March 21 - 24, 2011 Florida City: “Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha… “

The sign says it is called “Campground and RV Park”. The campground map calls it the Florida City Campground and RV Park. Once private, it has been owned by the city for many years. It is not nice. But it is handy as it is the last geographic stop before a traveler begins the plunge down the Florida Keys to Key West. It is also our camp for daytrips to the Miami area.

We expect electric and water and get it, by in some cases daisy-chaining waterlines and having a couple motor homes rely on their internal generators for electricity.

An old Argosy.

Ken and Linda go exploring.

This is an old, lightly maintained park. There are rigs here that haven’t moved since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I go to the restroom and two black cats dash out, one very pregnant. Inside the restroom seems reasonably clean although the soap dispensers are empty and the lighting is dim.

Ed and Susan are next to a guy in a truck camper; he watches porno DVDs during the day at high volume, and disappears at night - presumably to work. My neighbor is also a night worker with a very small old trailer and jalousie windows that are never closed, home or not.

Some swear this looks like one of those Miami-Dade trailer parks always being busted on “Cops”. But I think it is mostly just low-income people with little to pay for housing, and hoping the chain link fence will protect them from the world. Mostly. Early the morning we left many heard four quick gun-shots just outside the fence. No police response, no ambulance.

Al last used this campground five years ago and says it has grown worse with each visit. His problem is finding space for 25 rigs (actually we are now down to 21) in Florida’s high season this close to the keys. All the parks can easily rent to individuals at high rates and have little incentive to accommodate groups. We hear even this park wouldn’t guarantee him space; we arrived with 21 rigs on a first-come-first-served basis. But we made it.

The Sundowner, on Key Largo.

On our first evening we decide to go to dinner in Key Largo, the first island in the series of keys that stretch to Key West, and watch the sunset. Mike and I are looking at the fish mounted on the wall of the Sundowner, our restaurant, and Mike is telling me what it must be like to hook a tarpon. I ask the waiter to identify the tarpon, and he says just look over the deck’s edge of the restaurant. We do and immediately see scores of tarpon, easily 4’ in length. I can’t understand how such a large fish can survive in large numbers close to a fish restaurant, but spot a note in the menu inviting people to stay for the fish feeding late each afternoon. Later I learn the tarpon is a sport fish - caught and released - rarely eaten because it doesn’t taste very good. It is not on the menu.