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Bahia Honda State Park, April 29 Our first stop in the Keys as we drove south from Miami to Key West. We had finally escaped the torrential rains further north, so stopped at Bahia Honda to check out what has been touted one of Florida's best beaches. The beaches were ok, but my judgement could be clouded by the non-sunny weather and all the seaweed that had washed ashore, probably from the recent storm. The best beach at Bahia Honda was Sandspur. We had a nice swim, but the coolest part about Bahia Honda is the old railway bridge you can walk part of. I suppose we missed out on what's supposed to be some pretty decent snorkeling. Again, blame it on the weather. There's also a nice little butterfly garden, but there were no butterflies the day we were there.
Big Pine Key, April 29 We went to Big Pine Key to see the minature key deer. So cute! We also went to the No Name Pub near No Name Key. Yes, it is hard to find. We were about to give up when we finally came across it, despite following some pretty detailed directions.
I tried my first taste of conch fritters at No Name Pub, and they were delicious. We also had more Yeungling beer, which is apparently America's oldest brewery, served in a No Name Pub souvenir glass. Sweet!
7 Mile Bridge, May 1 We started to walk this, until it started to rain really hard so we quickly turned around.
Sombrero Beach, May 1 Sombrero Beach in Marathon gets my vote for best beach in the Keys. When we arrived, it was still raining lightly so we pretty much had this beautiful sandy beach to ourselves. The sun soon came out, and it was lovely.
Islamorada, May 1
May 1 we stayed at the Ragged Edge Resort in Islamorada (http://www.ragged-edge.com/). I would highly recommend this place, it's too bad we could only stay one night. The woman recommended a great restaurant called Island Grill, and gave us a 10%!o(MISSING)ff coupon for it. We had hogfish, crab cakes, and a piece of reeses peanut butter chocolate pie with white wine.
Long Key State Park, May 2 We woke up May 2 to nothing
Old Bahia Honda Bridge
This was taken from the other side, opposite the park. but blue skies - finally! So we backtracked south a bit to hike the trails at Long Key State Park. We saw lots of little lizards and crabs.
We tried to go to
Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park, but it's only open Thursday-Monday.
We went to
Robbie's Pier to feed the giant tarpon. I think we fed more pelicans than tarpon, which was fine because their cuter anyway. The giant tarpon will jump up to eat the fish dangling from your hand. It's a little scary actually...
John Pennekamp Reef Coral State Park, May 2 & May 8 When we went May 2, all the snorkeling and glass bottom boat tours were cancelled because of high winds. That was a real bummer, but I rented snorkeling equipment and checked out the sunken canons at Canon Beach. I saw a few fish, it was ok. But what I really wanted to see was the coral reefs, which we did on the glass bottom boat tour when we returned on May 8. We hiked all the trails at Pennekamp, and saw lots of little lizards, plus one giant bright green lizard, which
is an invasive species. Exotic pets people set free to mess with fragile ecosystems. I'll rant about those people in my Everglades post where I'll get all worked up about how Burmese Pythons are going to ruin the Everglades. Thanks exotic pet trade and all the studid people who buy exotic pets and let them loose! Thanks for messing with our parks, idiots. Now go figure out how we can kill some pythons, will ya?
Anyway, back to Pennekamp! The giant green lizard was spotted as we approached Far Beach. None of the beaches at Pennekamp are that great for swimming compared to Florida's other much nicer sandy beaches. But Far Beach was the best swimming beach. The others are a bit more rocky, and best experienced with water shoes or flippers.
The glass bottom boat tour was super cool! I would have liked to do the snorkeling tour as well, too bad they can't combine them in the same trip. Careful though, you can get sea sick looking down through the glass for too long. They sell sea sickness pills right on the boat, but you have to take it at the beginning of the trip, don't
wait! We saw a couple nurse sharks and baracudas. People on the other side of the boat saw a sea turtle, but we missed it. Plus, lots of cool coral, such as brain coral! Everything seemed very clean and beautiful, and I hope they are able to protect this place for a long time to come.
We ate dinner at Alabama Jacks on May 2, in Key Largo at 58000 Card Sound Rd. We had more crab cakes, and conch salad (which is really more like conch salsa than salad.) The restaurant is a road-side barge, and you can watch fish and birds and look out over the water while you eat. Very nice. Another good restaurant we had lunch at on May 8 was Conch House, very close to Pennekamp with a nice patio to eat outside. We had more conch fritters there, plus conch chowder, lobster bisque and key lime pie. A cute squirrel came to watch us eat and let us take his picture.
Anne's Beach, May 8
We had some time to kill after visiting Pennekamp the second time. We decided to drive back south, because we had heard there
was more rain north. We went to Anne's Beach, which we had read wasn't the greatest beach, but we probably had the most fun at this one. It was low tide, and although there's a lot of weeds, there was a perfect little sandy path people were wading out to the end of, quite a ways. It never got too deep, and the water was nice and warm. When we were done with that, we watched all the crabs and other sea creatures in the multiple tide pools along the beach. For over an hour. It was fascinating. We watched one little hermit crab battle another for his shell!
We had our last dinner of our vacation at Marker 88, and it was an almost perfect ending. Right on the water, this is a fantastic place to eat and watch the sunset. The rain caught up to us though, just after we were served our meal and we had to move under the canopy by the bar. Our server thought we were real classy for ordering a bottle of Gewurztraminer, which he said no one had done for a couple years. We are not used to being called classy,
so that was pretty nice. You can bet that guy got tipped quite handsomely, he really knew what he was doing! Stopped us from ordering coleslaw as a side to our coconut crusted yellowtail and recommended something much better. We also had an awesome "alligator reef" salad with shrimp, crab, avocado and palm hearts. Sadly, we were way too full to enjoy their key lime pie, voted second best in the Keys.
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