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| Key West Trip (cont'd) Friday (11/21) – Because I had whined so much about snorkeling (I was actually upset that Danny wasn’t as gung-ho about it as me), we had made a few calls the night before. We had reservations at Strike Zone but they cancelled the morning dive. We needed to be in Pennekamp in the afternoon so we had to find other options. We called Bahia but their dive wasn’t until later so we decided to go with Pennekamp. Looe Reef is supposed to be the best dive area but I was happy with Pennekamp. We took a boat out to Grecian Rocks which were alright. The floor was scattered with broken shards of coral. Some pieces were as thick as my thighs so you could tell that it used to be a magnificent reef. The corals are suffering though so it was sad seeing its ghost. There were enough beautiful fish though so that made the trip satisfying. We even saw barracuda! It was amazing being in the same environment with them. It takes a second to realize that there isn’t a pane of glass separating you from all these creatures. Amazing! Addictive, too! I swallowed plenty of sea water but it was a blast. I guess we didn’t have enough because we even went kayaking afterwards. That was fun. We didn’t see any sea life but it was fun just wandering around on our own. Pennekamp was a good stop. I bought a wooden sculpture of a sea turtle from one of the gift stores. I was set on buying something and that was the only decent thing I could find. We were then off to South Beach. We found our hotel but it took a couple of spins around the block. When we got to the hotel, someone approached our car and I was bracing myself for a scam. It ended up being a woman who was having problems changing her rental car’s tire. She had a mustang too so she thought that we’d have the key for the rim. I guess she never changed a tire. Anyway, she said that she called the rental agency and they told her to use the key to unlock the rim. I found our car’s instructions for changing the tire and we walked over to her car. I found the jack for her when this guy joined us. I thought he was another stranger helping her but he was her traveling companion. Anyway, Danny joined us and took a look at the rim. It didn’t have a lock so he just pulled out one of his keys and popped the rim off. I was thinking that it was unbelievable that they couldn’t change a tire but they didn’t even understand directions so I shouldn’t be shocked. He was continuing to help them out so I left them and checked us into the hotel. There was a happy hour at our hotel’s bar so we stopped by there before heading off for dinner. Dinner was at Thai Tony’s. Yummy! I got the soft shell crabs which were really good. We had a long night planned ahead of us as we wanted to check out the world-renowned nightlife so we went back to the hotel for a quick nap. The alarm went off but we decided to call it a night. No regrets. A club’s a club; nothing more and nothing less. There was an interesting encounter. When the alarm went off (I think), I walked over to Danny’s bed to wake him up. I was sitting on his bed and realized that I was stepping on something. I thought I had dropped something so I looked down to see what it was. I didn’t have my glasses on so it took me a minute before I realized that it was a dead cockroach! It was over an inch long!! I screamed and that got Danny’s attention. I asked him to flush it so he plodded over to the bathroom for some tissue and came back to pick it up. He leaned over and shot up with a yelp. The roach wasn’t dead. Adrenaline pumping, we were wide awake for a few minutes… and then went back to bed. Saturday (11/22) – It was a mellow day. I woke up hungry so I rushed us out of the room to eat breakfast at Café Med. The food was tasty and it was a good location/set up. You could people watch in an open space. Quite lovely, actually. We wandered around the area a bit to shop but I was pooped so we just got some bottled drinks and headed to the beach to nap and get a little sun. Surprisingly, we didn’t get any color from the snorkeling trip. The beach was great. It’s huge and it wasn’t packed. Once again, I woke up hungry so we went looking for food. Lunch was at News Café which was packed, packed, packed. It was listed as a popular spot in our books and we found that it really is. They didn’t have the ingredients for my entrée so I had to pick another one. They also couldn’t find their torch so they couldn’t make the crème brulee that I ordered for dessert. Not the best dining experience but it was fun eating at a South Beach “hot spot”. And thus ended our Florida trip which of course was delayed by a late plane at Ft. Lauderdale. |