Key West

The drive in felt very long, but was pretty :)

“Please seat yourself” a seemingly innocent sign at Sloppy Joe’s in Key West whose better translation might be “may the odds be ever in your favour” lol fortunately for us, while C had given up and was waiting for his “to go” consolation prize, some nice older ladies called me over to tell me they were leaving shortly if I’d like the table. Which meant we got to sit down and have lunch, and C could check off a bucket list item. 

Having a mojito in Sloppy Joe's

Before leaving he verified open liquor laws (aka open container laws ;) in Florida which are apparently just “don’t cause a scene” or else “vacation will turn into probation” which I found funnier than I prob should’ve. 

We also found a new drink for Chris - it’s called a Pain in the Ass. It really doesn’t even matter what’s in it. Note - that was his statement, not mine ;) 

While Chris was discovering his new drink, I acquired a new hat ;)

Let's Roam in Key West was lots of fun.  Among other things:

Chris got points making music;

There was a tragic incident with a fish;

And we found the original Sloppy Joe's
(which seemed far more plausible a Hemmingway hangout)

While it was one of the more entertaining roams and another circle route which is ideal, it didn’t include the southernmost point of the continental US, so after we finished it we walked all the way back there mostly so we could say we had ;) 

There was a HUGE line for the good photo spot, so we made our own ;)

Plus side, Key West is gorgeous and fun and walking it twice was no hardship as we got to see things we missed the first time. 

Completely random sample house just cause it was pretty

Down side - my feet. My poor feet. My blisters have blisters. Yesterday I was annoyed at C being slow stopping me from my mini-adventure, but today I had to ask him to slow down cause I literally couldn’t keep up. Pretty much always when it comes to walking tours he quits before I do but not today. So much so that I was legitimately considering ubering back to the car (a few kms away) when a rickshaw driver did his sales pitch. C and I had recently discussed that that was something we’d never done, and I was SO sore, that we took him up on it. 

Being chauffeured back to the parking lot

Admittedly not an experience I was super comfortable with overall, but my feet appreciated it and it was still cool to get to explore another route. 

C making new friends ;)

From there we did one more quick visit to the Key West version of Ron Jon’s - this one was comparatively tiny, but I liked it much better. And no line to check out ;) 

The vibe in Key West was more Caribbean than American, but definitely tourist trappy.   It was fun though and 'upscale' tourist trap (as opposed to say, Niagara Falls ;).   In retrospect, I wish we’d booked a hotel room there for the night. I would’ve loved to round out the day with a sunset cruise. Alas, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so we had to head back to our (more affordable) hotel in Key Largo. Other learnings - in future I would fly or boat in rather than drive, and I would leave at least one more day.   I suspect there's also probably decent diving options, which would be nice if time and money allowed.

Super pretty drive

Tomorrow back to the Everglades and then up the Gulf Coast.