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[tag]Biscayne National Park[/tag] is located just south-east of Miami, FL. I arrived in hot weather and stayed one night at the Southern Comfort RV resort in Florida City, just down the road from the racetrack. I only have to say two things about this park. I’ve never been to an RV campground where there is was a bar. The other thing is that this bar had country karaoke until midnight.

I awoke from dreams of Dolly Parton singing off key and getting fired (?!) and headed over to the park visitors center at Convoy Point. That’s where I’d be catching a concession run boat to Elliot Key and the campground. As soon as I arrived, it started raining – quite hard. I should have been more worried, but…. The rain quickly passed, and the boat was only delayed a half an hour or so. Beautiful ride across, and I spent the time swapping philosophy with the captain. He’d been running people across the channel for years. He agreed that he could be making a lot of money someplace else, but one couldn’t beat the view from his office. Just a note to anyone heading across. The boat is open, so pack your stuff in plastic or dry bags.

After setting up camp on the lee side of the island away from the docks, I had intended to explore the Spite Highway. Before Biscayne was set up as a national park, there was plans to create the City of Islandia on Elliot Key. Well, developers bulldozed a 125 foot wide swath right down the middle of the island, the future Elliot Key Boulevard. This was just before the park was recognized, and people now call it the “Spite Highway.” All that is remaining is a [tag]spider[/tag] infested path down the spine of the key. I made it maybe a mile down the path before the spider webs and rain clouds turned me back. Seriously, there was a web every 10 feet or so, with a spiny orb weaver spider at the center of each one. Those weren’t so bad. It was the MUCH larger golden silk spider that made me turn back. Shivers!

I bunked down for the evening and fell asleep to the sound of distant thunder. Well, the ranger said the park was 97% water, I just assumed he meant the ocean. I didn’t think he meant the rain clouds that rolled in a few hours after sunset. I was awoken by an unannounced gust of wind that nearly toppled my trusty Sierra Designs tent. Lightning was flickering overhead, and not 20 seconds after the wind, the rain started. At first it was soft, but it rapidly increased to the hardest rain I’d ever been through in my tent. The drops were so big and falling so hard that they’d splash THROUGH my rain fly and still pelt me with light spray inside the tent. I was forced to hold down the edge of the rain fly with my hand so the wind wouldn’t get under the fly and rip it from the tent. Luckily, I was able to hold on until I could pull a spare stake from my bag. In the process, I had to press my head against the top of the tent and was stung repeatedly by either HUGE drops of rain or even small hail stones. OW! As if that wasn’t bad enough, the lightning then started in earnest, crashing directly overhead. So now I had torrential rain, strong winds, lightning and thunder – and I was loving it!

As quickly as it came, the [tag]storm[/tag] moved off to the ocean. The whole front lasted maybe 20 minutes or so. I stayed dry through the whole thing – gosh, I love my tent. I crawled out from my tent and watched the storm roll out to sea. Lightning was going from cloud to cloud, and cloud to sea – a bolt every 5 seconds or so. Exciting, scary and awesome all at the same time. What a park!