The Weather is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful

Both of us like our beach time, and Mo had never been to any part of Florida past South Beach, so we decided to take some time and explore the state of Jeb Bush and questionable ballot counting practices. We drove down the A1A heading for the Keys, trying to absorb some of the island life along the way.

The keys were awesome, and we were lucky enough to snag a beachfront campsite in Bahia Honda State Park and post up in paradise for a few days. Campsites in a place like this are definitely worth paying for. We were out of bed by 6 AM each morning mainly due to incessant mosquitos and no-see-ums, and followed a beach run up with coffee, lazy fruit-filled breakfasts, snorkling, and swimming. An afternoon trip into Key West allowed us the perfect dose of tourist madness as we watched the sunset from Mallory Square with the crazy street performers and throngs of foreigners. For those of you who haven't been there, The Sunset Celebration is the nirvana that all Pacific Ave, Telegraph, and Fisherman's Wharf type colorful characters hope they might achieve one day. When Eddie the Preacher dies he just might come back as the escape artist on Mallory Square that performs for 30 minutes a day to a bunch of yuppies and rakes in more than $100,000 a year cold hard cash while living in a climatic and scenic utopia.

We exited the south of Florida by heading West through the Everglades after stopping for some amazing cuban food and coffee on Calle Ocho in Miami. Our path through these wetlands really accented one of our favorite parts of Florida, the incredible display of wildlife everywhere you look. In the Keys we saw as many sea creatures as we did diving in Thailand without ever leaving the comfort of three feet of water. Tropical fish, stingrays, horsehoe crabs, jellyfish, and sea turtles were everywhere, along with above-water diversity such as herons, armadillos, alligators (!!!), spiders, lizards, and more mosquitos than we cared to share our airspace with. It really drove home the fact that admidst the swampy wetlands there is a delicate ecosystem supporting all of this life. Thankfully, the marshes are a bit harder than average land to develop on, but when all the space runs out the practical human will surely think of something to encroach on the homes of all these species. Until then it reminded us that we really must do all that we can to protect, preserve, and educate about the fragile ecosystems around us.