Friday, April 1
My husband and his sister are truly similar when it comes to sleep schedules and I am their polar opposite. They both stay up till all hours of the night and don't get up easily in the morning. I, on the other hand, fall asleep early and wake up early. So as usual, I was up super early and ready to go before anyone else woke up. Once Erika finally got up, her and I went on a little trip to her old workplace so Jared and Gina could get ready for our trip down to Key West for the afternoon.
Last year, Erika worked for Dynasty Marine, and Jared used to work there when he was in high school as well. Dynasty is responsible for all those cool tropical fish that you see when you go to an aquarium. They go out diving in the Keys and get all kinds of different sea creatures; then they ship them to aquariums all over the world. Erika wanted to stop by and visit her old co-workers and I wanted to go see all the cool fish. Most of the guys that work there were out on the boat diving for cool new fish, but one of them that was there took us on a little tour of the tanks. I was very excited to see all kinds of pretty, colorful fish as well as sharks, sting rays and lots of other little critters too! I was really intrigued by how they ship all these fish all over the world. Seriously, can you imagine having a shark delivered to you in the mail? I can just imagine the UPS man showing up at my house with a big box with a shark in it...haha, just kidding :)
After visiting the fishies, we met back up with Jared and Gina to head down to Key West. Gina's friends, Peggy and Paul, joined us in Key West for the festivities. We made the hour long drive South from Marathon, which I didn't mind because I love driving through the Keys...all the pretty water and scenery makes the drive more entertaining. We started off our day at Schooner Wharf Bar where Erika introduced me to the "Miami Vice" drink, which is a pina colada mixed with a strawberry daiquiri...yum :)
Next, we went to lunch at A&B Lobster House at the marina where we got to see some giant tarpon and nurse sharks swimming around outside of the restaurant. After lunch, we started walking toward Duval Street to begin our tourist festivities. However, I must have a built-in "Lilly radar" because we just so happened to walk right by the Lilly Pulitzer store. It seriously has so much Lilly, I thought that I had died and gone to heaven. Shockingly enough, I didn't actually buy anything in there, but Gina bought her very first Lilly dress!
After I managed to escape Lilly without buying anything, we headed over to the Kino Factory. Key West has this famous, signature sandal company called Kino's. They are leather sandals and they are super comfy, cute and really cheap. I used to have a pair of ivory ones, but Lola chewed them up. This time I got some garnet and gold ones :)
Our plan for the rest of the day was to frolick around town and do all the cheesy, touristy things that we never do when we go to Key West. Well, that plan didn't last very long. Some how we managed to turn our tourist itinerary into a bar crawl. The only historical sites we managed to visit just so happened to serve alcohol, but those are important Key West staples as well :)
We started at Captain Tony's Saloon and then ventured across the street to my favorite bar in Key West, Sloppy Joe's. Erika and I even got matching tie-dyed t-shirts to show our love. Ernest Hemingway used to go to Sloppy Joe's all the time and even wrote some of his famous masterpieces while sitting at the bar there. Being the English nerd that I am, I absolutely love Ernest Hemingway, he is one of my favorite authors...hence my love for Sloppy Joe's :)
Next, we went to Irish Kevin's which is home to this ridiculous signature drink called the "Green Alligator". I also bought my brother a cup from there that says, "I came, I drank, I don't remember!" If you are curious about the story behind my gift, just ask him :)
One thing that I love about Key West is that it is perfectly normal to be sitting at the bar next to a crazy, drunk guy wearing aviators and a chicken hat...
You absolutely cannot complete a visit to Key West without a trip to Fat Tuesday! I just love a good alcoholic slushy. We ended our bar crawl of Key West here with a jello shot in Gina's honor. Plus, Erika and I were really excited about the coozie bottles that Jared bought us :)
We left Gina, Peggy and Paul in Key West for the evening as they continued the celebration. Jared, Erika and I headed back to Marathon to have dinner with Jared's dad. After dinner at Sparky's, we went to Key Colony Inn again for some cocktails. The night ended fairly early since we were tired from a busy day in Key West; plus, we had to get up bright and early the next morning for our fishing trip!
No comments:
Post a Comment