It's our anniversary month,
and finally getting back to our beloved Key West was our premier event.
Wednesday, May 1 - We celebrated our friend, Wendy's birthday tonight along with her husband and our pal, Charly, with a visit back to
Sushi 88 over on Belcourt Avenue in Nashville. We had been here once before back in March after a show at the The Belcourt Theaters. This time we opted for the all-you-can-eat option and did just that to our foundered content. We even Ubered over to the restaurant so we could imbibe and found out they unfortunately were between liquor licenses at the time. Dohh!! Well, at least there were bourbon slushies beforehand, and the food were great!
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| Sunday, May 5 - Our favorite local and authentic Mexican place has moved again. Back to where they originally were as a food truck, Alberto's Taqueria is now inside the gas station where they once were set up in the parking lot just up the road from our house. We celebrated Cinqo de Mayo with a take-out order from them that we enjoyed out on the back patio in beautiful weather this evening. |
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| Tuesday, May 7 - We went tonight to see the new comedy movie, Long Shot, at our local Roxy Theaters (recliners!) with our friends, Brenda and Casey. It was freaking hilarious, and we all enjoyed its raunchy humor and big heart greatly. |
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| Saturday, May 11 - We were heading to Chattanooga today to do some work at Ashlee's mom's house, but got a little side-tracked when we learned about the Meow Luau Kitten Shower being hosted by the Chattanooga Humane Society at the Chattanooga Whiskey Event Hall. We always want to support the place where we got our beloved Mabel, Byron and Doris, so we decided to stop by and have a tropical drink, give a donation and pet a kitten or two. We were joined by our friends, Tim and Lavonda, plus Ashlee's sister, Paige, and our niece, Ella. We had a great time and the Chattanooga Whiskey facility is very nice. |
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| Then this happened...Ella fell in love with this little orange and white tabby and before you knew it, Paige (who is allergic to cats) got the blessing from her hubby, Andy, and suddenly they now have a new member of the family, Penelope Ambrosia, or just, Penny, for short. Above is Ashlee, the main instigator in the adoption, with Ella and Penny. She is a sweet little cutie, that's for sure! Welcome to the fold and congrats to the Harlins on their new addition! |
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| Friday, May 17 - The forecast for Key West looked great for our long weekend there to celebrate our anniversary. We flew down after work tonight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Southwest Airlines and stayed near the airport. We were delayed which is rare with Southwest due to some weather in other parts of the country, but finally got there after midnight. |
Saturday, May 18 - We got up early and headed back to the airport to grab our rental car, a nice Chevy Camaro convertible, and headed south.
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| Our first stop (other than Wal-greens to get some sunblock) was in Islamorada at the Lorelei Restaurant and Cabana Bar where Ashlee had one of their "world famous key lime coladas" which was delicious. We ordered some apps for lunch including some coconut shrimp and tasty cracked conch. Our waterside table offered some excellent views. It certainly was good to be back in The Keys finally. |
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| Our next stop was just down the road at the historically famous Tiki Bar at Holiday Isle, the supposed home of the creation of the rum runner drink. Opening back in 1969, this place got the shit kicked out of by Hurricane Irma back in 2017 and took almost a year to reopen. We never got to see it before which is a shame with all our visits down this way, but it's a great place to visit now. We had a couple more libations before heading on south. |
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| A bonus treat during our stop at the Tiki Bar was seeing this two beautiful manatees hanging out at the docks nearby. This is my first time seeing these gentle giants up close, although Ashlee has actually snorkeled with them in the past (without me, sadly). We've got to go do that together sometime for sure! |
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| We arrived in the Old Town part of Key West just in time to check in to our hotel for our three-night stay, the beautiful Hotel Marquesa. Thanks to Ashlee for splurging on this great accommodation just down the street from our usual digs, The Eden House. |
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| We were given a complimentary upgrade to a beautiful suite poolside (Room 61) in their newest addition, the Marquesa 4-1-4 complex. Since we had a fridge and microwave, we headed over to a nearby Publix and stocked up on snacks and libations for our stay. We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around the pool and relaxing in our air-conditioned room...the humidity was already heavy here...welcome to early summer in Key West! |
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| We strolled down to Mallory Square to catch the sunset and take in some of the street performers there. Kudos to Ashlee for this great shot of a very talented juggler/acrobat whose show we really enjoyed. |
Sunday, May 19 - Happy 18th Anniversary to us!
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| After a glorious sleep-in to counter our late-night/early-rising yesterday, we started our anniversary with a return to the incredible Hemingway House which we haven't visited since one of our first pre-blog visits to Key West. |
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| If we are being completely honest, we also visited the Hemingway House again because we were missing our cats and we knew we could get a six-toed fix here. We were not disappointed as the famous cats were out and about everywhere on the property mostly doing what they do best, snoozing. |
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After the Hemingway House re-visit, we strolled around more of colorful Key West taking in all the unique and interesting sites. We stopped in the historic (1890) bar, The Green Parrot, for a few libations in the shade and listened to some great live music. Lunch was our next priority so we sought out Garbo's Grill for some outstanding burritos served from a tiny air-stream trailer. We had more libations from Hank's Hair of the Dog Pub which is adjacent to Garbo's.
After another late afternoon dip in the pool back at the hotel, we walked over to one of our favorite places in Key West, Blue Heaven Restaurant, for a light anniversary dinner in their nice, but steamy tonight, outdoor courtyard. |
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Monday, May 20 - Time to get ON and IN the water!
We had another lazy morning and then set out for the harbor to catch a 1 PM "Dip and Sip" snorkeling tour with Sunset Watersports. After a beer at Waterfront Brewing next door, we boarded a large catamaran with only about 20 other people on it and headed southwest for about 7 miles to the coral reefs around Sand Key Lighthouse. The weather was perfect. We have snorkeled off Key West many times and it's can be hit-or-miss in terms of water clarity and things to see, but this trip was absolutely our best snorkeling here ever. We saw tons of colorful fish in varying sizes and the reefs were incredibly beautiful. After our DIP we were able to SIP on some free libations plus a $10 bucket of booze that was very generous in its alcoholic content. |
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| An artistic look back at Sand Key Lighthouse from our catamaran. |
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| After our snorkeling trip, we stopped in another Key West historic staple, Pepe's Cafe, which opened back in 1909, for a late lunch and, of course, some of their key lime pie which was...of course...amazing. |
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| We headed back to the beautiful Marquesa 4-1-4 to shower and rest up for another little adventure come sundown. |
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| In all our visits to The Keys over the years, we have never actually seen an endangered Key Deer except in pictures, so we decided to head about an hour north to Big Pine Key just before sunset to see if we could spy one or two. Well, we got that and more! The little beauties were practically everywhere once you got off busy Hwy. 1 and into the National Key Deer Refuge, enjoying the late afternoon. Ashlee got this great pic above shooting across me as I drove VERY SLOWLY. |
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| A great little added bonus as we drove from No Name Key back to Big Pine Key was seeing this young couple haul up a pretty good-sized dogfish shark while fishing from the bridge over Bogie Channel between the two islands. I got out to help them get a picture and Ashlee took yet another good shot from the passenger's seat. |
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| Check another historic watering hole off the list for us. Back on Big Pine Key we stopped at the quaint No Name Pub for a libation. The food looked and smelled so good, however, we ordered pizza as well. The "small" pies were so filling we couldn't finish them but it made for a great breakfast the next morning! |
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| It was well after dark by the time we got back to Key West, but we just had to visit an old friend before leaving tomorrow. The Southernmost Point Marker which we have been to many times took a real beating during Hurricane Irma back in 2017, but a fresh coat of paint had it looking as good as ever tonight! |
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| Tuesday, May 21 - We had another lazy morning with the sad fact that our trip was drawing to a close looming in our heads. We packed up and prepped for the drive back to FLL to catch our evening flight, but we did have time for a few fun stops along the way. We drove down to the end of the appropriately named Blimp Road on Cudjoe Key to get a closer look at "Fat Albert" - a government-owned blimp that is used by US Customs and Border Protection. We saw it up in the air last night during our Key Deer hunt, but it was tethered to the ground this morning. Very secret, very hush-hush. |
Our final main stop was another one that was a long-time coming on our Florida Keys To-do List. We signed up for the 1 PM tour of The Turtle Hospital in Marathon. This hour-long behind-the-scenes tour is terrific, albeit a little sad, as you see some of the things these beautiful creatures have had to endure...mostly due to mankind. But it is a hopeful place also, as their goal is always to rescue, rehab and release when possible. We got to meet Rebel (photo above) a huge 230-pound loggerhead sea turtle who is a permanent resident with irreparable injuries due to a boat strike.
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Bender is a very rare (for this area) 80-pound Kemp's Ridley sea turtle. She is also a permanent resident due to boat strike and fishing line injuries.
It was a great ending to a very nature-heavy trip with great planned and unplanned encounters with manatees, tons of fish while snorkeling, Key Deer, a large dogfish shark, and now sea turtles.
After a quick stop at the Florida Keys Brewing Company for a beer, we headed back into the mayhem of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale and flew home without incident. Another great Conch Republic trip complete.
See ya again ASAP! |
