We started off by driving to Islamorada this morning. This the first of the keys to be completely surrounded by water, hence all the bridges.
This outfit was parked beside us when we stopped to take some pictures of one of the bridges. We thought maybe we should consider something like this, then started laughing! We think there is camping equipment in the trailer! Not likely!
On many of the long bridges, they've built pedestrian paths where you can walk, run or fish.
This is a walkway that is built along the shore. There's no real beach but people wade out where there's an open spot. It's quite a bit wilder than Miami Beach. The Keys really don't have beaches in general. Those that you see are man made.
On many of the long bridges, they've built pedestrian paths where you can walk, run or fish.
We've seen quite a few little lizards running around down here. This one, called anole, was apparently trying to attract a mate.
This is pretty much what the shoreline looked like. It's a hard packed, powdery surface. Not very beach-like.
This osprey was hunting along the shoreline and was very cooperative to pretty much hover above us while I took a few pictures.
On the way back we stopped at some sort of artist village. It looked pretty dicey from the outside but it had quite a few legitimate artists with interesting work on the inside. When we saw the giant lobster, we were worried. But, I guess if you saw a giant beaver or goose in Canada, it would be similar. By the way, this is a Florida lobster and it has no claws.
For lunch, we ended up at a diner called Mrs. Mac's which is apparently an institution down here. The food was good and there was a lot of it. I don't think it would make Diners Drive Ins and Dives however.
Marilyn's grilled scallop salad:
My pork carnita wrap:
After lunch, we headed over to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. It's actually mostly underwater and caters to divers but there were some walking trails as well as beaches. We spent some time wandering through a mangrove swamp and other trails. The mangroves were really interesting and we learned how they maintain the environment.
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On one of the trails we found many poisonwood trees. Their sap is highly alkaline and causes blistering of the skin. We didn't touch them!
Here's one of the key lime trees that was still producing.
After a bit of a rest in our room, some time at the pool and a couple of beers, we decided to go back to Sundowners for dinner. This is the second pool at our hotel. This one has a waterfall. Marilyn says it was nice.
At Sundowers, we got a patio table but it was really hot with not much breeze. I'm not complaining! I know what it's like back home! Anyway, we ordered a couple of items that turned out to be really great.
I had key lime (not from Florida!) seafood consisting of shrimp, crab, lobster and scallops in a spicy sauce over rice. It was pretty amazing and is another one I'd like to make at home.
Marilyn had shrimp scampi over pasta. It was also very good but had a lot of garlic.
An interesting thing about dinner was that the restaurant will give you a bucket of fish parts if you want to feed the tarpon that hang out around the docks. Tarpon are large, about a metre, fish that are caught for sport. When you try to feed the tarpon, flocks of terns, gulls and pelicans immediately appear. It was like a scene out of the old Hitchcock movie, The Birds. Some poor guy on the edge of the deck even got bombed by one of the terns. Not nice while dining! You can see a couple of the terns here, but there were many more!
And the pelicans were acting oddly too. They were all sitting in the water raising their wings. We thought that maybe they were hot and this allowed them to cool off. Jim, any thoughts?
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