September is always a big month around here. Dan and I have an anniversary on the 9th, Dan's birthday is on the 12th and mine is on the 13th (albeit three years after his). Since this year was our 25th wedding anniversary we decided to celebrate by spending some time in Key West, Florida.
I still can't believe we've been married TWENTY-FIVE years! It feels like yesterday and forever all wrapped up in one.
We headed to Key West bright and early on Wednesday, September 11th. Our flight to Atlanta from Greensboro left at 6:00am so we were out the door by 4:15am. Luckily the Greensboro airport is small and the security line was short. We had less than an hour once we touched down in Atlanta before we took off for Key West but luckily Dan is a seasoned traveler and goes through Atlanta regularly. He got us to our gate just as it was boarding. We were in Key West before lunch!
We took a taxi to the Coco Plum Inn, our bed and breakfast for the long weekend, and thankfully the room was ready early. We dropped off our bags and started exploring. The island is extremely walkable, especially if you stay in the old town area so we didn't even bother with renting a car. Ubers are plentiful and quick if you need one. And many people rent golf carts. That seems to be the main mode of transportation for seasoned guests on the island.
We immediately started exploring. Our bed and breakfast is right near the iconic sign Mile Zero sign so our first island selfie was this:
Walking around the town, the first thing you will notice is all the chickens and roosters. Apparently in the 1860s because of a ware in Cuba, many Cubans migrated to Key West and brought the sport of cockfighting with them. The sport thrived in Key West until 1986 when it was banned. Everyone who had roosters set them free. Then Hurricane George came through in 1998 and spread them all throughout the island. And now chickens and roosters are everywhere. It is actually kind of cool until they start crowing at 3:00am. Yes, I was awoken every morning at 3:00am by roosters. That was definitely not my favorite part of vacation. This however, was not an issue for half-deaf, deep-sleeper Dan who wasn't bothered by it at all.
We had lunch at Two Friends and of course, there were chickens, cold beer, and delicious burgers..
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| Literally just walking around our table. |
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| I am on the Untapped app where you rate your beers, so I took lots of pictures of the beer that I had on this trip for the app. I promise, I will not show them all to you in this post. :) |
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| I was ravenous by this point and devoured every bite of this delicious blue cheese, friend onion covered burger! |
After lunch we explored a bit more and went back to the room to cool off. Y'all, I'm from North Carolina and I know heat but it was HOT in Florida. We checked the temps in the Keys verses the temps at home and it was literally only a couple of degrees warmer. It was extremely humid so that made the "feels like" temp so much higher. And also, when it's 87 degrees at home, we aren't walking around outside in the sun for hours at a time so I'm sure that had something to do with it too. :)
We headed to the Celtic Conch Pub for a beer and to listen to some music when Dan got a text from the tour guide who was scheduled to give us a tour of the island the next morning. He was worried that there were storms blowing through the next day right during our tour and wondered if we could do the tour right then. We said, "sure thing" and he met us at the bar and we did the tour from there.
He was a good guide. He was very personable and kept wanting to know what we wanted to know about and what we were interested in so he could show us. I said we wanted to know some insider info on where we should go and that we met at a Jimmy Buffet concert thirty years earlier so he took that and ran. He showed us lots of cool Jimmy Buffet spots and told us some stories. Apparently he had been on security detail for Jimmy at his last concert in Key West before he died.
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| Us in front of Jimmy Buffet's Ice House Studio. He converted a former shrimp ice house into a recording studio in 1986 and recorded two albums here. |
We ended the tour at Mallory Square because it was around time for the sunset. Mallory Square is where everyone goes to see the sunset. There are street performers walking around and it's really supposed to be quite the show. But our tour guide told us the best place to go and we headed there instead. (Also, since it's the off season, there weren't many street performers there and it was hot as Hades and I was tired from our long day. I had been up since two in the morning and I just wanted to sit down at this point.)
So we followed our guide's directions and headed to The Sunset Tiki Bar at the Galleon Resort. It was perfect. It was shaded, there were plenty of places to sit and we enjoyed some delicious drinks. And the sunset!
And that was the end of our first day in Key West.
On Friday morning, we were up early, but not too early. Although, the roosters did get me up, I managed to go back to sleep. For a couple of weeks before our trip I had been having shoulder pain which I determined after googling and lots of acetaminophen was due to our old mattress. I was finally able to get some decent sleep on this trip and as soon as possible when we got home, got a new mattress and my shoulder has been fine ever since. I digress....
We headed down to breakfast. It was different every day with a menu posted so we knew what to expect each morning. The breakfast area was outside and our nice cook came out every morning told us our options and then got to work. We were forced to make small talk with the other people staying there but that wasn't horrible. Everyone was nice and it got us outside of our comfort zone a little.
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| Ham and cheese empanadas and fried potatoes. Yum! |
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| My breakfast date. |
After breakfast we headed to the Hemmingway Home and Museum. Our tour guide was fantastic! And it started raining while we were in the house which was perfect! We did the tour and then were able to go back through the rooms on our own. This was great because we wanted to see them in more detail and we wanted to stay out of the rain. After the rain stopped we headed outside and found one of the cat handlers and she showed us the latest batch of kittens.
We spent a lot of time with the cats. There are currently 61 cats on the property. Peter had been in Key West earlier this summer and sent us a picture of Elizabeth Taylor. We asked the cat handler where we could find her and she told us and we found her! How cool is that? Apparently the cats have free reign of the house and the grounds but they all have their spots where they prefer to hang out.
In speaking to our tour guide and the cat handler, we discovered that most of the employees of the Hemmingway Home recognize every single cat and know their name. When ever there's a new batch of kittens, multiple names are chosen and the employees get to vote on the names for the cats. And some names have been recycled from previous years but they have to wait a certain amount of time before they can use them again.
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| Elizabeth Taylor! |
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| This cat is just hanging out in Hemmingway's study where he wrote. |
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| A penny that Hemmingway threw at his wife when he thought she used his money to build a pool while he was away on an extended trip having an affair. She put the penny into the sidewalk around the pool. And jokes on him - her rich uncle who gifted them their house as a wedding gift, also paid for the pool. |
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| Trying to get a picture of this pretty kitty's extra toes. |
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| This cat reminded us of Kitten our cat at home. |
As you can see, we thoroughly enjoyed our time with the cats!
After our tour,we walked around some more and found ourselves at the Southernmost Point Buoy! But fun fact, they moved the buoy over about a block as they are doing major renovations on the plaza where it normally sits.
We had lunch at Amigos Tortilla Bar. It was delicious! Another fun fact, the first time I had elote was on our honeymoon in Cancun. So when I saw it on the menu, I knew I had to get it. It was delicious!
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| I love a good bowl and this one did not disappoint. And look at the elote!!!! |
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We then headed to Captain Tony's Saloon.
Captain Tony's Saloon was the original location of Sloppy Joe's Bar which is another iconic Key West bar. It was here that Hemmingway came every afternoon to drink after he spent hours working on his novels. Yet another fun fact: I first came to Key West to attend the destination wedding of my best friend in the late 90's. I think it was 1998. As soon as Dan and I sat foot in Capt. Tony's I immediately felt like I had been there before. So, I am assuming I stopped there for drinks at some point during myr time there circa 1998.
Later that evening we headed to dinner at Mangoes. We weren't super hungry so we split some delicious nachos. There was also live music happening so I was in hog heaven. There was a lot of live music in Key West.
It started to pour down rain while we were eating on the covered patio and the wind really kicked up. causing rain to blow into the patio area. We had to go to a table inside and the guys singing had to stop because their equipment was getting wet. We finished our nachos and let the rain subside.
We decided that we still wanted to head to our sunset spot and see if the clouds would make for a good sunset. So we took off in a sprint. There was still a little bit of drizzle falling on us but I could tell by the colors of the sky that the sunset was going to be amazing. And it was!
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| Wet hair, wet shirt, don't care. The sunset was amazing! |
The most beautiful sunset came after a downpour of rain. The clouds made for a glorious sky. There's an analogy in there for life I do believe.
The next morning we headed to Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. This fort predates the civil war and currently houses the largest cache of Civil War armament in the country.
Full disclosure here...we started the tour with a tour guide and a large group. But this tour guide went on and on and on and it was so hot and while he was knowledgeable, he could have done the tour in 45 minutes or less but said it was going to be about two hours or so. We stuck with him for about 30 minutes and then just toured the rest on our own. People were dropping out quickly and Dan and I decided that if we didn't leave soon it was just going to be us and the tour guide and we didn't want to be stuck there for any longer.
The fort is home to one of the best beaches in Key West so we headed there so Dan could take a quick dip in the water.
It's interesting to me that Key West has so few beaches. If you want to swim in Key West and are staying in Old Town, you will need to plan your transportation to the beach. One of the couples we met at breakfast who stay in Key West regularly rent a golf cart so they can easily get to the beaches. They have there favorite beaches and none of them are within walking distance if you are taking chairs, coolers, etc. We did walk to the fort but it took us about 30 minutes. So if you are planning a trip to Key West and you want to spend your days on the beach, you will need to factor that in to your planning and budget.
We then headed to lunch at Caroline's Cafe. It was delicious. I got the Island Style Roast Pork Bowl. It had pork, black beans, rice and plantains. So good!!!
After lunch we toured around the town some more and decided we had to have a slice of Key Lime Pie while we were in Key West. We got a slice from the Old Town Bakery and took it back to eat by the pool at our hotel. It was delicious!
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After the pie we headed to the Green Parrot which is a dive bar right next to our hotel. We've been walking past it all weekend and decided it was time to go in an have a beer.The building the bar is in opened as a grocery store in 1890. It became a bar, "The Brown Derby" at the beginning of WWII. Through the years it changed hands and eventually names.
After our beers we headed back to our room to freshen up for our sunset cruise. There are a ton of cruise options but we went with a company that did the cruise on a schooner and didn't allow large parties or music. We didn't want to be stuck with a bunch of drunk bachelorettes. :) It was the perfect choice for us. There were 20 people on board. We were served drinks and apps and cruised around until the sunset. We were sitting near the captain and Dan asked him a ton of questions about the ship and sailing. (Dan has sailing experience from his childhood days on the Cape.) So they nerded out together talking about sailing. And while we didn't get to go to our special sun set spot, we sailed right past it. :) It was such a lovely evening to be out on the water.
After the cruise, we had a light dinner at The Waterfront Brewery.
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| Still taking pictures of the beautiful sky. |
I had the conch stew. It was tasty!
The next day was Sunday so we headed to mass at The Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea. They are doing major renovations on the interior of the church so mass was held outside in their courtyard.
And then we headed back to the docks to catch another boat. We were spending the afternoon on a sandbar. We spent about an hour sailing out to a sandbar near some mangroves. We enjoyed adult beverages and they fed us lunch. We played in the water at the sandbar, kayaked to the mangroves,saw some dolphins and enjoyed ourselves!
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The water was so clear. I could have stayed at the sandbar all day!
After we got off the boat, we changed clothes and then headed to Sloppy Joe's. You can't go to Key West without visiting Sloppy Joe's!
And of course they had live music. Many of the bars have live music all day and all night every day and every night! After a quick bite, a drink, and some music at Sloppy Joe's we headed to our sunset spot for one last sunset.
We headed back to the hotel and packed up because we had a flight out of Key West the next morning. On Monday morning, we had our final breakfast and checked out of the hotel before calling an Uber. Next thing you know, we were at home and just like that our 25th Anniversary Celebration in Key West was over.
It was hot as blazes the entire time and it rained one day but other than that, everything was absolutely perfect. Our hotel was adorable, the food was great, the live music was awesome and everywhere. We relaxed, we spent time in the water, we saw some historical sights, and of course, the sunsets were spectacular!
The best part of it though was spending time with Dan. I couldn't imagine doing life with anyone other than him and there's definitely no one I'd rather be in Key West with other than him. (Although having the kids there would have been really nice!) But don't worry - we spammed the family group chat with a million photos so I'm sure they felt like they were there!
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