The Adventures of Kinky Reggae: A Vagabond for Beauty

This was where I chose to go as my prize for the Pic Your Park contest. It was amazing and terrible all at the same time! Our flight arrived in Miami around 6:30 on New Year's Eve. As quickly as we could, we got the rental car and headed towards Key West. Two hours into the drive, I decided to put the address of the hotel into the GPS. I clicked on the link, and the address was in Miami. WHAT. I realize this is a major fail on my part for not clicking on that link sooner. BUT. All of the correspondence I had with the lady organizing it talked about Key West. We even discussed how long it would take me to get from the airport to Key West, and how we'd be getting there pretty late at night. Dry Tortugas is 70 miles off the coast of Key West, so that's where it would make sense to stay. It was 10:00 at night, and no way were we heading back to Miami. The lady booked us for a 7 a.m. boat ride the next day. If we went back to Miami, we'd have to get up at 2:30 a.m. t

Ashley and I are sick. She was sick before the trip started, then felt better, and then we both felt awful the other day when we went to Biscayne. We woke up feeling disgusting yesterday- Ashley couldn’t stop coughing, and I was sneezing and my nose was like a leaky faucet. Our kayaking plans went out the window. Instead, we went to see Mary Poppins returns, sat by the pool, and had dinner at IHOP, where we laughed about how this trip probably looks so glamorous on social media but in actuality, we’re a hot mess.  After sleeping for 11 hours last night, we felt better today and were up for an activity I’d really been looking forward to- a 15 mile bike ride through the Everglades.  We arrived at the Shark Valley Visitor Center at 1:00, and the parking lot was full. We didn’t have to wait too long for a spot, but then we discovered there were no bikes left, so we had to get on a wait list. We added our name, and then I asked if we’d be able to hear our names called if we sat on some near

Today was park #315- Biscayne National Park! We really didn’t do this park the “right” way, but I’m happy with what we saw. (Over 95% of the Park is underwater, and we didn’t snorkel or scuba dive.) We just did a nice little excursion to Boca Chita Key and learned some interesting things about the history of the island. Mr. Honewell (of thermostat fame) purchased the island in the late 30’s for the purpose of partying. It was some Great Gatsby-style shenanigans; there was even an elephant on this little island at one point.  In the mid-40’s, Mrs. Honeywell fell down some steps and died a few days later from her injuries. Mr. Honeywell sold the island, but the party atmosphere has remained to this day. Unfortunately, it’s a little out of control right now with the government shutdown- illegal camping and docking, people trashing the island, etc. Our tour was with a nonprofit called The Biscayne Institute, and they are currently paying to keep the electricity on and the manager is out th

I can’t even handle writing about Dry Tortugas right now; I’ll have to do that later when I have more time and am not in a hotel room, ready for bed. But I will write about our hike at Big Cypress yesterday!  I have to say, it was one of the more adventurous hikes I’ve been on, mostly because of the unfamiliar terrain.  The trail began by winding through this field: and over these rocks that were full of tiny fossils. It was wild to think about what we were stepping on. Then it entered a thick swamp. There were trees and dense vegetation on both sides of the trail, so not really a chance to go off trail and get lost.  It was creepy because it was quiet, but a different kind of quiet than the desert. The desert is silent. In this area, the only sound was strange birds and bugs that we weren’t used to. We KNEW there were all sorts of creatures lurking around out there; we were two miles deep in a swamp, all by ourselves. But you can’t see anything. Honestly, it felt a bit like a horror m