Key Largo, FL

Sunday, November 25

“Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go…” we’re off to the Florida Keys!

Andi, Tory, Aden and I packed up the RV and headed southwest to Key Largo on Sunday morning. We enjoyed our time in the Everglades, but now we’re ready to see the ocean!

One of the best perks of RV life is multi-tasking. While Andi drives, I can cook lunch, clean the RV or do some homeschooling with Tory. Of course, the kids prefer to snuggle up in the back and binge on Netflix and I have to practice some serious balancing skills to cook on the roll.

Traveling with kids also forces us to slow down so we don’t pack too much activity into one day. When we do, it almost always ends in a meltdown by one of us! We took our time getting down to Key Largo, watching the sides of the road along the way to see if we spotted any alligators. No such luck, but we did see lots of birds!

We stayed at Key Palms RV Resort in Key Largo, which was a super nice spot. Andi took the kids down to the water as soon as we got the RV settled, and I got started on chicken teriyaki in the Instant Pot for dinner. I had a perfect ocean view, right from my kitchen window, as I put the meal together.

You might be thinking: “She has an Instant Pot in the RV?” Oh, yes, I do. It makes cooking and cleaning up so easy! There isn’t a lot of counter space in our RV to prepare food, so any meals we can make outside the RV are winners in my book.

With dinner in the Instant Pot, I headed over to the swimming pool to meet Andi and the kids. Key Palms RV Resort has a big swimming pool and a hot tub. We swam until the sun went down and chatted with a few full-time RV snowbirds finding refuge in warm, sunny Florida. What a life!

Real Talk: Swimming is about the only way we can get our kids to take showers without a fight. After we watched the beautiful sunset over the water, we all washed up in the campground shower house then headed back to the RV for dinner. Turns out, we spent a little too much time in the pool because our chicken teriyaki was burned to the bottom of the Instant Pot. My first IP fail! Oh well, we still ate it. Dinner by candlelight.

After dinner, Andi and the kids went down to the water to cast one more line before bedtime and Tory caught a fish! Ah, yeah. Welcome to The Keys.

Monday, November 26

Our first morning in Key Largo was a slow & steamy one. Andi went for a run while I did my workout on the cement pad next to our RV. Tory was still asleep in the RV and Aden played in the sand near my workout space. After breakfast, Tory and Aden did some school. It’s only been a few days of homeschooling for us, but already we’re loving the flexibility this type of education gives our family. We’re following an online program and Tory thinks it’s pretty neat to do her schoolwork on Mom’s computer.

We’re quickly learning how vast and beautiful the Florida State Parks system is, and heard great things about the John Pennykamp Coral Reef State Park, so our plan for the day was to check it out.

Gosh, it was a hot one! We parked our RV in the parking lot of the state park and considered beachin’ it for the afternoon to beat the heat. Andi scouted out a few other options for activities while Tory, Aden and I toured the air-conditioned Visitor’s Center. Inside, we learned about sea turtles, key deer, shore birds and other marine life. Andi met us there & delivered these options for the afternoon: the beach, a glass-bottom boat tour, or ocean kayaking. The kids voted for the glass-bottom boat with the hopes of seeing lots of ocean life, so that’s what we did.

The big glass-bottom boat left at Noon, in route for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. We packed a picnic lunch (deli turkey, cucumbers, carrots, hummus, crackers and chocolate) to eat on the 20-minute ride there.

Once the boat arrived to the coral reef, all the passengers went below deck to take a spot around the glass bottom. The tour guide did a great job of pointing out fish and sharing information about the Florida reef. We hoped to see a sea turtle, a sting ray or something bigger but no such luck. Still - the colorful fish were neat to see.

We were hot and tired after the tour, so we went back to our RV and packed up our things at John Pennekamp State Park. For dinner on the way back to Key Palms RV Resort, we stopped by a fresh fish market to buy some gulf shrimp for dinner. Another low-key dinner outdoors on our patio table outside the RV. It was a great day in The Keys.