Day 5 - Fort Myers Ferry to Florida Keys

Sleep in the 'stealth' RV spot didn't come easily. Every car that passed made me a little nervous. I kept imagining that the campground host was going to bang on my tent and yell at me. To avoid any potential problems, I was up, packed, and out of there before 7am. The sun doesn't rise until well past 7:30, so I was leaving in the dark.

I rode the 1.5 miles to the ferry, and found that they still had space on the 8:30am ferry. With a ticket in hand, I wheeled my bike onto the boat and smiled. The journey is fully underway now. (should I be writing this in the present tense or past?)


I settled into a comfy chair, watched some more lowlights of the dreaded KU game, and watched as we pulled away from port. I snapped a few photos, went back inside and started watching "Mall Cop". I don't recommend watching this movie unless you are in the middle of a fantastic adventure. It probably wasn't very funny, but I liked it.

After the movie, I looked outside and the water was already an amazing blue-green. I took some pictures, and another hour later, the ferry was pulling into Key West. The Disney cruise ship was the tallest structure by far.


Disembarking the boat was easy, and soon enough I was back on land. Just outside of the fence, I saw another touring bike. My first of the trip. A guy around my age walked over and introduced himself. His name was Joel (I think), and he just finished his trip. He rode from San Francisco down to Baja, Mexico, then took a bus back to Tijuana, and rode east. Sounded like an awesome trip. He had some words of advice for the Keys, and then off he went.

Key West is a cool town, but very expensive. I cruised around the "can't miss" tourist spots, rode my bike up and down Duval Street, and found that the dorm style youth hostel was $50/night. That made my decision easy, and I took off up the Keys to find a campground.



Primitive camping is tough to come by in the Keys. Most campgrounds are RV parks, and only have locations with water/electric hookups. At MM10.5, I found an RV campground on Geiger Key. It's forecast to rain all day Monday, so I checked in for two nights.

The place is nice, and I'm right on the water. I was able to go swimming, and tomorrow I am going to do some running in the rain. They also have a good tiki bar, complete with a top notch grill team. Ah, yes. Good food and cold beer right on the water. I could get used to these rest days...

From 2010-03-21 Day 5

Day 5 - 20 miles
Trip to date - 235 miles