Key West
Bucket List items… I don’t really have a lot of them. Yellowstone and some other National Parks are on it. Riding down Pacific Coast Highway on a motorcycle is one. A run in the fall up to the Northeast and gorge on Lobster and see the changing of the leaves, is another. Finally, Big Bend State Park in SW Texas in on it for a motorcycle trip. There was one other….
Key West. For some
reason, it’s called my name for years.
It’s north of Cuba approximately 90 miles. Similar Latitude as the Bahamas. Also the subject of a shit load of songs and
shows and movies, so guess it called my name.
We’ve been talking about it for a few years and finally made it
happen. Few years ago, we were going to do
a family trip, Lossner’s and England’s, but that fell through. Then about 6 or 8 months ago, we were
scheming with the Kennedy’s to do it, but that fell through. We locked into a May trip for our Anniversary
and Pablo and Beth were going to join us, but that fell through. We’d decided to drive due to bringing Peanut,
and he was all in. Well, sounds good
anyways. So, the plan was set into
motion. We’d head to MS for a few days,
drive to Key West, and back in time for a Jeep event. Now, it was time to lock in the plans.
Well, here’s where things got interesting. Brining the ‘Nut, we needed Pet Friendly. I was surprised this was a little more
difficult than I’d expected. I’d been
looking at Airbnb homes for 4 and a pet, and they were far and few
between. Then as part of my selection
process I wanted to be a close to the ‘mix’ as I could get and that meant be
near Duvall Street. The better the
location, the higher the cost. Knowing
this was a bucket list and probably a ‘one and done’ trip, I raised the budget
for the trip. When the smoke would
clear, we had a 2-bedroom home with a pool, one block off Duvall. I was thinking .. “Perfect!”. Well, sort of. I was a notch concerned about the parking
situation due to reviews and I was bringing the Wagoneer which is on the large
side. Turns out, no issues. Perfect.
I’d thought we might even grab a moped or golf cart but was worried
about the parking. Should have gotten
one. So, the route is chose, the home
is chose, the dates are chose. It’s game
time.
Middle of May we head to MS to our second home there for a few
days. It’s an 8-hour trip which has
become ‘nothing’ to us for the drive. We’ve
got it down to an art form, detours around Baton Rouge, where to kick up the
speed, where not to. If it wasn’t for my
bladder, we could probably do it in less than 7.5 hrs.… but… that’s not going
to happen! So, we roll into MS, empty ½ the luggage into
the home, leave a butt load in there for the second half of the trip, and we’re
enjoying a few days with family. Then on
the 21st, we are out the door and rolling by 0800 hrs. I wanted to leave REALLY early, but …. didn’t
get the sleep I’d hoped for. So, we’re rolling
down I-10, soon through Alabama and into Florida. We’ve
done the mandatory stop at Buc-eees (they are really expanding outside TX), and
a few hours later finally headed south on I-75.
Now, the brunt of the trip. We opt for the Tollway to make time and they
honor our TX Toll pass which helps the costs a lil. Heading this way will save us almost an
hour. This trip is upwards of 14 hrs.
and I’ll shave as much as I can off. On
a positive note, the tollway has gas stations/food in the center every 45 miles
or so , so It simplifies things a little.
As dusk is approaching, we’re blowing past Miami and soon, hit
Homestead. There was an AFB here, but it
was annihilated by a hurricane ages ago and never rebuilt. Now, it’s just a sleepy lil’ town on the
Southern Edge of the FL mainland. There
is a NASCAR track we almost attended a few years back, but… this is the first
time I’ve been here. We’re soon rolling
into the Keys, with Key Largo the first up.
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| Homestead ... Key Largo ahead |
I’ve got to admit, this isn’t what I was expecting. The sun is going down but I can still see a
lot of what’s around me. And to be
honest, I’m not sure what I was expecting.
But, after talking to folks over the years, I visualized a highway/bridge
that stretches for 120 miles or so, with drop offs to a few lil Keys along the way. Folks led me to believe it was just the long
highway all the way to Key West. Or
maybe, it’s what I wanted to believe? I don’t know .. but… that’s not what it is. Basically, you’ve got a ‘regular’ road, that
is raised well above the water between Keys, for about 125 miles. Each key is basically a sperate
Island/town/city. Some are rudimentary, others
like Key Largo are full blown communities with a lot of police enforcement, restaurants,
harbors, bars, grocery stores……. You know…
normal shit. And LOTS of
boats. All sizes and everywhere. Reeks of $$$ for them with 2, 3, 4 motors on
the back. And a lot of older areas,
older trailers, beat up boats, motors and sails. Like most places in the word around the water,
a lil’ of everything. But what caught me
off guard is several of the Keys are full blown destinations in themselves. I had envisioned lil’ communities with a
shitload of bar/grills, all the way to Key West. Now, you can find all that enroute, probably
hundreds of them … but again, wasn’t what I’d expected. Well, we’re traveling at night and there is
an RV bus pulling a jeep, and … doing the speed limit .. sometimes less….. in front of us for the next
50 miles or so. Let’s just say … took us
awhile to make the trek. The longest
bridge we’d go over was 7 miles. Most
were less than 1 or 2. Huh ….. so much for my visual of a 120 mile long highway in the sky?
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| Into the Keys |
We finally pull in between 9 and 10 pm, and …. Searching for the house. Have to double back around trying to locate
house numbers and realize there are a group of homes down a gravel driveway in between
others, tucked in there …. Once we pull
up, my spot is on the end and … large enough.
As it’d turn out, there was never a car next to me, and rarely any in
the other spots. So much for the ‘bad
reviews’ on the parking situation. Pull
up the email, get the gate’s lock box code, then the door lock code and .. we’re
in. .. hmmmmm.. interesting. I’d read mixed reviews and now, I see
why. Well, a quick unload of the
vehicle, pop some wine/champagne open, and we’re decompressing. Hell, I think we stayed up until 3am that
night/morning, before crawling into bed.
We’re finally here.
Come sun up, I’m checking out the home. Like I said, interesting. It’s older and not ‘pristine’. This is a classic Florida home that has seen
some weather over the years, but functional.
The second bedroom is actually a small guest house that has it’s own bathroom. Had someone been with us, would have worked out
perfect. Smaller kitchen, living room
is nothing to brag about, sliding doors onto the back deck area are a pain to open,
but doable. We’ve got a pool back there
that is adequate (12x20?), deep enough (5’) and … temp is perfect. We’ve got some protection on the back porch
from the rain which will come in handy a few times, so overall …. This is adequate. Problem is , I didn’t pay for adequate. I dropped a lot of cash on this place for the
2 large beds, pool and proximity to Duvall Street. But, that’s all part of the lessons learned
here (more on that later). Last thing I’ll
mention on the home (maybe) is … termites.
Not infestation but….. they are
everywhere. In FL (happens in MS as
well). Once or twice a year, swarms of them come in and are attracted to street
lights, etc. Outside the front door,
there were literally piles of them (dead) on the porch area. We didn’t see them out back but when you
crashed for the night, you’d see a half dozen or so on the bed spread. Now, they are not like bed bugs, but more
like gnats. Brush them off, problem solved...
but .. tell that to my wife. Wake up in
the morning and a couple more. Lets just
say .. she wasn’t happy. Me… never
really bothered me, but … for what I paid for the home…. Was unacceptable.
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| Anniversary Dinner : Antonias |
Well, we’re here for five nights/days and it’s game
time. Now, here’s where things get interesting
( in a good way ) for me. Since it’s
just the two of us, we have no schedule. No hurrying. No places that we must go to …… nothing. To be honest, was a lil weird since we
normally travel with others outside the country and locations like this. Just something we normally do. I think over the last 20 years traveling to
Mexico, we’ve only done one trip by ourselves; we’re always with family and/or friends. But we’re alone and ….. digging it. We’ve got a couple of things on our
agenda. I saw a cool VFW down by the water
on the way in the previous night. She
want’s to visit’s Hemingway’s house (I didn ‘t care)… and … we’d sort of
discussed a sunset boat cruise of some sort.
That’s it. I want to get a feel for Key West, but what does that really
mean? I didn’t know… but.. we’re
here! As it’ll turn out, it was close to
a perfect trip.
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| Awesome VFW |
Well, I’ve always thrown folks off because well… I like to ‘eat’
and …. Sip a few. But, not as much as most think. So, every day we find
a place for lunch and dinner. Every day
we head to Duvall Street which is the touristy heart of Key West and there is
more than I could handle over a few weeks, so … we’re simply choosing based off
location, vibe, recommendations. Hell,
the first day I head out on my own for lunch to a seafood place around the
corner and have a HUGE Lobster roll for lunch and a cold one. She’s not a seafood person so I had a kitchen
pass. Got my fix in, day one. At night, we’d look for something we both
agreed on. Every day we’d luck out and come across a
great place. Pretty much everywhere we
went had good service. Great menus and
food. In fact, we never found a subpar
place… not once. A couple we’d return to
for a second meal. The real kicker is, except for the VFW and a
grocery store run to Publix, everywhere we went was within walking distance, never
more than 7 blocks away.
Now, here’s a lesson learned. We didnt’ rent a golf cart of moped. But we should have. We didn’t need either to get around but it
would have changed things up. Still, a
few facts. Parking for the golf carts
sucks just like it does for cars. Everywhere
you go, you pay to park most of the time.
Golf carts pay the same as a car.
So, if you have a small car, or better yet a convertible or Jeep (with
the top off), you might as well drive your car. One could argue, there is zero value in a golf cart.
Well, sort of . If you have a
large group, there are a lot of 6 passenger carts available. Reason I didn’t was because they were about $600
for the five days we were there? I’m not
cheap …. But .. I am frugal and I thought that was too much. In retrospect I’d have done it .. why? Because then you can run up and down Duvall
getting a look at everything …… to get
a feel for the place. Then, run up and
down all the side streets where there are dozen (hundreds?) of hidden gems of
bars, restaurants, history .. you name it.
You just get a different perspective than if you’re in a car. So, my
recommendation .. spend the money, get a
cart. What about mopeds you ask? Well, they are technically an even better solution. There were parking spots everywhere that didn’t
require you to pay for parking……. They are truly the way to go. Now, why didn’t we? Well, alcohol was in the mix and I’m a big
guy …. So they don’t really fit us well, she didn’t want to rent her own (she is
licensed to ride a motorcycle) …. So … for us didn’t make sense. But I see the upside to renting them. They were avail everywhere, but they didn’t overwhelm
the place like I’d expected. More Carts
than anything. Still, we walked .. no issues.
and .. burned calories. I did bitch
about my back a lil .. but... that’s what I do?
My nephew Pablo, is a Hemingway fanatic. My wife is a big fan as well. But I've got to be honest, until last week.... I was like.... 'whatever' . However, after touring the home on the island, reading a lot of the history, imagining what It must have like in the 30s..40s.. 50s... on Key West ... living his life... RESPECT. I'm now looking forward to reading some of his work. Maybe his autobiography. She had to drag me to the tour of his home. In retrospect, was one of the highlights of the trip!
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| Hemingway's House |
Looking back on it, one of the highlights for both of us was …. The sunset cruise. For about $100 each, we boarded a Schooner with a crew of 3, less than 20 folks total, “full bar” and appetizers (they were good!). We headed out for an hour, and as the sun was going down, headed back. Beautiful sunset, great crew and 2 hours later we pulled up before it was dark. Seemed like much longer but .. perfect. If ever back, we’ll do one EVERY 2 or 3 days … maybe the same boat, maybe mix it up (dozens of choices between catamarans, schooners, yachts). It truly was one of the highlights. Then when you are back on land, choices of nice ocean front joints for snacks, drinks, or late dinners. We did this on the last night. As I said, we’ll change that up and do them often next time…. If there is one.
One cool lil fact for us. Few years back we were in Vegas and walked into a fine art studio with works by Peter Lik. I was impressed but had some sticker shock. And reasoned I could take the pics and mount them .. why pay a photographer? Then we watched a documentary a couple of years ago about Peter Lik; impressive. Well, down on Duvall we walk by one of his places, walk in, look to the right .. and .. there it is. We both got sucked in. This piece of work was calling our name. An hour or so later, we’ve signed on the dotted line, Trevor (our sales guy) asks us if we’d like a drink …. (duh) … and we’re soon sipping white wine and Prosecco. Then the BS session begins and…. We must have spent another hour on that leather sofa talking about Key West in general. We’d leave with some lunch and dinner spot location recommendations. They both turned out to be winners. A few days later we’d walk back in there and sign for another awesome piece of work. I never saw that coming… I mean…. I can take pictures… right?
We both historically look out for our health/weight as much as possible but … it’s a bitch on Vaca’s (isn’t it for everyone?). So, we’re focused on smaller meals, and less of them… but … still, Lunch and Dinner. I think I drove a few nutz posting on social media a lot of food pics. But when the smoke would clear, our weight was the same as when we’d showed up. So in the big picture, a small success. Helped that we didn’t buy a lot for the house (snacks) and we had a few mimosas in the morning…. And maybe a lil the pool in the evenings, but in the big picture, nothing crazy. And all that walking…… she pushed me hard to walk to everything no matter how many times I mumbled “but.. Uber?” So, in retrospect .. she was correct. No Ubers .. no Carts… no Mopeds. No regrets (though I’ll do a Cart next time!).
Lessons Learned:
1.
Accommodations:
location isn’t as important as I’d
assumed. You can do a hotel over in the
mix and grab a Cart for the week and drive over, no issues. Many of the hotels have a bus of sorts that
will take you to and from Duval Street area.
One could even get an Airbnb a few miles away and Uber in /out if they
wanted and that would be very cost effective. Still, there’s nothing like being
in the mix and there are a lot of older hotels and Bed and Breakfasts down in
the older section where we were. Had it
not been for bringing our dog we could have had a lot more choices and lower
costs, with some cool hotels. Hell, next
door was “The Gardens” and looked really nice (https://www.gardenshotel.com/) . If we return, this will be something I look
into.
2.
Gay crap.
Okay .. I never talked about this .. but… I wasn’t looking forward to
all the gay crap we hear about down there.
But, was not an issue. Sure there
are a couple of bars that lean that direction.
Few too many rainbow flags flying for my taste. But, we never saw any of it except for on intersection. No BS, no issues. I’m sure there are Gay
Pride weeks, etc. where shit goes crazy .. but hey … plan accordingly. Bottom line, I was pleasantly surprised the
area was ‘normal’ for the most part
3.
Holidays….
If you fly in, probably not an issue.
But we were leaving on Memorial Day Weekend and it looked like utter CHAOS
with traffic headed South into the Keys.
Screw that crap …. I wouldn’t
never come in during a holiday after seeing that mess. Plan accordingly!
4.
Costs. I
didn’t think it was out of line. Food
and drinks were what I’d expected. I
didn’t see any price gouging going on. Fuel
prices are a notch higher but that’s to be expected. Cart and Moped rentals seemed a notch high …
but… I didn’t search for cheaper prices; I’m sure some deals out there are to
be had.
5.
Beaches. Hate
to admit this .. but… we didn’t do any beach time. We hung at our pool. On the water in the Schooner. I’m sure there must be a beach or two there
worth visiting. but…. I’ve got no
opinion on that one.
6.
Water was beautiful, but .. overall wasn’t as ‘blue’
as I’d expected. You know all the
different shades of blues you get with reefs and sand in the mix. But, I loved it. There are hundreds… thousands .. of boats
around the island. That’s where you want
to be, to really experience the water? Someone
is waiting to taking you out….. just open the wallet.
I’ll give this place two thumbs up. I thought this was a ‘one and done’ but I
believe we’ll be back. We’ll fly in if possible (no ‘Nut with us). If more than one couple, look into an
Airbnb. If just the two of us … or
another couple that wants some privacy .. plenty of hotel options. Even the ones (big name chains) on the North
end that I thought were too far away before going there, are good options. Uber or a ‘cart .. problem solved.
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| Pulling in to the dock |
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| Sunset Cruise |
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| Final night |
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| Headed out on the Schooner |
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| Sailing |
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| Dante's |
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| Line for the pic? We turned around |
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