Miami Beach → Key Largo → Marathon
I think Miami has ruined the rest of Florida for me. It's so fucking dull and pedestrian by comparison.
I headed out first thing Tuesday morning, picking up a colada and bread roll along the way. On my route south, i cycled as close to the water as possible, which took me past a bunch of commercial highrises and the maze of one way streets that tend to drive small-town visitors to big cities nuts. After the downtowny area, it pared back to residential condos, and - delightfully - i passed the Atlantis Condominiums, aka the famous building from the Miami Vice credits that has a hole in it, and a palm tree in the hole. It is just as awesome as i imagined, although to really appreciate it i think you'd need to own an apartment in the building next to it.
But Miami hadn't exhausted its wonders, because after the condo strip, i entered one of the most glorious luxury housing areas i have ever been through. My map said i was around Coral Gables, but i think the area is actually called Coconut Grove. In either case, it is a wonderful community that is thick with fig trees and other growth that the roads snake through, higgledy-piggledy, and the houses kinda sprout up between the trees like a jungle village. It is clearly the home of very well-to-do people, but most of the houses are open to the street (although the trees provide a lot of privacy) so it never feels actively hostile like a gated community or a typical American rich folks' neighborhood. It was gorgeous.
You notice immediately when you hit the new developments, because that's when you go back to the hideous urban planning that exists in the rest of suburban-ass Florida. Entire neighborhoods walled off from the main road, surrounded by guard towers. Fences so high you can't see over them, even from a bicycle. It really is like living in a prison camp, it's so ugly and antisocial and inconvenient for everyone in the community. I hate those planned suburban developments with every fiber of my being. They're what i imagine hell looks like. How anyone can travel through a gorgeous rich neighborhood where the trees that were originally there are still there, with the roads and houses going around them, and then decide, nah, you know what, we'll steamroll the whole fucking mangrove and replace it with an artificial spaghetti junction where we mandate manicured grass around every home and plant just a few palm trees around the guard towers... It's nuts. What a miserable way to live.
Of course, those neighborhoods don't have shit for restaurants either, just McDonald's and whatever other chain junk, so i didn't get lunch. I got a fruit salad and refilled on oats from the grocery store. Then i embarked on my mission to ride along a dyke that Google Maps said was open to cyclists.
The dyke was not open to cyclists.
Well, not exactly. I did ride along it for several - signposted - kilometers, until i hit some tall barriers with no trespassing signs. It seems whoever owns that section of the dyke was doing construction, which was not signposted at the start of the trail, so i had to backtrack. Then, bloody-mindedly, i tried two more times to get on the dyke, backtracking each time when i hit yet another impassable barrier. It wasn't an unpleasant ride - mostly cycling along canals and through palm plantations, the only other vehicles on the road were agricultural trucks - but it did cost me a couple of hours that ate up whatever timesaving i would've had by taking the dyke instead of the main road.
Eventually i got onto the dyke again and had a fantastic ride along the marshes beside Biscayne National Park. At the other end of the dyke i had to wrangle my bike under two gates to get back onto the main road, before crossing the bridge onto Key Largo. I ended up right on the top end of the key, where most cyclists don't go because there isn't a shoulder on the bridge. Several dickhead motorists beeped and swore at me, as if waiting 10 seconds for an opening to pass was the worst thing in the world. Ah, the Keys, doing their bit to keep Florida home to the rudest drivers in America.
The first shop i saw in Key Largo was a guns and ammo store with a sign advertising concealed carry permits, reminding me that outside of Miami, Florida is still full of right wing nutjobs. (Inside Miami it is too, but they're more richy rich pro-business conservatives, which is a different sort.) The town is clearly much whiter and a good bit more English-speaking than Miami. I was expecting it to be a jungle with a couple of grand hotels dotted about, but it looks like pretty much every other boring suburb in America.
I was staying with a Warm Showers host, my first shot at a "free" homestay. There was nobody home. Just as i was about to give up and book a motel, the host rolled up the street and said to follow her. Apparently another bike tourer was also staying the night, so we stood there in the yard as the host showed us around and then the kids started cooking dinner. I was absolutely exhausted after all the backtracking, and starving too, but i though it would be rude to go into my tent, so i stuck around talking for two hours. At which point the dinner - which i had been invited to - still wasn't ready, so i said i was going to have to go to sleep.
This. This is exactly the reason why so-called homestays are not really "free". I had to spend over 2 hours making conversation and being polite, then i had to guiltily excuse myself, just to go to bed later than i normally would, without any food... All that to save 20 bucks? Well, in the case of Florida Keys prices to save a hundred bucks, but even still. It is so much stress and so much inconvenience it completely threw me out of the holiday feeling i had from Miami. And then it continued in the morning too, even after the hosts went to work, because i felt obliged to chat with the other bicycle tourer for an hour before leaving. It was so awkward.
I hate not having freedom. Being forced into social situations, to operate on someone else's schedule, it's the fucking worst. That's not freedom, that's not a holiday, that's work, it's a prison, it's exactly what i wanted to escape from by going bicycle touring in the first place.
And this other tourer, he's from Portland, did some Pacific Coast Trail thru hiking and some bike touring around the southwest, then got seasonal work before cycling San Diego to St Augustine with a buddy, and now is heading to Key West to find some winter work and a place to stay. He's one of the stealth camping types, using that wonderful white privilege to camp out in parks and patches of trees on the side of the road, apologizing after if he gets found, but usually packing up and leaving before sunrise to avoid getting caught altogether. All to save a few bucks.
It was interesting to talk to another cycle tourist, and to get confirmation that my rate of going through back wheels and tires isn't unusual, but it felt odd to deal with someone whose values and priorities were different to my own. I don't really fit in with these shoestring travelers who spend half their lives trying to find "free" shit, and i also don't fit in with the luxury tourers who have multiple-thousand dollar bikes and cheerfully stay at Airbnbs every night. It's the same problem i had when backpacking around Europe. I'm too snobby for hostels, but i'm too cheap for hotels. I am in some weird lower-middle category of traveler that seems to only be a category of one.
But, whatever. I guess it was alright to talk to people, it's something different, and that's what travel is all about, but it's just so exhausting.
Fortunately i had a tailwind, so cycling today was a breeze.
But it was also deathly boring. Someone i met at a campsite a week or two back said cycling down the Keys was going to be the most boring road of my life. I found that hard to believe, having cycled through fucking Missouri and now suburban Florida. In my mind's eye, the road to Key West is just one spectacularly long causeway, ocean on both sides, a vast, beautiful bridge with the occasional tropical island along the way.
It is not like that at all. It is the most boring road of my life. What the road to Key West actually is, is a fucking highway with private properties on both sides of it. You can't see the sea. The very, very few sections where you can pull over and it's nothing but mangroves, it's not relaxing at all because you are literally feet away from an extremely busy highway. The only sound you hear is cars. The only thing you smell is exhaust fumes. Somehow Americans have managed to take what could've been one of the most beautiful places in the world, and turned it into a fucking highway.
Even on the causeways, you can't stop, because it's a highway, so you can't admire the view. And you can't admire the view twice over, because instead of burying the power lines, or feeding them along the bridge, they're just massive pylons in the ocean, making what could've been a clean, pure vista into a splash of turquoise with ugly black lines across it.
It fucking sucks. The Florida Keys fucking suck. I want to go back to Miami.
I arrived at Marathon at noon, thanks to the tailwind, and realized that if i pushed i could make Key West today. But thanks to the stupid fucking bullshit of accommodation in Florida, i already had a motel booked with a no cancellation policy. I went into the motel and asked if i could cancel anyway, but no. Also the room isn't available till after 3pm. So what now? Almost all the land is private. The small sections of public access beach and waterfront are basically just like sitting on the side of the highway. Every restaurant is exactly the same overpriced seafood island life tiki tiki whatever the fuck. But not the good sleazy beach bum kind, the tediously touristy kind. I went to a taco truck and got a torta, supposedly the best taco place in the whole Keys. It was fine, but if this is the best the place has to offer, i'm not looking forward to my three days minimum stay that i had to sign up for at the campground. Lordy, what a disappointingly boring place.
I miss Miami.
I really hope Key West is better than all the keys up to this one. Fucking hell.
It's 2:30pm, i suppose i better head back to the motel and see if my room is ready. I think i will just pick up some booze and snacks from the grocery store and spend the afternoon in my room drinking in the internet. I have three days of no electric camping to look forward to this weekend. Sigh.
I headed out first thing Tuesday morning, picking up a colada and bread roll along the way. On my route south, i cycled as close to the water as possible, which took me past a bunch of commercial highrises and the maze of one way streets that tend to drive small-town visitors to big cities nuts. After the downtowny area, it pared back to residential condos, and - delightfully - i passed the Atlantis Condominiums, aka the famous building from the Miami Vice credits that has a hole in it, and a palm tree in the hole. It is just as awesome as i imagined, although to really appreciate it i think you'd need to own an apartment in the building next to it.
But Miami hadn't exhausted its wonders, because after the condo strip, i entered one of the most glorious luxury housing areas i have ever been through. My map said i was around Coral Gables, but i think the area is actually called Coconut Grove. In either case, it is a wonderful community that is thick with fig trees and other growth that the roads snake through, higgledy-piggledy, and the houses kinda sprout up between the trees like a jungle village. It is clearly the home of very well-to-do people, but most of the houses are open to the street (although the trees provide a lot of privacy) so it never feels actively hostile like a gated community or a typical American rich folks' neighborhood. It was gorgeous.
You notice immediately when you hit the new developments, because that's when you go back to the hideous urban planning that exists in the rest of suburban-ass Florida. Entire neighborhoods walled off from the main road, surrounded by guard towers. Fences so high you can't see over them, even from a bicycle. It really is like living in a prison camp, it's so ugly and antisocial and inconvenient for everyone in the community. I hate those planned suburban developments with every fiber of my being. They're what i imagine hell looks like. How anyone can travel through a gorgeous rich neighborhood where the trees that were originally there are still there, with the roads and houses going around them, and then decide, nah, you know what, we'll steamroll the whole fucking mangrove and replace it with an artificial spaghetti junction where we mandate manicured grass around every home and plant just a few palm trees around the guard towers... It's nuts. What a miserable way to live.
Of course, those neighborhoods don't have shit for restaurants either, just McDonald's and whatever other chain junk, so i didn't get lunch. I got a fruit salad and refilled on oats from the grocery store. Then i embarked on my mission to ride along a dyke that Google Maps said was open to cyclists.
The dyke was not open to cyclists.
Well, not exactly. I did ride along it for several - signposted - kilometers, until i hit some tall barriers with no trespassing signs. It seems whoever owns that section of the dyke was doing construction, which was not signposted at the start of the trail, so i had to backtrack. Then, bloody-mindedly, i tried two more times to get on the dyke, backtracking each time when i hit yet another impassable barrier. It wasn't an unpleasant ride - mostly cycling along canals and through palm plantations, the only other vehicles on the road were agricultural trucks - but it did cost me a couple of hours that ate up whatever timesaving i would've had by taking the dyke instead of the main road.
Eventually i got onto the dyke again and had a fantastic ride along the marshes beside Biscayne National Park. At the other end of the dyke i had to wrangle my bike under two gates to get back onto the main road, before crossing the bridge onto Key Largo. I ended up right on the top end of the key, where most cyclists don't go because there isn't a shoulder on the bridge. Several dickhead motorists beeped and swore at me, as if waiting 10 seconds for an opening to pass was the worst thing in the world. Ah, the Keys, doing their bit to keep Florida home to the rudest drivers in America.
The first shop i saw in Key Largo was a guns and ammo store with a sign advertising concealed carry permits, reminding me that outside of Miami, Florida is still full of right wing nutjobs. (Inside Miami it is too, but they're more richy rich pro-business conservatives, which is a different sort.) The town is clearly much whiter and a good bit more English-speaking than Miami. I was expecting it to be a jungle with a couple of grand hotels dotted about, but it looks like pretty much every other boring suburb in America.
I was staying with a Warm Showers host, my first shot at a "free" homestay. There was nobody home. Just as i was about to give up and book a motel, the host rolled up the street and said to follow her. Apparently another bike tourer was also staying the night, so we stood there in the yard as the host showed us around and then the kids started cooking dinner. I was absolutely exhausted after all the backtracking, and starving too, but i though it would be rude to go into my tent, so i stuck around talking for two hours. At which point the dinner - which i had been invited to - still wasn't ready, so i said i was going to have to go to sleep.
This. This is exactly the reason why so-called homestays are not really "free". I had to spend over 2 hours making conversation and being polite, then i had to guiltily excuse myself, just to go to bed later than i normally would, without any food... All that to save 20 bucks? Well, in the case of Florida Keys prices to save a hundred bucks, but even still. It is so much stress and so much inconvenience it completely threw me out of the holiday feeling i had from Miami. And then it continued in the morning too, even after the hosts went to work, because i felt obliged to chat with the other bicycle tourer for an hour before leaving. It was so awkward.
I hate not having freedom. Being forced into social situations, to operate on someone else's schedule, it's the fucking worst. That's not freedom, that's not a holiday, that's work, it's a prison, it's exactly what i wanted to escape from by going bicycle touring in the first place.
And this other tourer, he's from Portland, did some Pacific Coast Trail thru hiking and some bike touring around the southwest, then got seasonal work before cycling San Diego to St Augustine with a buddy, and now is heading to Key West to find some winter work and a place to stay. He's one of the stealth camping types, using that wonderful white privilege to camp out in parks and patches of trees on the side of the road, apologizing after if he gets found, but usually packing up and leaving before sunrise to avoid getting caught altogether. All to save a few bucks.
It was interesting to talk to another cycle tourist, and to get confirmation that my rate of going through back wheels and tires isn't unusual, but it felt odd to deal with someone whose values and priorities were different to my own. I don't really fit in with these shoestring travelers who spend half their lives trying to find "free" shit, and i also don't fit in with the luxury tourers who have multiple-thousand dollar bikes and cheerfully stay at Airbnbs every night. It's the same problem i had when backpacking around Europe. I'm too snobby for hostels, but i'm too cheap for hotels. I am in some weird lower-middle category of traveler that seems to only be a category of one.
But, whatever. I guess it was alright to talk to people, it's something different, and that's what travel is all about, but it's just so exhausting.
Fortunately i had a tailwind, so cycling today was a breeze.
But it was also deathly boring. Someone i met at a campsite a week or two back said cycling down the Keys was going to be the most boring road of my life. I found that hard to believe, having cycled through fucking Missouri and now suburban Florida. In my mind's eye, the road to Key West is just one spectacularly long causeway, ocean on both sides, a vast, beautiful bridge with the occasional tropical island along the way.
It is not like that at all. It is the most boring road of my life. What the road to Key West actually is, is a fucking highway with private properties on both sides of it. You can't see the sea. The very, very few sections where you can pull over and it's nothing but mangroves, it's not relaxing at all because you are literally feet away from an extremely busy highway. The only sound you hear is cars. The only thing you smell is exhaust fumes. Somehow Americans have managed to take what could've been one of the most beautiful places in the world, and turned it into a fucking highway.
Even on the causeways, you can't stop, because it's a highway, so you can't admire the view. And you can't admire the view twice over, because instead of burying the power lines, or feeding them along the bridge, they're just massive pylons in the ocean, making what could've been a clean, pure vista into a splash of turquoise with ugly black lines across it.
It fucking sucks. The Florida Keys fucking suck. I want to go back to Miami.
I arrived at Marathon at noon, thanks to the tailwind, and realized that if i pushed i could make Key West today. But thanks to the stupid fucking bullshit of accommodation in Florida, i already had a motel booked with a no cancellation policy. I went into the motel and asked if i could cancel anyway, but no. Also the room isn't available till after 3pm. So what now? Almost all the land is private. The small sections of public access beach and waterfront are basically just like sitting on the side of the highway. Every restaurant is exactly the same overpriced seafood island life tiki tiki whatever the fuck. But not the good sleazy beach bum kind, the tediously touristy kind. I went to a taco truck and got a torta, supposedly the best taco place in the whole Keys. It was fine, but if this is the best the place has to offer, i'm not looking forward to my three days minimum stay that i had to sign up for at the campground. Lordy, what a disappointingly boring place.
I miss Miami.
I really hope Key West is better than all the keys up to this one. Fucking hell.
It's 2:30pm, i suppose i better head back to the motel and see if my room is ready. I think i will just pick up some booze and snacks from the grocery store and spend the afternoon in my room drinking in the internet. I have three days of no electric camping to look forward to this weekend. Sigh.