex, past the Truman Little Whitehouse, where President Truman would spend time in the winter. They have tours of the house, but we didn’t go in. The annex is a peaceful, gated community of historic buildings which are now private residences and rentals. The area was once a US Naval Station. Before that, it was part of Fort Zachary Taylor.
After our pleasant stroll, we walked over to Duval Street to find ice cream. Mattheessen’s fit the bill. They make their ice cream, half pound cookies, and fudge all on site. Ann had her usual, a waffle cone of mint chip and triple chocolate while Keith sipped on his usual vanilla milkshake. We sat there looking at the half pound peanut butter cookie topped with a layer of peanut butter fudge and a layer of chocolate fudge. It just looked like a way to go into a sugar coma. One or two bites might have been nice, but what would we do with the rest of it? We were happy and content with just our ice cream.
On our ride back to Leo’s Campground, we stopped at Eaton Bikes to buy some bike gloves. With all the humidity and heat, our sweaty hands get slippery on the handlebars. Ann forgot to bring her bike gloves and Keith’s were falling apart. Ah, now that’s better.
After dinner back at the campground, we started preparing for our departure the next day by dumping our black and gray tanks and filling our fresh water tank. All in all, it was a pretty relaxing day.
During our four night stay in Key West, we felt like we got a good sampling of the place. However, Ann would have liked a little more time to get the paddle board out and perhaps take a snorkeling or wildlife viewing boat tour. Keith, on the other hand, is not a water person and doesn’t like crowds. He enjoyed his visit to Key West, but he was ready to move on.
Check out our related video: Key West, Florida
(Ann)