Travels to the Florida Keys

Travels to the Florida Keys

While we do love running at Fleet Feet Sports, we are more than just running. We’re about living a healthy active lifestyle. While this post offers no insight on running, I did want to share a recent vacation that Carolyn and I took. The Idea started back in May when we drove to Key West for our Daughter’s wedding. As we drove down, we noticed a bike path that appeared to pass through every Key. On the way back we checked it out again and sure enough, there is a nice long bike path from Key West to Key Largo called the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail. We thought, “How cool would it be to ride our bikes through the Keys, having a new and exciting destination each day”. And so the planning began. 

Step one, sync our calendars and figure out when we could actually break away from the store for a week. That ended up being September. The good news was, that September is out of season for Florida and the Florida Keys so the room rates were about half. Bad news is, that’s a good time of year for tropical storms, heavy rain not to mention the height of hurricane season. But what the heck, we went for it.

Step two, bikes. We have 2 older commuter bikes that are in pretty good shape and get us around town just fine, but were they worthy of 100 miles? We felt pretty confident that with a tune up, upgraded seats, gear bags and some new tread, we would be fine.

Step three, plan a route. Carolyn really took the lead on that and started planning our destination. Our requirements were, not too expensive, very clean, cool destinations plenty of local flavor and places to kayak and snorkel. There, easy enough right? I will say Carolyn did a ton of research and spent weeks reading 100’s of reviews. We knew we didn’t want to kill ourselves every day. We thought it would be nice to get up at our leisure, have some breakfast, pack up and hit the trail. We wanted to really soak up the Keys, stop if we wanted, snorkel, kayak and check out things along the way. Ideally we wanted to be at our destination around 3 PM each day. Then we could check in, unpack, shower and check out the scenery. The plan was to average about 20 miles a day. Since we could only take a week off, we would have just enough time to bike from Islamorada to Key West, but not enough time to bike back. So we decided to get a rental car in Key West and drive back up to Islamorada where our car would be and then end in Key Largo. 

We wanted to pack light, so we took several changes of technical apparel which is lightweight, quick drying and offers built in sun (UPF) protection. All of our clothes went into zip lock bags and then into our packs on the bike. One pair of running shoes which we wore and a pair of OOFO sandals for the end of the day. We actually packed very light. I did carry a small backpack with our snorkel gear in it. In addition, we each had a small dry bag with our swimsuit and towel which fit securely (this will come full circle later) between our seat and the pack. We did that so if we stopped to swim or snorkel, we didn’t have to dig through the other packs. It was there for easy access. 

The big day was finally here and we were so excited to hit the road. Bikes loaded, car packed, Islamorada here we come! Fortunately for us, Islamorada FL is only about a 3 hour drive south of us. The first place we stayed was a cool little place called the La Jolla Resort Motel in Islamorada. I use the word resort loosely. But it was clean, people were really friendly, great service and they had kayaks and bikes you could use for free.  Next door is a gift shop and Mangrove Mike’s Café. A couple of blocks down the street is the Lorelei Restaurant and Cabana Bar. After settling in, we walked down to Lorelei’s and had cold beverage and some lunch.  It’s a great place, good food, plenty of locals and an awesome waterfront view. Now it was time to test our kayaking skills. So we headed back to the “resort” and launched the kayaks, Carolyn’s had a hole and almost sank,  which made for a fun evening and incredible sunset. 

Because it was off season and they had plenty of parking, the motel let us leave our car there for the week, which was awesome. Day 2 of our big adventure, now time to pack up the bikes and hit the trail! But first, breakfast at Mangrove Mikes, which was great! Our destination this day is the Lime Tree Bay Resort in the small town of Layton which is on Long Key.  The Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail is wide, paved and runs along the side of the highway. It does cross back and forth across the road in quite a few places.  A lot of the bridges have pedestrian paths and fishing piers that run along the side which is awesome. The other bridges you just have to stay in the bike lane but most have widened the bike lanes so we felt really comfortable. You know you’ve arrived in Long Key/Layton because of the Sheriff’s car parked right at the entrance of town. It’s a permanent fixture. It’s been there so long the paint has dulled and grass has grown up around the underneath the car. The Lime Tree Bay Resort is a great place. Again, clean, great service and a super relaxing vibe. Plenty of palm trees, sand, hammocks, kayaks and a little store across the street for stocking up. The down side was, the closest restaurant was back north about 2 miles. 

Time to head to Marathon Key and the Black Fin Resort. This was or day for challenges. Remember the dry bags with our swimsuits and towels that fit so securely behind our seats? Well just before we reached the Black Fin Resort, we stopped at a little store for some supplies. When we came out Carolyn’s bag was missing. We remembered someone honking their horn about 4 miles back. So we thought maybe they saw her pack drop off. So we headed back but no luck finding her new and favorite suit and towel. This added another 8 miles to our trip for a total of 29, and of all the days, we were ready to be off the bikes. On the way back with about a mile to go, Carolyn’s bike blew a tire, crap! We had everything to fix the tire but just decided to walk it to the Black Fin Resort, where again, resort could be used very loosely. This was a real throwback motel. But it was really cool! The rooms were good, nothing amazing but good. The restaurant/bar up front was perfect, exactly what we needed. Very cold beer and good food, even a velvet painting of Elvis along with a glass case full of Elvis memorabilia, pretty awesome! We fixed the tire in the room. The water and the view was spectacular and the snorkeling was excellent.

Our Seven Mile Bridge day was finally here! I kept waiting to see if we could see the bridge off in the distance and then bam, we were on it, no warning. Which I was happy about. It was so cool! It’s actually very flat until you get closer to the center then you have about a mile incline then it’s all downhill from there. I loved the Seven Mile Bridge, it was a definite highlight for me. The scenery was spectacular! I can’t say enough great things about it, loved it! After the Seven Mile Bridge, we stopped at Bahia Honda State Park. It’s one of the most beautiful places we have ever seen. We pulled into the park for some lunch. Did some swimming and snorkeling and then, on our way to Big Pine Key Fishing Lodge! We really liked the lodge, great place. It’s been family owned for 40 years and extremely well managed. The room was spotless, beautiful pool, really nice front office with a grocery store that was well stocked. The closest restaurant was 2 miles away, again, so we just grabbed a cab that evening. When we returned, there was a little Key Deer back at our motel. On to Sugarloaf Key Lodge tomorrow.

Sugarloaf Lodge was awesome! The place looked like it did back in the 50’s when it was built. I expected to see the Rat Pack hanging out here. The décor was all original and in pristine condition, it was so cool! The only downside of Sugarloaf was, this time of year being out of season, their one and only restaurant is closed that time of year. They did have a really cool outside bar with thatch roof and all. Most of the people hanging out, looked like they had been there since the 50’s, but very nice, plenty of local flavor. We were able to order in food for lunch and dinner so it worked out fine.

Hard to believe our trip is winding down and we didn’t want it to end. But off to Key West today. We had been there on several occasions, so always fun to go back. Today’s destination is Ibis Bay Resort in Key West. Coming into Key West is always spectacular, it’s just incredibly beautiful. The Ibis Bay Resort is really nice and has a great restaurant too. Our room was really nice looking but very musty and we should have said something but didn’t. That was the only downside. Other than that, it’s a really nice place, they offer a lot of amenities and a shuttle to Duval Street. We hit Duval that evening and did the usual. We hit Mallory Square at sunset and visited a few good bars and called it an evening. 

We grabbed a cab to the airport the next morning, picked up our rental SUV, went back to the hotel, packed up the bikes and headed back up to get our car and stop in Key Largo,  where we spent our final night in the Keys. Our Keys bike trip was finished and we were not ready for it to be over, it had been the perfect trip. The trail had been awesome to us, weather perfect, the scenery blew us away and every place Carolyn had us staying was so cool. This has become one of our favorite vacations ever. Had time permitted, we would have kept riding. We are already thinking of places to ride next year. Maybe the West Coast of Florida, we’ll see.