After our food tour, we drove to Key West in the late afternoon/early evening. We love venturing into new territory and places not everybody goes. Yes, Miami was new to us, but this little excursion made it that more exciting to be in South Florida. Driving from key to key wasn't as thrilling as I had imagined. I guess I thought it would seem a little scarier being on a narrow highway with water on both sides. The only thrilling part was being on the Seven Mile Bridge between Marathon and Little Duck Key. But we enjoyed the whole road trip from start to finish. We stopped at Hogfish Bar and Grill on Cow Key. What a cool, divey place. Check out the conch-shell-covered truck that was parked out front of it. We got our first key lime pie as take-out and savored that when we got to our hotel, The Reach.
In the morning, we ate breakfast at our hotel restaurant by the water. I would like to have my meals by the ocean every day! The Reach has a fun courtyard area with games like this giant game of chess. There are lifelike statues that we had to take silly pictures with.
Our plan was to walk around Key West, so our first stop was at the nearby famous landmark of the Southern Most Point. We weren't that interested in waiting in a line for a good picture, so this selfie with other people in it had to do. Our next stop was at The Hemingway Home and Museum. We paid for a tour which was well worth it. The lady was super energetic and informative, and we loved her European accent. Not sure where she was from. The quirkiest thing about the house is that there are approximately 60 polydactyl (six-toed) cats. All of them carry that genetic trait, but only about half actually have the physical characteristic. They are descendants of Ernest Hemingway's cat, Snow White. They live on the property in their fancy cat houses in the back. There's even a cat cemetery.
The cats aside, the history of the home and Ernest Hemingway's life in Key West is pretty amazing. We loved seeing many of the things that the Hemingways used while they lived in the home. His wife took out the ceiling fans and hung chandeliers from Paris.
If Miami was hot and humid... Key West was way worse. My curly hair thrived, but the rest of me was a sweaty mess. No bra was worn while in the Keys. HaHa! We walked the streets going in and out of typical beach town shops. We had yummy tacos for lunch and cooled off with Diet Cokes and then chocolate covered key lime pie on a stick at Kermits.
Back to the hotel where we stripped off our sweaty clothes and went out to read at the beach for a little while. A huge thunderstorm rolled in, and we took cover in our room. Afterwards, we went to Moondog Cafe for dinner. Another fun place to eat. We would have tried their key lime pie, but they had run out already.
We left Key West Saturday morning after a quick breakfast at a cuban coffee/sandwich shop near our hotel. What a gorgeous day it was. The sky and water colors were magnificent.
We stopped on the Northside of the 7 Mile Bridge in Marathon for one last piece of key lime pie. We had heard that this place, Porky's, had a unique fried key lime pie. We ordered that along with coconut shrimp and Pepsis. What a fun pitstop. Then we turned back toward the bridge and pulled over at the turnout for some awesome pictures of the bridge and water. What a cool vantage point. So glad we were able to be there on such a gorgeous day.
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