Relaxing in the Keys

We are at the Florida Keys Elks Lodge, on Tavernier Key just south of Key Largo (map).

We ended up spending a third night Friday at the Isle Pompano Casino. After carefully studying our various guides and web sites, we could not come up with any overnight options between there and here that made sense, and it was only a hundred miles between the two. So we just had a relaxing day at home yesterday, digesting the enormous dinner we ate at Farraday's on Thanksgiving. (The line for the buffet was enormous, but we sauntered right in to the steakhouse and were seated immediately.)

Louise did take her scooter out Friday and trundled off to do laundry while I fiddled with computers most of the day. I'm still trying to get one of my two Gateways to a point where I can sell it. Then, having made the decision to stick around one more night, we were able to squeeze in our complimentary dinner at the Tower Club in downtown Ft. Lauderdale, which was a painless 20-minute ride away on Broward County's transit system. I will say the downtown bus station is a little rough around the edges, but it was just a five block walk to the club from there.

We did finally get to sample the buffet yesterday, as they serve breakfast on the weekends, just $5 with our Isle One players club cards. Long time readers of this blog know that we don't really gamble, but we always sign up for the players' club when we arrive at a new casino. The card alone often yields a dining discount, even if you have not earned any points, and many casinos give you cash or gaming credit when you first sign up. A handful of casinos require you to belong to the club in order to park overnight.

After breakfast, we loaded up and headed south, stopping briefly in Ft. Lauderdale for 150 gallons of diesel at $2.719, the best deal I could find on Gas Buddy. (We later passed a pair of $2.699 stations, on US-1 well south of town, but even so, we did great -- most stations in the south Florida area are running well north of $2.80 a gallon, and we've seen as high as $3). We landed here around 4pm, in plenty of time to enjoy the sunset from the dock with a glass of wine.

We have a nice site here with a view over the water, and there are only three other rigs here, including the camp hosts. A marked contrast to our last time through, well into the busy season, where all ten sites on the bay side were full up, and they offered us a tight space on the highway side of the lodge, which we declined. They tell me it will get busy in January, and many Elks stay a month or two. There is no long-term rate, so that's at $30 per night, but I suppose $900 a month is a good price here in the Keys at high season, right on the water.

Today we will continue south to Bahia Honda State Park, where we were able to get only a single night's reservation. We'll try to arrive right at or a little before official check-in, and stay right through check-out tomorrow. We are thinking about pulling the scooters out and riding the ~35 miles into Key West tonight for dinner.