Key West!! Full Time RV Living | Florida Keys RV Camping & RV Life

I'm a little bit worried about gators. So we're in the downtown area of Key West. Key West! Near the Mallory Square area. And we're just having a lot of fun being tourists today. So, today is the day to be a tourist. Alright, so we made it to mile marker zero. Key West, Florida. Zero! I don't know what to say about it. Mile marker zero. It's just, it's a thing. If you're in Key West, you'll see it's a thing. It's just like, all the shops have it. But, you know. Zero! You're at the end! Let's go get Key Lime Pie. Key Lime Pie. Good afternoon. This is Kermit's Key West Key Lime Shop. Home of Key Lime Pie. This one's coconut chocolate. Coconut chocolate? Coconut chocolate. Take it out of the... There you go. Mom, do you want some? This is amazing. Highly recommend it. Let's go. This is Key Lime Pie. Covered in chocolate. On a stick. What? Because everything's better on a stick. This is Key Lime candy. And it's sugar free. It tastes so good. So they got us tickets for the aquarium, but also I got us tickets for the Hemingway house here because there was a discount if you purchased tickets for the aquarium and the Hemingway house together. And the tickets for the Hemingway house we can use anytime. There's not a time limit or anything like that on it, so it's not like we have to do both in one day. We can do it anytime while we're here. So, good savings by purchasing them both here versus separately. I catched a horseshoe crab. Okay guys, so we can actually pay here. Here's a huge horseshoe crab. And this is a horseshoe crab right here. So today we are going to check out the Hemingway house. I'm personally looking forward to this one. And they have cats. I just want to see the cats. I just want to see the cats too. They have... what do you call them? Polydactyl. Polydactyl? No, no, not the cats. That's what they call the cats. Polydactyls. But what do they call the thingies? It's like an extra thumb. Extra thumb. That's why it's called a polydactyl. I know. Wait, so mom, aren't my cat... Our cat... No. Our dog has that. He has a six... like pad. No, he doesn't. Yes, he does. We have a polydactyl dog? No. Now we're going to go to the upstairs of the carriage house. This is where he did all of his writing. Let's check it out. This should be pretty cool. Interesting. This was his creative space. His actual toilet is right in front of one of the windows here. So I'll show you that. Pretty unique. Right here. And look in there. He waved to his buddies as they walked by. Waved to his buddies as they walked by. Okay, this is kind of a cool little fact. So this is Key West's only house with a full basement. And the interesting thing about that is that the guy that built it didn't realize that he really probably shouldn't put basements in houses in Florida because he was from Connecticut. So he started excavating all of this limestone out of the lower level to create a basement. And so realizing just how strong and how durable that that limestone was, he then actually repurposed that limestone to build the structure of the house itself. So it is one of the strongest houses and the strongest structures here in Key West. So it was a really interesting guided tour. And also we walked through ourselves after the guided tour to just be able to get more of the history of Hemingway and the history of this particular property. But probably one of the things that stuck out the most was just obviously the circumstances surrounding Hemingway's death where he did take his own life. In that there's so many things in his life that were obviously untreated. He had shrapnel in his leg. He had gone through two wars as a correspondent. There was obviously a lot of PTSD, things associated with that, that were just not really known or diagnosed very easily back in the 50s and 60s. And also the fact that he was an alcoholic and then was depressed. And so those things that feed each other. And just kind of really sad that at 61 years old that his life ended where he probably could have gone on to write more and to be able to contribute more to society had he gotten the help he really truly needed for those particular ailments. So just really interesting looking at all of that. And then again wondering how many other people have maybe even had their lives ended early due to things that are totally treatable and that they can get help for to go on and lead productive lives. So today we are going to go... On a snorkel trip! Including kayaking and paddle boarding. Well not like near us but... There are joy fish down there! Yeah I know. Oh! Oh my gosh you can see the bottom here! Just look down! It's just all grass. Now you can't see it sort of. But it's all grass I saw it. Come on dolphins where are you now? It's beautiful! Look! Wow Trinity look at that water! I know! That's amazing! So we are going to go first kayaking and then we're going to jump on the paddle boards. Kids are having a good time. I learned how to stand on a paddle board! Nice! So we're waiting for Trinity and Mama. They're back there. They got beached so... We're just going to hang out here. Enjoy the view. I'm going to go rescue them. I've got you guys! I'll rescue you! Our hero! Yay! I could sit out here in a chair all day long. Like look at this. It's crazy clear. Watch. Trinity what did you find? A glass bottle. It's not even grass. Is there a message in it? No. There's a piece of grass. So we just got off of our trip with Fury and that was super fun. We went out to a couple of different locations and did some snorkeling, some kayaking, paddle boarding. It was the kids' first time doing kayaking and paddle boarding both and they fell in love with both. In fact, they want to get kayaks and paddle boards so that we could do that more often because it was just a lot of fun. So this was definitely a great company. We really enjoyed our time. The crew was over and above hospitable towards us, making sure that all of our needs were taken care of, that we always had something to drink or eat if we needed it. There was a freshwater rinse, bathroom on board, just everything to make you super comfortable and just to enhance that wonderful time that we had out there on the water. Beautiful, beautiful day and just enjoying this whole area. So during our time here in Key West, Florida, we have stayed at the El Mar RV Resort and we'll put a link in the description for this resort for you so that you can have that information if you ever want to stay here. We really, really enjoyed our time here. This is a very, very small RV park. There's only 11 sites. They do have some regulations. You do have to be a certain length to be able to stay here. So there's no year regulations like with some RV parks where you have to have an RV less than 10 years old. There's not that. Just a length requirement to be able to stay here. It was an absolute beautiful place. There are five spots that are on the water and then there are some spots that are not on the water. But either way, it's just gorgeous. If you do own a paddleboard, a canoe, a jet ski, those types of things, you can launch them right here at the RV park out into the Bay Area, which is really, really cool if you own those types of watercraft equipment. So I would highly recommend this RV park. A couple of things to be aware of. This RV park does not have the typical amenities. So there's not a bathroom or a shower house, and there's not a laundry room. But that didn't really affect us because we use our own bathroom and we can use our own shower, and we happen to have a washer and dryer. So that didn't bother us so much, but just something to be aware of if you do choose to stay here. The rates are very, very reasonable for the Key West area, however. So compared to a lot of the other resort type of RV parks, very, very reasonable rates to be able to stay here at the Elmar RV Resort. It is located on Stone Island, which from where we are staying here at Elmar into the downtown Key West area is about a 15-minute drive. So very easy to get there. We brought our bikes. You can bike down into Old Town Key West very easily from here also. So just a great location to be. Beautiful area. We have palm trees that are right by our site. Wake up every single morning and look out at the water. Just absolutely gorgeous. So we can't say enough. Also, the campground host manager, Fiona, just really made our stay extra welcoming and extra special. She gave us a lot of tips and things like that that we would want to do here in the area. She just went even above and beyond, gave us her personal cell phone number if we needed anything, told us to call any time of the day or night. Just above and beyond hospitality during our stay here, which of course just made us feel so welcome and enjoyed our time. I'm a little bit worried about gators. We are at the National Wildlife Refuge. No, no, no. It's not a national, anything. Guys, look. Did it say national? Yep. I already got a bug calling on me. National Wildlife Refuge. Oh. We're just a National Wildlife Refuge. Apparently. And I just got bit by a mosquito. I'm going back in the Jeep. So supposedly there's gators here. Okay, so that was really cool, guys. I loved it. I don't think that was cool at all. I was getting bit up by mosquitoes. I liked it. We didn't have much bug spray left. Seriously, I got two mosquito bites. There's a mosquito in you. Is there a mosquito in you? There was. There is. Open your window. You got it? There was. I got it. She got it. Nice. Picture from my wallpaper. I swear. Like, Florida's been great and it's beautiful and most of the beaches have been really nice. Most. But the bugs. My body has never been so bit up in my life. Now this is jeeping. It's not jeeping. It's looking for little deers. Can you believe that? Unbelievable. There's another tree. You're the only one laughing. Deer. Where? Oh, deer. Oh, there they are. Let's go.