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| U.S. 1 headed toward Jewfish Creek |
Traffic slows considerably as you pass the crest of the new Jewfish Creek
bridge headed south from the Florida mainland into the Florida Keys.
You really can't see that far down Key Largo as the bridge at
sixty-five feet really isn't that high, but you see you are about to
be surrounded by water as you travel down the two-lane ribbon of
asphalt known the Overseas Highway. I believe the other two high
bridges, one at Channel Five and and the other in the Seven-Mile
Bridge, offer more impressive views. Still, if they had built the
Jewfish Creek bridge twice as high you could probably see all the way
to Key West.
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| Little Blackwater Sound, a protected crocodile habitat. |
The recently completed bridge over Jewfish Creek, the sliver of water that separates main-land Florida from the alternative universe known as the Conch Republic, or, technically, the Florida Keys, replaces the old draw bridge that often created traffic jams that backed up to Tavernier and Florida City. One of our favorite campgrounds, John Pennekamp Ocean Reef State Park, is only a few miles south of the recently constructed gateway to the keys, and that is where we are headed. While we are there, we plan to stop at the other three Florida State campgrounds located in the keys as well, Long Key State Park, Curry Hammock Sate Park, and Bahia Honda State Park
It has
been an interesting ride so far. I learned yet another lesson about
Recreational Vehicles as I had yet another heart-stopping mishap with
my bike rack. Just because everybody else seems to do it doesn't
mean it's the right way, or even the safe way, to do something. Let
me 'splain.
I ended up dragging both my bikes along U.S. 41 in the
middle of the Everglades when my bike carrier broke off at the base.
Yes, again. I was only doing about thirty miles an hour at the time,
but it made no difference as I was in the middle of a one-lane
construction zone and could not get off the road. I'm positive it
was the incredible pounding the rack took when we rode over several
exaggerated rumble-strips. We didn't stop until we turned off the
Tamiami Trail onto Krome Avenue. Mangled was the word that came to
mind as I walked around the back of the camper and saw the remnants
of the two bicycles securely attached to the rear bumper of the
camper by a safety strap. I always put the strap on anything I carry
outside a vehicle, and twice now, the safety strap saved me grief
when something broke on the bumper hitch-mounted bike rack. This
time, the carrier broke off at the weld at the bottom of the frame.
We
loaded the damaged bicycles in the camper and propped them against
the dinette table so they wouldn't move around and damage the
interior. I tossed the broken bike carrier in the SUV for later
inspection, and started down State Road 997, the two-lane road that
is forty years overdue widening. Formerly known as US 27, and commonly known as Krome Avenue, the road hasn't changed
much since we lived not far from the dangerous road many years ago.
It certainly hasn't changed since it won world-wide notoriety during
the Cuban Mariel boat-lift of 1980. Several traffic lights were
added back in the early nineties, but the heavily traveled alternate
road to south Miami-Dade County is still well overdue for
modernization and widening.
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| Welcome to John Pennekamp Ocean Reef State Park |
We
stopped at the Florida City Walmart, located just before the eighteen
mile run down another anachronism of Florida politics, the section of
U.S. 1 between Florida City and Jewfish Creek. I bought a replacement
bicycle rack at the incredibly busy store, and the first thing I read
in the instructions is to not mount the rack on any trailer. The
warning is repeated several times throughout the installation
instructions. That restriction was missing from the instructions on
my first rack, but it certainly makes sense. Very few trailers have
more than a rudimentary suspension. None I know of have shock
absorbers. Speed bumps, or any other aberrations in the road's
surface, are amplified at the rear of any trailer and the resulting
violent, vertical motion is more than bike racks are designed to
handle. I wonder how many other trailer owners are unaware of the
danger of carrying bike racks attached to adapters mounted on the
four-inch square bumper of their trailers. I now simply stow the
bikes inside the camper, and no longer attempt to carry them outside
the vehicle on a separate rack.
The
only concession to safety on the bloody stretch of U.S.1 south of
Florida City is a permanent concrete Jersey barrier, painted an
appealing, Eco-friendly, sea-foam green, that now divides the
two-lane road down the entire eighteen mile stretch of highway.
Efforts to modernize and four-lane the road have always been defeated
by those interests who want less traffic in the Keys, while all the
while the Greater Keys Chamber of Commerce, along with the City of
Key West and many other Keys-based tourist businesses, spend millions
of dollars on world-wide advertising extolling the wondrous beauty of
this unique tourist destination. In short, we ask German, French,
and other European tourists to fly to Miami, rent a car and drive to
the Keys and possibly get killed on a highway we don't want them to
use. The almost daily head-on collisions have at least been
eliminated by the concrete wall divider. Bad road or not, they come
from around the world anyway. Europeans definitely make up a good
portion of the tourists we meet in the keys, and many of them make
John Pennekamp Ocean Reef State Park one of their first stops. The very first couple we meet and talk with are from Stockholm, Sweden.
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| All 47 sites have recently been renovated to include full hookup. Reservations must be made well in advance of trip |
We pull in after a five-hour drive from Port Charlotte, just over two-hundred miles. We came across one of my favorite drives, the Tamiami Trail, U.S. 41, from Marco to the turn-off at Krome Avenue. All was well except for the extensive road work being done between the old forty-mile bend and Krome avenue. Three separate sections of one-lane road closures will cure anyone of a repeat trip. We make a note to go back via Alligator Alley or up U.S. 27 to Clewiston and cut across county roads to Punta Gorda.
The
Pennekamp park is one of our favorites, and the recently renovated
campground makes it all the better. The campground recently
converted all forty-seven campsites to full sewer hookup. With both
30 amp and 50 amp electrical service, water, and now sewer, the
sea-shell gravel pads are just about perfect. Level, with nice
separation between sites, with both shower and laundry facilities,
the campground rates as one of the nicest we've visited. We can
hardly wait to unhook and kick back.
NEXT: The Bicycle man of Key Largo, at:
http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-bicycle.html
