We're Here! Key West, FL

We drove down from Marathon to Key West this morning, and made our way onto the Navy Base which occupies most of Dredgers Key. We're checked in at the campground and temporarily camping in the Overflow area, awaiting a spot with full hooks-ups. I think it will only be one or two nights before we rotate into a regular campsite.

Every winter, beginning in October and going until around April, hundreds of retired military snowbird RVers make their way to the Naval Air Station Key West Campground. At a cost of only $23 per day in one of the best winter locations in the Lower 48, Key West is the destination of choice for many of us. But it does get crowded.

To ensure everyone gets a fair shot at enjoying the facilities, this campground has a 14-day rotation policy. This means a camper occupies a full hook-up site for 14 days and then rotates out to the Overflow area until space becomes available so they can rotate back in for another 14 days. This early in the winter, campers usually wait in Overflow for only 2-3 nights before a full hook-up site becomes available. In the peak of the winter, January and February, campers can wait in Overflow as long as 30 days.

The Overflow area is a large meadow on the north side of Dredgers Key, overlooking the ocean. It's nice out here and the fact that we don't have any hook-ups is no big deal. We have plenty of fresh water and holding tank space and two generators at our disposal: the on-board Onan, a 7KW generator that uses close to a gallon of gas per hour, and a portable Honda eu2000i generator that can run on a gallon of gas for up to 8 hours. The Honda generator provides enough power for everything except the AC unit. But, we don't need air conditioning as the temperature is around 75F and it's very breezy. Our Honda eu2000i generator is brand new and so I had to get it ready for first time use. She runs like a boss!

After getting settled in, we went over to the full hook-up area and found Fran and John. They've been here for 3 or 4 days and rotated into a full hook-up site yesterday. We have plans to get together with them tomorrow.