Vacation Part Three

I'll try to finish out the vacay in this post. Then back to the daily grind of my boring life!

Day 5, Wednesday: We spent the whole day in Key West. We got there in the late morning (almost noontime) and broke into various groups. My group made our way down Duval Street (the main shopping/tourist drag) toward the Ernest Hemingway House. We shopped along the way (Ron Jon's Surf Shop, of course!), and ate lunch at a place called Willie T's. It was pretty yummy, my boyfriend and I shared a blackened mahi-mahi wrap and jalapeno poppers (I have a recent obsession with them!). The poppers were served with an orange marmelade-horseradish, which actually was a good compliment! The best part of lunch was feeding the chickens and roosters that hang out in the eating areas of all the outdoor restaurants. They were piggy little things. I made one jump up and down for french fries!

The piggy chicken! She wouldn't stand still long enough for me to touch her, only to feed her.

The Hemingway house was pretty cool, except that I had a bad headache from the sun and heat. I took copious amounts of pictures of the polydactyl cats while the rest of our group learned Hemingway trivia to share with the part of our vacation group that didn't join us. I absolutely loved the kitties and desperately wanted to pick them up and squeeze them, but that wasn't allowed (probably because they're not entirely tame!). In addition to being polydactyl (and descending from one cat--Snowball), many of the cats had calico coloring to them, including the tiger cats, such gorgeous coloring!! The stories of Hemingway and his house were pretty cool too, but I won't tell them just in case you ever want to hear them for yourself!

Note the shape of the paw--those are some extra toes in there!

We were supposed to have a meet up time of 3:00 with the other members of our vacation group, but we had walked a long way to get to Hemingway's house and had to walk a long way back (and on the opposite side of the street--more stores!!!) We met back up with our group late and of course, no one knew what we should do next (aside from those of us who were content with the shopping we missed while rushing back!). We chilled out, did a little shopping, then headed to the pier for the "Sunset Festival". This is Key West's street fair that celebrates the gorgeous sunset every night. There were all sorts of street performers, from the bawdy escapist, to the CatMan (CRAZY MAN). It was a lot of fun, and we followed it with dinner at a Cuban restaurant. I had never had Cuban before, so I was a little leery, but it was pretty good. I definitely want to try it again! A little more shopping and we headed back to the condos. Most everyone passed out at that point!

My boyfriend and I with the sunset!

Day 6, Thursday: We spent the morning lounging around and trying to decide what to do for the day. Eventually it was decided that we would head out on a fishing party boat for the afternoon. Twelve of the eighteen of us went, and it was a lot of fun. Until I was the only one not catching fish. Then I was grumpy, more about the fact that I felt like a failure and I knew people would make fun of me :-(. It was still cool being out on the ocean. In one of the spots we stopped at there was a plethora of jellyfish, and I was able to snap a good picture of a bunch of them! Again, a lot of activity and time in the sun was tiring and we spent the night relaxing. That's what vacation is all about, right?!

Jellyfish!!

Day 7, Friday: We went snorkeling! It was so cool, even though I was scared to death that I was going to drown (I'm not a good swimmer, especially in the middle of the OCEAN). The water was supposed to be calm, until we got to Sombrero Reef, where it picked up to 5 foot swells. SCARY. I wasn't in the water for long (combination of big waves and mouthfuls of saltwater), but the time I spent in there was cool. It was so awesome to get a glimpse of the underwater world! I don't have any pictures from that part of the trip because I didn't want to lose it overboard. Take my word for it though, I wore a wetsuit well! Hehe! After snorkeling, everyone did their own thing--the beach again, some napping (it was tiring in the ocean!), and some video gaming.

Day 8...our very last day...Saturday: We spent more time in Key West. We did a few tourist things (seeing the Southernmost Point), and did shopping for souvenirs (of course, everyone needed something!). The highlights were eating stone crab (the local crab variety) and drag queens. Delicious and hilarious!!

Delicious...
Hilarious! (That's my boyfriend on the left and his 14 year old brother on the right!)

Day 9 (and into Day 10): Time to clean the condos, pack the van, and hit the road. We drove straight through the night to get back to Cincinnati. It was a bit rough, but 22 hours later (exactly), we were able to stretch out our legs :-). The final part of fulfilling our "Livin' the Dream" was stopping to eat at Waffle House at 6:30 in the morning. It was delicious! (I had never been to one before, so it was quite the experience!).


And that concludes our Christmas trip to the Florida Keys. I miss it so much, and I can't wait to go back...I want to make the Keys my vacation destination!