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| Key West Trip (cont'd) Wednesday (11/19) – I really, really wanted to go snorkeling. Danny finally caved and made a few calls but today was too windy and there was a cold front coming in so none of the boats were going out. Sigh. To recoup, we went to Bahia Honda State Park beach which was quite nice. Once again, there was a man-o-war warning. We went to Touloussa Beach (I think) which was nice. It was bayside (i.e. Gulf of Mexico and not Atlantic Ocean). We saw a few crabs scurrying out of their holes in the sand and we stalked a couple birds as they hunted for geckos. I have so many pictures of the tall white one that it’s ridiculous. It was fascinating to watch it as it went in for the kill. Once it found a target, it would stand still for a second and then it’d start waving its head from side to side. It has a long slender neck so it was a hypnotic undulating motion. In a flash, it’d go in for the kill and always came up with a gecko in its bill. Too neat. I also got a couple butterfly pictures in finally. There was another beach on the other side of the island so we wandered over there. This was the Atlantic side and there were tons of beached man-o-wars. Beautiful creatures. I got a good photo of one. We also checked out the old Seven Mile Bridge. This thing has a tragic history. It was built in the early 1900s. You could take a train from Key West all the way to New York. A few years later, parts of it were destroyed by “the” hurricane. While I was researching for this trip, this hurricane was mentioned everywhere. It apparently wiped out every living thing on Islamorada. Nature at its worst. Scary. Lunch was at Mangrove Mama’s and it was fantastic. Danny got the key lime pie martini which was really yummy. He also got the conch sandwich which was much better than Margaritaville’s. I got the florida stone crabs which are in season and they were good but I think Islamorada’s were better. Their key lime pie is divine. We napped through the afternoon. Woke up around dinner time and I was the only hungry one so I ate leftovers from Half Shell Raw Bar. It was our last night Key West so we got in our requisite barhopping experience. We started off with Schooner’s Wharf Bar. I wasn’t going to get a drink but the bartender talked me into one which was way too sweet and my stomach decided that it was not a drinking night so it was water and iced teas for the rest of the night. Hard Rock was next but we stopped by Blond Giraffe to grab their “award-winning” key lime pie. Their pie is okay. Mangrove Mama’s is the clear winner. We then went to Captain Tony's which is the bar that Ernest Hemingway frequented when he lived in Key West. Pretty cool place. The walls were covered with out-of-state license plates and business cards along with tons of bras hanging from the rafters. Mementos from Fantasy Week, I suppose. There’s also a live tree in the middle of the place and a grave stone. Creepy. Hog’s breath was our last and most interesting stop. We noshed on conch fritters which were alright. We also saw a sexy old lady. =( She was dancing rather provocatively. She looked good but she was old and that’s what made it kind of yucky. Thursday (11/20) – We were on our way out of Key West when we went back to Southernmost Point hoping that the buoy was completely repainted. It wasn’t but it was a beautiful day so we took another set of photos. And then we were off Big Pine Key. We made it to Blue Hole without any incidents. Wait, I was hit on in the market by some old guy. Traumatized, I ran to Danny immediately afterwards. Why do old guys think that they can be forward? Bleh. Blue Hole was neat. We walked along the pond looking for the alligators. We couldn’t see any so we got closer to the water and looked in. That scene from Crocodile Dundee kept flashing into my head. The one where the woman is leaning towards the river and a gator grabs her canteen. We walked around the entire pond and only saw a few tropical fish that people dumped off. No gators. We were thinking that they must have died. How disappointing. There was a little dock-like structure so we decided to check it out and see if we could find any other fish. And that’s where we found our lone gator. It was lounging right by the dock as if it were waiting for someone to drop something into the water. Success!! We then tried our luck with Key Deer at the nature trails just a mile or two away. No luck there. We tried to stealthily walk along the trail but saw nothing. We’d hear noises and would freeze but never saw a thing. Oh well. Time to check into Deer Run Inn. The house was nice. It’s a two-story building and the driveway was well shaded. She wasn’t in but left us a note that our room was ready for us. It was a nice enough room. It was on the ground floor but the area seemed quiet enough so I didn’t feel unsafe. We decided to walk around the property to get our bearings when we saw Key Deer! There was a pair that was walking towards the house. They looked like they were just walking through the neighborhood. So exciting! Later, I saw the same pair hanging around the house. I tried sitting quietly so that I wouldn’t scare them. They weren’t scared of me at all. In fact, they were expecting me to offer them food. I didn’t have any food but I was able to touch their noses before they figured that out. We were hungry so we headed out for lunch. We tried to find a seafood place on the bayside of the 1 but it was closed so we settled for a nearby grill on the oceanside. I tried their conch sandwich but it was only okay. When we got back to the inn, Sue was back so we talked to her about using the kayaks and we were off. Danny was hooked! We headed to the mangrove isles and found tons of man-o-wars stranded at the edges. I wanted a closer look so we paddled close only to be attacked by these vicious biting insects. For dear life, we paddled away but it was too late. They stayed with us and the only way to stop the biting was to kill them. Oy, they were painful bites! We saw the sunset from the kayaks. It’s amazing to be surrounded by so much water. We weren’t really hungry for dinner so we decided to try barhopping. Good thing I called the places because both of our choices were closed for the night because there wasn’t enough business. So we went to Mangrove Mama’s. We were only going to have appetizers and drinks so we ordered a seafood quesadilla and key lime pie martinis. I was getting hungry though so I ordered a pan seared scallop dish. Divine!!! I love the chef at Mangrove Mama’s. |