Today i will give a little background on where we are staying here in Florida. As i mentioned before Key Biscayne is a small barrier island right off the coast very near Miami.

As you can see from the above picture you come onto the island by way of the Rickenboker Bridge and Causeway, ( named after the famed world war one ace, Eddie Rickenboker) . From there, there is only one main one down to the bottom, or to the state park, called Crandon Blvd. Key Biscayne is sort of divided into three areas, the first one in the above third of the picture is called Crandon park, here, there is a huge marina, golf course, and very large park on the ocean side, which is on the right. Tons of parking, hiking, biking trails and of course, a few miles of beaches. The middle third is the village of Key Biscayne proper. Crandon Blvd, has all the stores, shops, eateries, etc. They have only one grocery store, the Winn- Dixie, most shops are high end. There is not a McDonalds, burger King or anything of that sort at all. The left area is where all the single family homes are, Which is on the bay side. The right side has all the condo’s ,resorts, like the Ritz- Carlton etc, that faces the ocean side and has all beach access. There are about 13,000 people living here all toll. The lower third is all state park, Crandon Blvd, just ends at the entrance to the park. The left side or bay side has a sea wall along with fishing piers along it’s 2 mile length, the right side, or ocean side has almost 1.5 miles of white sandy beach. The very bottom is where the lighthouse and light keepers cottage is. All total the island is about 5 miles long and maybe 1 mile wide at it’s widest point. We are staying very close to the bottom, more in the middle area, about 1/8 mile to the bay side and 1/8 mile to the ocean side. Hope that gives you an idea where we are, we have been here about one month now. Very little rain, with temps in the mid 70’s. My next post will be about the history of Key Biscayne.

We have now been here just a little over a week. All is well and we are settleing in good. We have also finished our first week of work. We will be working Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday while here. Melissa will be at the gate from 7:30 till 2:00 and i will be working in maintanance and field.

Above is my picker mobile, i will be using while working here. As there are 16 park rangers here, the carts they get around in are scarce, so i made up the picker mobile. It has a basket on back where i can put tools as needed, or the trash bucket, as you see in the photo. My picker is mounted up front. so far i have ridden 4 to 5 miles each day i have worked, so i will be getting my miles in. The park is big about 430 acres, with beach access, access to the sea wall area, paved bike path around the park, and many trails going every where. There are about 900 parking spots, not counting the resturant area, right now only 500 cars are allowed in the park(because of covid)then the park is closed for the day. Friday and the weekend seem to be the busiest and the times it closes early.

Above is the park, the main road coming in top to bottom on the right side. The 1.2 mile long beach is on the right (Atlantic side) and the seawall, where there a lot of piers for fishing is on the right side. No name harbor is on the left side or Biscayne bay side. The lighthouse (which is closed right now) is at the point on the bottom. On the map about 3/4 of the way down ,sort of in the middle is where we are staying, we are near the shop, and administration offices.

Picture above is of the lighthouse at the point.

The harbor, and below biggest boat i have seen yet about 80 feet or so.

Boats out in the bay.

View along the beach

Lots of fishing along the sea wall all the time, this guy caught a nice fish as we went by.

Above is a picture of a lightning Welk shell( about 3 inchs long) i found, when we were walking the beach one of the first days we got here. It was half buried in the sand and i just saw it and picked it up not knowing what it was. It is in very fine shape and a good find, considering shells are not really known here to much.

This is one of the biggest Banyon trees i have ever seen down here in Florida, it is located right in the middle of the park along a trail, has to be well over 100 years old.

Cooper having fun in the dog park we found in town. GO Coopy

We have also been walking a lot and riding our bikes way more than we did at Pennecamp. It is only about 1.5 miles into town from here, so we will be doing that from time to time. Also good for me, not so for Melissa is we get a lot of TV channels here, as we are only a few miles from Miami. So i will be getting my fill of GRIT TV, and am happy, but hay we are on an island in south Florida, during the winter, so how can we not be happy.

We are now in Key Biscayne Florida, at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. We left Key Largo Friday( new years day), and drove 67 miles to get here. Key Biscayne is a small barrier island about one half mile off the mainland connected by a bridge and small causeway, about 2 miles south of down town Miami. It took two hours to get here. There was one accident on the causeway coming out of the Keys ,and heavy traffic coming into the park here. There is only one main road coming into Key Biscayne and it ends right at the park entrance. As we got to the park entrance we noticed a sign that said, park closed, with a traffic barrier and two cop cars. All the traffic was turning around as they could not get in. I pulled to the right side, got out and talked to one of the cops. They knew we were coming and were waiting so they could escort us in. Wow a police escort, we felt important. After we got in the park we went to our site and got set up. There is only one other resident volunteer couple here. She works here at the park and he has his own business, so he does not volunteer. We have a nice big spot here, lots of room. Other than that we are just getting settled in and start working Tuesday, have no idea what we will be doing. I will soon make a post on Key Biscayne, the park and history, for now we are doing well, and Happy New Year.

Our time at

We can’t believe it’s time to leave Key Largo once again.  We arrived October 15^th and boy has time flown by like it always does.  It has been a memorable and enjoyable experience once again with a few extras thrown in, like the cold weather and having to evacuate due to hurricane Eta.  Like last year we’ve met great people and also got to see some friends from last year.  Kinda like going to our vacation home.

We went to the Key Largo boat parade with some fellow volunteers. It was a good time with a lot of lights!

Watching all the boats line up for the parade

Below are a few pictures of the boats in the parade.

It was really a great parade and the weather was perfect! I only wish the pictures didn’t come out so blurry.

The ‘Great’ Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn

A conjunction occurs when planets appear incredibly close to one another in the sky because they line up with Earth in their respective orbits. Jupiter lined up with Saturn on Dec. 21, and we got to see it here at Pennekamp! They looked so close together and it’s the closest the two planets have appeared together in about 800 years, and won’t occur again until 2080.

Christmas cold snap could bring falling iguanas, alerts National Weather Service

Iguanas aren’t dangerous or aggressive to humans (unless they land on you) but they damage seawalls, sidewalks, landscape foliage and can dig lengthy tunnels. The males can grow to at least 5 feet and weigh nearly 20 pounds, Ouch !!!! It was 65 degrees on Christmas day, which is cold for The Keys!

We had our Christmas dinner with our friends Barb & Bill. We met them in Pennekamp 2019 (it was theirs and our first time volunteering) It was great to see them again at Pennekamp! Barb & Bill invited us over for a pot roast dinner with all the trimmings, it was delicious! After dinner we played cards, it was a great time!

We wanted to go to The Buzzards Roost last year but never did. We did go this year with Bill & Barb. I had a lobster reuben sandwich that was really good.

Below are pictures of what we see everyday traveling on USA route 1 Over seas highway.

Definitely will miss seeing all of this.

Wednesday December 30th, Volunteers Brian & Michelle had a pizza party for the volunteers that were leaving Pennekamp. They had a pizza oven and made personal pan pizzas for everyone! They were Very good! Thank you Brian & Michelle.

This morning we packed up and said good-by to new and old friends at Pennekamp to head North to Key Biscayne Island, Bill Baggs State Park near Miami. Our new adventure begins with the near year 2021