We awoke early, at 6:00 AM, in order to depart our campground on time.  Doug typically moves the computer, camera and cell phone into the car first thing whenever we pack up, and in doing so he noticed that we had received two messages during the night.  They were both from Angelika, informing us that her flight had been cancelled, she was stuck in LA, and would not be leaving until the next day sometime.  After many phone calls, it was established that she was coming in to Miami at 4:14 PM, so we could take our time departing.

We got underway around noon, and headed down to Miami.  The 140 mile trip went easily, except for a minor road catastrophe:  we had forgotten to double-check that the door was latched and deadbolted, so the trailer door blew open while we were on the freeway.  The door must have exploded open so hard that when it hit the trailer, it nearly destroyed it -- Doug will have several hours of band-aid repairs to make, and the door will never be the same again.  Even more serious, we lost the screen for the door, and this is hot Florida in mosquito season.  Doug made an emergency duct-tape repair job just to get the door to close, and we continued down to Miami.  Here is a shot of the damaged door.  Sorry, no picture of the damaged Doug.

We picked up Jordan's friend Angelika (aka "Geka") with no further difficulty, and continued South on highway 1 to the Keys.  This was an interesting drive (most of them have been so, though) through the mangroves that define what they call land down here.  The land is on average about 2 feet above sea level.  This is why hurricanes give them such fits; the combination of the heavy rainfall and driven seas caused Hurricane George in 1998 to leave most of the lower keys under 4 to 6 feet of water.  They have really just now recovered.

Life is expensive down in the keys: everything has to be piped in from the mainland, including electricity and water.  All trash and sewage must in turn be trucked off the Keys.  This partially explains the prices down here.  The first RV park we called wanted $91 per night for a week, where we were used to paying around $20.  Somewhat by chance, Jody found a park that was in the $50s, on Summerland Key, so that was where we were headed.  We drove over a seemingly innumerable number of keys, some so small there was nothing built upon them except for highway 1, which we were driving on.  To keep your bearings, highway 1 has mile markers posted nearly every mile, beginning at Key West with mile marker 0.  We were staying at mile 19.

We pulled in around 9:00 PM, and were completely shocked.  The park was small and quaint, with lots of palm, pine and mangrove planted between the sites.  Our site backed up to "the lake" -- a saltwater lake on the park's property.  We had a large site with full hookups, trees, and a "tiki hut" (see the next day's pics).  Jody's comment was "we deserve this site after the day we had". Doug's comment was "There must have been some karmic mistake."  And therein, in a nutshell, is the difference between cats and dogs.  The girls went for a swim in the pool, heated to 82 degrees or so, and we had dinner outside by candle light.  Marvelous.