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Published: June 21st 2010
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Kelsey and I had an amazing trek across Florida, from north Florida to the southern most point. The trip started with us heading to Orlando to see my mom and aunt. We got to meet up with everyone and go to our favorite Thai restaurant in Winter Park, Siam Garden www.siamgardenrestaurants.com. You must try the pad thai and crispy duck! We also tried our first Vietnamese cuisine at Loc Viet, and as anyone who knows us can expect...we loved it! We tried a traditional Vietnamese soup called "Pho", which consists of a light beef broth with hints of cinnamon, ginger and is served with fresh basil, cilantro, and bean sprouts. Kelsey and I spent a couple days in the area just hanging out. We left Mu shoo with Aunt Suzanne, and Ella with my mom, Thanks!
We headed to Palm Beach to visit with Rob and Gidget, who are them most gracious hosts one could ask for. Kelsey had not been diving in quite a while so we did a shake out dive at one of my favorite free spots, it is just south of the pier at Commercial Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, well I think it is Lauderdale by
the Sea, but you can find it. It was a fairly simple ordeal, park, and go straight off the beach. We Swam around for about an hour, and saw all different kinds of juvenile fish, I am glad Kelsey got back into diving like riding a bike. After our dive we headed back to the house, with a pit stop a Publix. For those of you who don't live in the southeast Publix is a Supermarket that has some of the best sub sandwiches known to man, and if you are going to a party where there is cake it better be a Publix cake. They are also very good at catering to the locals. At the one near Rob's house they have all the Latin food at the bakery I have learned to live without living in NFL. That Friday night, Rob had to work, Gidget, Kelsey, and I went for Indian food at a place I don't remember the name but it was very good.
Saturday morning we headed south once again. Our destination was where the mile marker was Zero, peoples' inhibitions are low, and the nightlife is something that one must experience. Kelsey had never
been to the Keys before and she has lived in Florida for 6 years. At Florida City we picked up Old Card Sound road, Kelsey kept a close eye out for Skink, but he was rather elusive on this trip. On Matecumbe we stopped to feed the Tarpon at Robbies. www.robbies.com It is really cool the Tarpon swim up to the dock and will eat bait fish right out of one's hand. We got to Key West about 3 in the afternoon, and it was hot! Our hotel was the Key Lime Inn, it was two blocks from Duval Street, on Truman avenue. We checked in and headed straight for a walking tour of the city. We headed west on Duval and made a pitstop at Fat Tuesdays for a cold beverages. We walked down to Mallory Square. Elvis was fishing at the pier and I have a picture to prove it. We made our way to Hemingway's house for the last tour of the day. I always love seeing the six toed cats, and hearing the stories about Hemingway from the guide. We met up with Kelsey's childhood neighbor and her husband. He had caught a bunch of snapper
and we had a fish fry, it was great food. That night Jenni and Blake had a friend watch their kids and we went out on Duval Street. Our fist stop was at www.801bourbon.com where Blake at first was a little uncomfortable but quickly got into the spririt of the bar after a couple drinks. After the show we headed to Garden of Eden, a clothing optional bar. Clothing optional sounds really cool in theory, however the kind of people who were exercising their option could and should have left a lot more to the imagination. At Eden we met up with a colleague of Blake's and headed to Irish Kevin's which was the first place I ever had an Irish Car Bomb. It must have been close to 2 am when we called it a night. Kelsey and I headed back to the Key Lime Inn for a late night swim in a refreshing 95 degree pool. The next morning we got some Cafe Cubano and Pastelitos for breakfast, and did the two last things that anyone who visits Key West must do, a picture at the Southern Most Point, and climb the lighthouse www.kwahs.com that is across from
Hemingway's house. As a side note if you intend to visit the lighthouse go before a night on Duval street it is a spiral staircase that goes 85 feet straight up.
Sunday June 6th was our second anniversary and we were checking out of Key West, back to Matecumbe where we had a studio apartment rented for a few nights. We checked into our place and utilized the kayaks which were provided. The water in the keys is rather shallow, and at that latitude gets rather warm, it was not refreshing at all to jump in. We went back to the house and headed to Key Largo for dinner at Num Thai which is a Thai restaurant and sushi bar. This guy Rick who I worked with in the Bahamas told me about the place and I have had to go there on every trip to the keys since then. We sat in these little booths on the side where one must take off their shoes, the food was awesome! Red curry duck, sushi, and thai tea...We were stuffed. On our way back to our place we stopped for the world's best Key Lime Pie at the Fish House.
The next morning we met up with Karl who I know from cave diving, but was down at Horizon Divers www.horizondivers.com in Key Largo working. We had lunch at Hobo's in Key largo...one of the best fish sandwiches I have had in a long time...a baked Mahi with portabella mushrooms and a buttery Key Lime sauce. (Kelsey still dreams about this sandwich). We scheduled with Horizon to dive two trips the next day. We headed back to our place and on the way stopped at The History of Diving Museum, it was pretty cool and well worth the price of admission.
The next morning we got up early to meet the boat, there were only eight or nine other people on the boat it was great. Our first two dives were on the Spiegel Grove, this was Kelsey's first wreck dive and my first time on the Spiegel. Conditions could not have been better 100 foot plus visibility and the current was strong on the surface but hardly any on the wreck. In the afternoon we went to Molasses Reef where there was very little current 100 foot plus visibility. Kelsey used Karl's underwater camera and got some really
cool pictures, she even saw her first sharks while diving. We had a great day of diving and ended it at Sharky's Bar and Grill, which is next to Hyperbarics International www.hyperbaricsinternational.com. Where Dick hit on my wife...but who can get mad at him. That was our last night in the Keys, we had to get back to real life, BOOO!
All in all, it was a great trip. We got to see a lot of good friends and family and eat lots of good food! When we got back to Crawfordville, we started packing and getting ready for our move.
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kristina mcalpin
non-member comment
Nice
Great blog man.... glad to see you are starting your travels right. Glad you have this blog.. its gonna be fun to follow you two.. be safe and have loads of fun!