This is WHY you AVOID the Interstate in your RV (Florida Keys RV Trip)

You know what that means. Get off of those main highways and get onto some of the back roads in this country, right? So this reminds me of the beginning of an old joke. How do you get from Tampa to Miami? What's your, what's your punchline? It sounds like a joke, doesn't it? Yeah, you're gonna hit me with the zinger? It's not a joke though. Well, most people will take Interstate 75, but we're not going to. We're going to take the old Tamiami Trail. It's a historic trail. It's a little bit more scenic and it's exactly parallel to 75, just further south. We're going to count some crocodiles and alligators and we're going to get into some trouble today. We had no idea, but Tamiami was named after the road from Tampa to Miami. Tampa, Miami. Tami-ami. That was a really fun fact to learn. It's 284 miles from Tampa to Miami and we aren't going to be doing that entire trail, but most of it. So we do have some fun stops along the way we're going to take you to and it's going to be a really fun travel day. We are going to be taking some tolls because we're in Florida and these SunPass pros are amazing. But now that we have a Bronco behind us and we don't want to get double zinged for the tolls. So I'm not sure if this is going to work, but we're going to try just putting that in the microwave. I read that in a forum. Is it going to work? I don't know. I hear if you nuke it, all the tolls are free. It's definitely not going to work if you push start. I want to share though about these SunPass pros. They are not only good in Florida. If you go to their website, sunpass.com, you can see exactly which states these pros are valid in and it's a handful of states. We use this not throughout the entire country, but we use it a lot of routes. And they're free to get. They do actually. Not free to use, but free to get. So the reason we first bought this several years ago when we were driving through Florida without one of these. And you get the invoice in the mail and it was like hundreds of dollars. And if you sign up and you convert the invoice into a SunPass pro, it puts quite a big slash in your overall bill. So it was a no-brainer for us. To get the second transponder, I want to say it was $15 to buy the transponder. We're going to stick it right next to the garlic. Lock it up. You're going to drive today, Lou? Big Lou? Okay, fire it up. Let's get on the Tammy Ami trail. I never use this for this asada. I rarely use that. Okay, June. Good girl. Okay, Louie. Good boy. One last step. The toad. Easy. That's the easiest part, right? After having this parked for a while and driving the toad around, it's like, oh, I have to learn how to drive the RV again this week. The waiver was, I'm sure, all sweet big parrots. And you're like, Timothy. Well, I've enjoyed this. One of the best podcasts I've ever been on, so thank you. One, three, four, five, six. Six steps. Now you need a wet wipe. I even washed this all quite a bit, but road grime. Time for some glove. I got to put some dielectric grease in here or something. It looks pretty corroded in there. And we did drive in a bunch of rain and we're near the beach. All right, let's go. Yeah. What is that? I'll tell you what it is. It's an H-Boy 32. I bet he loves seeing people he don't. First stop just over an hour away. But we are going to a visitor center, which we love going to because you just pick up some opportunity for some fun facts and learning stuff or things to see, especially when you're down there. It's at the beginning of our trip-ish, so that's good for what's ahead. So right when you get on to Tamiami Trail or US-41, it's very tropical. I'm already scanning for panthers, like waiting for wildlife to jump out in front of me. I would much rather be on this route than 75. That's prettier. It's lush. Look at all this vegetation and it's just more enjoyable. Looks like there's some small little gift shops and we'll probably start to see some, what do they call them? Oh yeah, the airboats. Airboats, yeah. Airboats and alligators. We're going to see more tourist stuff, tourist attractions, and we are here for it. It is Saturday today and I guess it's not that uncommon in Florida to see people just basically pulled over on the side of the road fishing from a bridge. I actually saw it the other day and I didn't think that much of it until we just saw this guy literally casting one foot in the highway and one foot out of it. You could just see his smile from a mile away. He was happy. Now I feel like we're in the Everglades. We're seeing birds. I don't know if you saw, I was just seriously looking for crocodile snouts to be popping up because the water's edge is right here and I honestly, there's one right there, right there. Get it. You see it? I did see it, yeah. We're on the board. We got one. So our first stop is Nathaniel P. Reed Visitor Center. You know what I read about this place? What? It has a boardwalk that you almost always see big alligators and manatees and like birds. Really? Yeah. Can I go in here? From this angle here it looks fine but I can't Yeah, pull on in there. The map looks good. Okay. What's the worst thing that can happen? You just go and catch the toad, right? Yes. The worst thing is I gotta... We lose 10 minutes. I gotta detach the toad. Yeah, see the big parking right here? Oh yeah, they got some RV slots. Yeah. RV parking. I can't tell if they're open or not but I'm assuming they are. Oh yeah, they're open. Yeah, RV parking. That U.S. Ranger truck is a Raptor. That's a Ford Raptor. That's all they can drive through the water? I don't know. That's pretty insane. Are Raptors waterproof? I don't know much about Raptors. They're not typically waterproof but they're kind of like Baja desert trucks but that's really weird to see that. I bet that Ranger loves his job. He just gets to hop in his Raptor and just go like chase wildlife all day. Yeah. Hey, we can run the AC for these guys without the generator. You spoiled it. I was just about to talk about that. I beat you to it. So we mentioned that we now put the air conditioner onto the batteries where before we had to start the generator and now we are able to run it without turning it on and do the override. Let's see what happens. So it's only on our front AC that we can run. It kicks on. Let's wait for the compressor. This is actually a really great spot to use this and give an example because yeah we could run the generator but we're literally in a wildlife preserve. Why would we want to disrupt all the animals in the sanctuary? Like we're literally in a sanctuary of wildlife right now. Yeah and we might only be stopping for like a few minutes and it's just nice to kick the AC on. Keep it cool so you don't come back to like a really hot RV. You don't worry about the dogs and you don't have to kick it on on the generator for a minute or two. Isn't that bad for generators? Yeah you should exercise them a little bit longer. But look at that. Snowflake, air conditioning. Yeah. Let's go check out some crocodiles. Okay. And alligators and vice versa. I don't know which ones. They probably have both here. Don't. You forgot? We need to go back on our Everglades National Park tour because. There's both. The Everglades is one of the unique climates and environments where both alligators and crocodiles. Alligators and crocodiles. Where's the crocodiles? I'm so excited right now. Alligators and crocodiles both exist here. What was the name of the trail we did? Do you remember? Shark Valley. The bike ride? Shark Valley. I think I want to say we counted like 21 alligators to five crocodiles or something like that. Do you know that that's only a half hour from here? Yeah we're in the Everglades. We are in the Everglades and I'm excited. Florida is such a special place where if you've never been down in these Everglades it's very lush and tropical and you feel like you're in the jungle and it's totally different from where we just left up in Fort Myers. It's all people. Totally overpopulated with people and this is just straight up wildlife. Alligators, crocodiles, panthers, birds. So many birds. If you're into bird watching like just bring your binoculars here for a day. And crocodiles. Mission Crocodile. Crocodile dandy. Crocodiles are bust. Let's find out how many. Let's see how many crocodiles we can find. Bye. Enjoy your AC doggies. Oh it's nice out. Raptor looks pretty good next to the bronco. Five distinct habitats. They've got plants, pines, grasslands, cypress and then the water. Water. Salt water and fresh water. You're supposed to stay 25 feet from the wildlife. Oh he's got little paws too. Yeah. Little tracks. Look at this nest. This is an alligator nest. Whoa. Oh yeah there's the little babies. Remember the babies we saw? I remember seeing yeah I remember seeing alligator nests before. Aaron wins the overall championship game of the day. He found the first baby and I'm so glad he found it. That's so cool looking. It's so cool. We've never seen a baby alligator ever. Cute little guy. True or false? Alligators lay up to 60 eggs a year and all of them survive. True. False. True or false? That's a crocodile. You can tell by his tooth. His snaggle tooth. Would you like to have this on your wall? You would. I would not. Good morning. Hello. How are you? I love those cool old posters. I have that vintage feel. Yeah. Have you told the postcard story lately? Why do we always go to the postcards? Well ever since we started RVing I've always made it a point to keep in touch with friends and family. I think it's just such a dying tradition to get snail mail. In a world of technology it's a way to tell your friends and your family hey I'm thinking about you. You don't have to say anything back to me just know that you're loved by people out there. Every time I mail out a big batch of postcards I at least get a couple of texts back from people saying it made them smile and what a great way to stay connected with relationships you know and make people feel important. So it's not a extremely large visitor center but these are the best ones. They're small. They're easy to get to. They're free. Yeah free and look how beautiful it is out here. Yeah and it's it's the type of the place where so we walk in there he was very friendly. Most of the rangers and the volunteers I don't know if they're volunteers or employees whatever but they're usually all so helpful and they ask you how much time do you want to spend here. Do you have 10 minutes? Do you have 30 minutes? Do you have four hours? And they will give you their suggestions based on your timeline which is awesome. There's little peaks out into the water but we don't see anything yet. He said it might be too early in the morning. He said we would see some birds out here. You can hear the birds. Yeah I see fish jumping birds. There's lots of fish in that water. It's not the most beautiful because it's like that brackish brown color. I think it's fresh water I want to say right? I think that's why alligators and crocodiles exist here in the Everglades because they have the mix of fresh and salty. It's all coming back to me now. Geez. Yeah so we're still pretty far north in the fresh water. So at six feet we'd be standing in water here and at 12 feet we'd be completely underwater which they're estimating by 2300 we're going to be underwater. That's crazy. It is yeah well even just looking at projected in 2100 which is not too far off we're going to be at three feet higher. Yeah I can live with that. Yeah let's just focus on that number for now. No crocs today. Crocodiles zero. No zero crockers. One little bird. There's a fish jump. Did you get that? Might have yeah. That white bird we just saw was a great egret I'm guessing. This one's like a fake out flamingo. Those are all the rosette spoonbills we saw on our little cruise that we took. Yeah. With Reiner. Yeah I'm still on a mission to see a flamingo because we didn't see a flamingo last time we were in the Everglades and it's on my bucket list. I gotta see some flamingos. So the next spot we're going to actually coincides with the postcards because it is America's smallest post office. And let me tell you we go to a lot of post offices. It's amazing how every small town has a post office. This is going to be the smallest one yet. Rocon. I don't know what that bike is but it looks like it could go right through the Everglades. That would be a crazy ride. So the biggest thing we learned from the ranger in there that I thought was kind of cool was the loop road. We're here. Which is basically just a little driving area. It's gravel and it's driving through the mangroves almost. Beautiful. If we had a little bit more time we would do it but it takes like an hour or more. I mean if you're stopping. Yeah that might also be one where you'd want to be in just your towed vehicle. Maybe not towing your RV. But that came highly recommended from the guy in there and he said lots of wildlife and just great views all around. This is the first time where we're kind of feeling the pain of towing the Bronco where normally we'd just whip on in here and in this case we had to like get off the road but not block him in and not get too far in in a way that we can't loop out. Yeah it's almost like if the lots are small and empty you can swoop through but otherwise we would just normally pull right in and then back out. But as long as we're off the road it'll be fine. Yeah. So I think we're barely off the road. This is how you RV with the towed vehicle. We're off the road. We're fine. It's not ideal. I should have worn my hat, my sunglasses. It's very squinty out here. There's not much you can do about it. You can't pull straight in if there's cars in here. So if that truck wasn't here we would have swooped in but then we could have gotten stuck. So I think it's perfect. Okay. Let's go mail some letters. Our postcards. They're from the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and that's the thing about postcards like by the time I get to actually mailing them we're on the other side of the country. Isn't that part of the fun though they get a postcard that says St. Louis and it's postmarked from Florida from the Everglades? Yeah and not just Everglades but the smallest post office in the entire United States. Yeah now that I'm actually like out here I just I get so self-conscious blocking but yeah there's plenty of space. It's not ideal but what are you going to do? It's just the way the parking lot is. These people need their postcards. There's no choice. There's no option. We're not going to skip it plus we need to see it. Rain, sleet, or snow the mail must be delivered. It must be delivered. Hi. What an honor to be here. Open six days a week. Wow. Considered to be the smallest post office in the United States. It was formerly an irrigation pipe shed building. That's so interesting. Now it's a post office. They're actually sending out mail and and selling stamps so I just I go through these sheets of postcard stamps like you wouldn't believe. Let me just say I enjoyed this triple the amount that I thought I even would. It's cool here. Yeah sometimes you just gotta like stop and do a couple minutes of research on what's on your trail and I think I just had the route in and I searched things to do through Google and you know all these little things popped up and you know why not stop and check them out. The next stop I hope you saved room from breakfast because I hear they have the best alligator in the world. We'll see what they have there. So literally within eyesight of the post office is Joni's right up the road. It's a small parking lot. I hope we can fit. Don't don't let this toad vehicle ruin my RV. Aaron's like on mission to make it everything work just the same. So I think we're gonna go there. I don't know if it's gonna be busy. It is Saturday. There might be a ton of people getting their alligator legs on. I can't tell if the right side is a road or not. See this yeah swoop in on the left. There's perfect spot for an RV. See where the road swoops in through the right to the old gas station. See that? Watch over that pothole though. I don't know if I can dodge that. Easy peasy. We got four by four. This is a this is a tight turn out of here but we got that turning radius of a champion so I'm not sweating it. But if I didn't have that turning radius I'd be like oh that's a tight one. Yeah now I'm always worried about these you know where's the RV gonna go. You gotta make sure we clear make sure you watch that. We don't want to take that down. Perfect. I think one little wrong clip and we would have taken the whole gas station roof down. Yeah but I was very aware that that is there. That's a big pothole. Joni's Blue Crab Cafe. We don't do enough of these fun little roadside stops. We really don't. I'm still full from breakfast. Oh you can't say that. I think you should get a big old alligator and frog leg basket. I am I will make you a deal Aaron. We will go bite for bite. How about that? Pretty cool. Come on in help yourself to a drink sit wherever you'd like and we will be right with you. Very welcoming right from the get-go. Excited? Yeah I am. This is different. Gator nuggets it is. I never thought I never thought that we would be here at Joni's Blue Crab Cafe excited to order gator nuggets. I've never had gator nuggets but it's one of those things where when you're traveling and you're in the area you gotta immerse yourself and have what the locals eat there or maybe the locals don't eat it I don't know but you just kind of also think of it like if you were to like in a different country right like yeah you don't just be like oh I don't eat that like that would be rude and I'll take the chicken lame yeah you have to just experience the culture of where you are. There's a little hush puppy that fell in there. Oh it's a little bonus free hush. Do you need extra chipotle sauce? Yes keep that you know sometimes Aaron and I share other times we don't share depending on how hungry we are and what we're talking about sharing sometimes we want the whole basket to ourself of whatever it is but in this scenario I think we're both pretty excited to share sharing is plenty there's no need for us each to have our own gator basket that seems a bit excessive yeah now we just asked the waitress about where they source the gator from she said it comes from a gator farm so this is farmed alligator specifically for eating she said that the wild alligator can be pretty tough it has a unique smell to it must musky or musty yeah she said and the way she kind of crinkled her face up while she said it you know smells like wild boar the look was worth a thousand words so we're gonna I guess just rip the band-aid off and get this over with right all right are you excited yeah the breading fell off that's good more authentic I am gonna dip it you're not even gonna try it without it just tastes like deep fried seafood what do you think Aaron's just chewing over there his expression is completely blank right now she she described it like calamari it's a lot more tender than calamari yeah it's not bad it doesn't it doesn't have a flavor I'm gonna try it without the dipping sauce this time it kind of comes it kind of tastes like uh they must do a little bit of a spicy breading on there it's got a little bit of uh it is a good breading yeah it's good okay Aaron now you eat that hush puppy let's cut it open I don't even know what a hush puppy is this looks like it maybe got abandoned in the air fryer in the fryer tastes kind of oniony tastes like a sweet dough with some onion like sweet and savory it does taste like chives or onions not bad not bad can't believe it took me over 40 years to eat gator I forgot to take a picture if you don't take a picture you didn't really have it right I think it's pretty good not bad at all should we bring some home for the dogs they've never had fried food in their life I'm not about to start it today let's try the coleslaw you can tell a lot about a place by their coleslaw it's a very small serving that's pretty classic oh this is a fun experience where we're headed there's gonna be lots of good fish eating I can't wait that's something that we've been super spoiled with in our travels is we get the good seafood and now I don't want to say we're seafood snobs but we're kind of seafood snobs where Aaron will have a bite of something and he'll be like this has been previously frozen I can't eat this but hey when you when you travel around and you get the good stuff you know what you like yeah I'm excited for some real fresh seafood tonight for dinner you drink the water in here it's noon and it's hot and it's check-in time and we still have like three hours to drive so we need to hammer pedal to the metal and get going wow we got to hit the last or the only southern fuel stop that's on the open roads discount amp app like the only one that's anywhere near us yeah we really like to be full on our fuel when we roll in and park somewhere especially for an extended stay it's just a safety thing you know with with the weather that happens throughout the entire country and the natural disasters I don't want to sound paranoid but if we need to boogie out of there for any reason the last thing you want to worry about is getting your RV filled up with diesel right so we're gonna fill it up roll into the keys topped off don't gotta worry about it for as long as we're there so after towing the bronco for maybe almost 2,000 miles now kind of been all the way from Missouri yeah uh about 10 miles per gallon yeah which is excellent not bad this is about to flip to 10,000 miles on there um we always like to just track our miles per gallon this road 41 tamiami the miles per hour is 60 which is great for RVs a lot of RVers prefer these back roads because we don't want to be going 75 or 80 miles per hour one that's just way too fast two nobody wants to be towing at that speed and three florida drivers can be a little bit crazy a little intense so the road less traveled is just a lot lower stress in a lot of situations and it really doesn't add on that much more time because you're going to be going at whatever speed you're comfortable driving your RV at anyway so you might as well have a good view and not a lot of stress around you by lots of people on the roadway yeah easy drive are a dollar i was joking oh i totally want one of those watermelons i was joking they were a dollar but they were one dollar for a watermelon go run and get us like three watermelons for three dollars the last discount diesel in south florida racetrack this thing the turning on this i mean i just can't brag enough about it turn it on a dime honestly could i was i was about to say we have to choose this one but i don't think so only three lanes here at this truck stop it's a small one oh i wanted to say something about the air conditioner on battery power so one of the big things with running it on batteries compared to the generator is you know we turned this thing on like two hours ago yeah and the air conditioner on batteries if it's set to the right temperature will cycle on turn off cycle on turn off but if you're running it on your generator your generator just stays on and then the air conditioner cycles on and off but your generator runs for two three four five six hours or however long you're you're driving so having it on the battery power just makes a lot of sense so what you're saying is when it's cycled off you don't have to sit and listen to the generator running for nothing yeah yeah like wasted fuel you can go pee if you want okay why not hang on tight back there i said hang on tight all right inexperienced driver coming through it's tough to see in the sidewall yeah yeah i'm gonna jump out okay got some beef jerky cheese sticks bell pepper and steak enough with the crocodiles that's it that is the end of our tammy amy trail extravaganza yeah and next stop is the islands man yay man amen going to the islands we've been looking forward to this for a long time so some sunshine some ocean some sea salt some water activities next stop paradise ever wonder where the name irene iron travels comes from it's actually named after my online fitness and nutrition coaching business irene iron fitness i help people move better feel better and eat better with strength training and real food no fad diets no harsh restrictions no counting calories and absolutely no processed food in a package if you want to get stronger and feel better at any age check the description below for the links with my new client special or join in on our next and upcoming group challenge