Drive to Key West

Go West .... Key West!

We had a quick snack at the hotel and headed South to Key West.

Today's map is pretty boring to look at.  There is only one road to Key West:

For our actual breakfast, we stopped at the Green Turtle Inn in Islamorada, FL.

A stop at the local Chamber of Commerce directed us to the Crane Point Museum and Nature Center, and the Marathon Wild Bird Center (both in Marathon, FL)

Then we headed to the Best Western Key Ambassador Resort Inn, out by the airport in Key West.

After enjoying the pool, and watching the ibis who seem to live there, we went for a drive to find a good happy hour.

We drove around looking for parking, finding an old fashion parking meter that actually needed COINS!!

I forgot to take this photo :(

After parking, we walked over to Duval Street.  As we got there we turned the corner, and saw a line for Martin's Happy Hour... We take it as a good sign when there are LOCALS lined up for a restaurant to open at 4pm.

Made a stop at Kirmit's Key West Key Lime Shoppe.  They were very nice, and helped us with more coins to feed our meter -- not to mention having good Key Lime Pie.

We continued to explore Key West on foot.  We ended up at Malory Square, for the nightly sunset party.  Unfortunately - too cloudy for a good sunset, but sponge shopping was good.

A Big Circle Around Miami

This is our map for today.  This hotel was chosen originally because we were planning to head south to Key West the first morning.  With the storm changing our plans, we did not rethink our choice.

Here is the map of what we are doing today.  We organized it well, and we made a big circle.  We put 125 miles on the car today, but had a great time.

The first stop was Oleta State Park in North Miami Beach.  It was pretty deserted this morning, but we walked along the Oleta River.

We the went to lunch at Captain Jim's Seafood Market and Restaurant.  This is exactly what it is, a well stocked fish market with a restaurant attached.

After lunch, we headed East to the barrier island and A1A.  We headed south through many nice neighborhoods and crossed back inland to visit the Wynwood Arts District.  There are many interesting examples of murals covering the entire side of many building in this area.

We visited a food-truck court called The Wynwood Yard.  This would be a great place to eat... if we had not just eaten.

We also found a nice place for ice cream.

Then we took a drive to Virginia Key Beach Park, where we enjoyed a relaxing hour on the beach.

For dinner, we traveled to Coral Gables to Swine, BBQ and house made sausages for Happy Hour.

 

One last stop:  Looking for sunset: Matheson Hammock Park in Coral Gables