After driving down the east coast of Florida, I decided to go as far south as I could go in the contiguous US, into the Florida Keys.  It was a beautiful day when I left from Miami for what would be a three hour drive to Key West.  As expected, there were many bridges and causeways connecting the mainland and all of the islands.  This was the view as I entered Key Largo.

I was amazed at the road infrastructure, actually.  In some places there were remains of older bridges side by side with the newer ones that replaced them.  But the view from all of them was sunny and blue.

Periodically I stopped to wander down by the water in State Parks and fishing sites, and to take a closer look at the design of the bridges.

This is Seven Mile Bridge, a beautiful box girder structure that is in fact 6.79 miles long.  According to Wikipedia: “The bridge has been featured in the films and television series Licence to Kill, True Lies, The Haunted Mansion, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Mission Impossible III, Burn Notice, I Am Number Four and Leverage.”  You can see the old bridge that it replaced on the right.  To me it didn’t seem like it was really seven miles, but maybe I was looking out at the ocean as I was driving and lost track of time a bit.

In some places the color of the water was just spectacular, so I think I can be forgiven for drifting away a bit and just enjoying the scenery!

After a few hours of driving, I finally arrived in Key West, which was much larger than I had anticipated.  In addition to the tourist areas, there were many residential neighborhoods, grocery stores, car dealerships, and a State Park.  It was a complete city seemingly floating in the gulf.  Almost before I realized it, I was at the southernmost point in the continental US, just 90 miles from Cuba.  There was a bit of a line up to take pictures by this marker, and I had no one to take my picture anyway, so this random gentleman is included for scale.

This is the view looking directly south.  Not much there but ocean and a few sailboats.

Having made no real plans, I decided to just have lunch and relax near the beach until I had to start my trip back.  Unfortunately, accommodation, even camping, is a bit expensive in the Keys, so I was staying in Miami.  I had grilled snapper and a frozen marguerita at the Southernmost Beach Café, and this was the view from my table.  Yep.  There are worse places to spend an afternoon…

On the way back to Miami, I stopped to get a better look at the Seven Mile Bridge.  I walked out the old bridge as far as I could go, until there was a break in the roadbed.  I actually loved the look of the weeds growing through the old narrow road surface, and the rusted guard rails.

Every part of the place seemed to conspire to be picturesque.  Even the birds decided to line up uniformly to gaze out at the small islands.

Looking over the edge of the old bridge, I saw these beautiful rays flying by under the water.

For those of you who are fisherpeople, these are the fish in the area.

All in all, it was a beautiful day in the Florida Keys.  A bit lazy, and not a bad view in any direction.  Ahhh… I needed that.