36.2 mi / 14.1 mph / 199 ft. climbing
Home: Long Key State Park

Yesterday afternoon’s minor sprinkles turned into regularly-passing showers overnight, which along with Rett’s cold and general restlessness, prevented her from getting much sleep at all. I emerged shortly after the last shower to find the campsite well-wetted, and the no-see-ums more-active in the damp dawn than they had been yesterday. Rett stayed inside the tent for breakfast to avoid their bites, but with my legs covered and hoodie up they were bearable outside, and diminished as the sun rose higher.

We got rolling at 10:30am, and since the temperature never fell below 71 degrees overnight, the sun only had to put in a minimum amount of effort to raise it back to a sticky 80℉. Luckily the winds were operating in a similarly-narrow band of variation, flowing from behind us on a path that perfectly matched the gentle arc of the Keys. Still, while the wind helped us cover the miles easily, it also flowed at the same rate as we did, minimizing any cooling effect it otherwise might have. Thus a lunch stop in a well-air-conditioned Wendy’s was essential to give us a mid-day cooldown.

When I had lucked into a cancellation and booked one of the three campsites at Long Key State Park a week ago, I was excited that the primitive, walk-in site (the main campground was destroyed by Hurricane Irma in 2017) would provide a rare bit of isolation in the crowded Keys. But at that point I hadn’t anticipated the effects of the tropical heat in December. That heat did at least mean that the “cold showers only” wasn’t an impediment, and in fact the three 90%-enclosed individual shower rooms were some of the nicest campground showers we’ve ever used. But even with no clothes on and her door open to let the breeze in, Rett was having a tough time applying her post-shower lotion because she was still sweating.

While Rett showered I rolled 200 yards down a boardwalk to the “beach” to set up our campsite. It was a very unique fully-fenced site, with other bits of timber construction (including a great place to hang a clothesline!) The bushes had grown back from the hurricane and provided more winter shade that I’d dared to hope, and while there were definitely no-see-ums about, they weren’t terrible. I wondered why no reviews talked about the water that I had known would be just on the other side of the access path, and quickly discovered that it’s because the “beach” is a semi-solid quicksand-like muck that is essentially impassible; even if you were willing to just plod through and get completely covered in the muck, the land slopes so gradually that you would need to squelch your way more than 100 yards out to get to water deep enough to reach your knees.

By the time I headed back for my shower and then we both returned to the site together, the no-see-ums had gotten insanely bad. Covering myself in picaridin repellent was pretty effective, but I didn’t want to cover my face in the stuff, so I was constantly swatting swarms of them away from my face, even with it buried inside my too-warm sun-hood. Rett finished her routine inside the protective bubble of our tent.

With last nights heat I had decided that making dinner in our relatively-remote camp tonight would be more trouble that it was worth, so I had an idea of walking out through the park to a restaurant at the west end of the Key where we could watch the sunset. I knew it would require hopping a chain-link fence to leave the park, but the rangers said that even the walk through the park was closed off due to the destruction/repairs/construction at the main campground. So instead we walked a mile (less than half the distance) back east to the island’s other restaurant.

When we got there and sat outside in the canopied bar area and ordered beers, I was pleasantly surprised to realized that we’d stumbled into a “date night” for ourselves. Much of that was due to my beautiful and multi-faceted wife, who pulled off an amazing transformation from primitive-camping bike-tourer to head-turning date, with nothing but an outdoor shower and what she carries on her bike. But also it felt like the first time we had gone out for dinner in quite some time (early sunsets mean that eating-where-we-sleep is our main habit these days, whether that means cooking in camp or microwaving in motel/AirBNB).

It rained pretty heavily during dinner, and I carefully watched the radar to give us the best window in which to walk back to our campsite without getting drenched. We still got a bit drizzled on, and the brisk pace meant that we re-heated our bodies. It wasn’t too bad for me outside the tent (except for the continuing bug-battle), but for Rett inside it was sweltering. Survivable with the rainfly off, but the continuing scattered showers forced me to put that breeze-blocking cover back in place repeatedly, and also bring my own body heat inside, if only temporarily. Literally half-a-dozen times I went through the cycle of reattaching the rainfly, diving inside, waiting 5-10 minutes for the shower to pass, climbing out, and then half-removing the rainfly. Some of the showers lasted less than 30 seconds, and the gap between them was rarely longer than 10 minutes. Defending against them, and the heat, and the bugs, was pretty exhausting.

I knew to not even tell Rett about our failed defense when we had gone to dinner: while we were gone, an animal (likely a rat, according to Google reviews, and our one experience with rats in New Zealand) had ripped holes into one of my brand-new rain covers! What a wonderful night in paradise.