Anyway, I managed to return the car the next morning, dump my tanks, and drive the 13 miles to Long Key. The ranger was very nice and brought my paperwork to me instead of making me park and walk into the registration booth. The big problem was that when I got to my site, a car was occupying it. Luckily, the camp hosts were next door, so they got into their golf cart and headed to the ranger station to try to track down the illegal parker while I waited while running my cab AC and staying cool.
Once she moved and I was able to pull in and hook up my electric, a two-hour nap made me feel a lot better. Unhooking and hooking up takes a lot of bending over, so that part was not pleasant, and I was glad to relax and keep my head still.
Long Key State Park is strange because it is really a very long state park, as you can see from this scan from Google maps. The sites are in one long line with all sites facing the ocean and the small beach. Although the road behind the sites does produce noise, it is worth putting up with because of the view.
Because there is little wave action in the Keys, beaches do not build up. This is about a good as it gets--a little sand at low tide, and a few birds.
By the way, most of the birds that will spend the winter in Florida and what makes it such a birding paradise have not yet arrived from northern states. They are on their way, but it will not be until December or January that the larger numbers will arrive. Of course, some birds, especially wading birds live here all year, so they are here.
One nice thing about the campsites here, other than the views, is that there is so much greenery between them.
I did not take a lot of photos here or at John Pennecamp State Park where I stayed next because it rained almost all of the next five days!
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