Bahia Honda State Park, Florida Keys

About 30 miles back from Key West, we stayed at Bahia Honda State Park, whose beaches were voted as the best in the USA in 1992. Unfortunately the windy conditions obscured the snorkeling for us, but we had fun camping on the beach-front and investigating the park’s other wonders. We discovered the history of the Overseas Railroad which was built by Henry Flaglar in the early 1900s. He believed that Key West’s deep port was an excellent location for importing goods, especially those coming through the newly-constructed Panama Canal. So, he built a railroad from southern Florida all the way down the Keys (about 125 miles). When travelling down the keys now, we saw evidence of the bridges used for this railroad, and indeed, one of these old bridges is a famous landmark at Bahia Honda. It was on the pilings of the old bridge that we saw a 4-foot long bright green iguana. Bahia Honda also has small a colony of an endangered butterfly called the Miami Blue. We saw a few of these butterflies (or what looked like them) flying around. The Nature Center and the rangers at Bahia Honda were a wealth of information, and helped to make our visit a wonderful experience.