Cycling Key Deer Refuge...and More!

The rain has finally blown through, but it is still too windy and chilly to kayak or snorkel. We decided to take our bikes out for a little spin around the National Key Deer Refuge located on Big Pine Key and No Name Key.

We packed lunch and were about to load the bikes on the truck, when Kathy noticed that the back tire on Dave's bike was flat as a pancake.  (We'll finally get to use those bike repair kits we've been packing around for several years now.)  The tire came off easy enough.  We pulled the tube and found the leak.  Rather than patch it, we just put a new tube on.  We'll fix the leak tomorrow and use it as a back-up.  Time to saddle up and hit the road.

Route 1 heading to Key West was bumper to bumper.  We ended up eating our sandwiches while sitting in traffic.  However, we quickly lost the crowds as we turned onto Key Deer Boulevard and headed out to the refuge.  As with any wildlife viewing, it is always easier to see the cute little critters from the road.  If we passed one deer, we passed 30.  Here is a link for more info on the Key Deer Refuge.

At the end of Key Deer Boulevard is a hiking trail which takes you out into the mangrove forests.  We got as close to the water as we dared.  It was pretty mucky.  The trail marker said the trail meandered through the mangrove forest and meander it did.  We must have back-tracked five times in order to get back on the trail.

After tromping through the mangroves, we stopped at the Blue Hole. The Blue Hole is an old limestone quarry.  Most of the original roads on Big Pine Key were built from crushed limestone from this quarry.  This limestone is unique to the lower keys, a remnant from the last ice age. In contrast to the coral rock existing from Marathon north, the limestone permits a year-round supply of fresh water, necessary to support the Key deer, alligators and other wildlife.  There is no inlet or outlet to the Big Hole and its existence depends entirely on rainfall.  Salt water does seep in from the bottom creating a lens effect.  Fresh water stays on top because it is lighter, while the salt water stays on the bottom.  Both freshwater and saltwater creatures exist side by side or rather top to bottom.

Here you can see one of the viewing platforms. The tourists are watching an osprey swoop down and scrape its talons across the water to clean them.

We stopped at one platform and met Fred and Wilma, the two resident alligators in the Blue Hole.

After touring the Blue Hole, we drove over to No Name Key to do a little bike riding.  Most of No Name Key is undeveloped.  No Name Key began as a small fishing village, grew into the site of the first ferryboat landing (the only way to get from the Upper Keys to the Lower Keys), and later was the training site/staging grounds for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.  Today it is a community consisting of 43 middle to upper income homes, and several hundred Key Deer.

We rode through the undeveloped refuge portion, but along some former roads that had been laid out in anticipation of residential development.  We took one long road down to its end, far from the existing improved road.  Here is Kathy trying to decode the meaning of a cairn at the end of the gravel road.  She seems to have concluded that the cairn means to go right:

In the early development stages of No Name Key, several roads were cut into the mangroves.  When electricity, water and sewer failed to follow, the roads were left, creating what is now a great primitive, off-road biking opportunity.  However, as Dave soon found out, some roads lead to nowhere - especially when they are blocked by a big pond created by the last rainstorm:

After we parked the truck and began our ride, we passed the No Name Pub.  How could we resist?  So, we made sure to stop here on the way back.  We only stayed for one beer as the place was so crowded that we felt bad taking up bar stools.  It was a really cool place - if you can find it.  You really need to read the history from their web site, hyperlinked in the first line of this paragraph.  Here's what it looks like when you arrive:

This place has been around since 1938 and folks have been leaving their money there for decades.  We certainly did, we paid $3.00 for a 12 oz draft that only had 8 oz of beer and 4 oz of foam!  I should have grabbed a few bucks from the ceiling to make up the difference.  This is a photo of Kathy with only a VERY SMALL PORTION of all the pub's dollar bills showing attached to the ceiling above her head:

As soon as we arrived back home, we finished off a fisherman's chowder we started in the crockpot before we left.  Yum!

Big Pine Key on Dwellable