tuesday
antics around the keys

so, on the way down to key west, we stopped off at the key deer visitor center to find out where we could spot some of these awesome, endangered little critters.  the guide there gave us some brochures and pointed in the right direction.  there was a bakery in the same store front, so we ran in to grab some bagels–and when we came back out, there were some suspicious looking kids in the parking lot–checking out lex’s car (which had all of our luggage in it, still).  they bolted when we got close, but lex drove around the parking lot to see what they might be up to.  sure enough, they were looking up under the car wheel-wells, checking for key boxes.  lex called the visitor center (thank goodness for those brochures!) to let them know what was up, so that they could keep an eye and alert the authorities. punks.

out of the 400 key deer still living on the islands, we managed to spot two! 
here’s the one i managed to snag a picture of.

we drove out to an observation area that the guide had recommended.  when we got there, we walked over to look at a board that was posted with pictures and information about the wildlife that we might spot while we were there.  then we headed a few feet over to the observation deck, where we saw lots of fish and turtles.  then, a splash in the water to our right made us turn.  there, maybe five feet from where we’d just been standing, an alligator had entered the water and was swimming lazily around to a point further up along the bank.  that made me pretty jumpy for the rest of the time we spent out there, haha!

looking down at one of the turtles; the alligator who could’ve crept right up on us

after we’d gotten settled in at the eden house, we headed out to find some food and take in the sights of key west.  eden house had a whole binder full of recommendations around the area.  lucky for us, there were two listings for veggie/vegan food!  we picked help yourself, which was a short walk from eden house, and went to check it out.  when we got there, we got a thrill–everything on the menu could be made vegan! 

the front of help yourself, with its outdoor picnic area–hugged by all these tropical plants

happy vegan noms

with its super-relaxed atmosphere, awesome outdoor eating areas, and a terrifically green approach to business, we were both pleased.  and that was before we got our orders!  i got the bbq tempeh wrap and lex got the raw lasagna.  yum, yum, yum!
 
 
various sights around key west

then, we headed along the streets to check out some of the shops along the way to the absolute touristy thing that had to be done–getting pictures at the southernmost point.  we stopped in an awesome art gallery with a snooty proprietor.  we saw duval street.  i took picture after picture of the unbelievable homes in the area.  everything about key west pleased me greatly!  plus, there’s a huge push for acceptance and equality in the keys that makes me amazingly happy.  i’m so glad that they’ve embraced the local flare and flavor the way that they seem to have!

lex and me at the southernmost point

looking across the ocean from the pier at the southernmost point

the lovely walk let our food settle and gave us a chance to take in our surroundings in a delightfully leisurely way before we went back for a relaxing evening at our hotel.

tuesday
eden house

after leaving bahia honda, we headed for our next stop:  the eden house in key west.  let me sing their praises at the top of my lungs.  ridiculously sneaky, this place looks just like any other old house in key west.  it’s quaint and architecturally pleasing on the outside, but doesn’t stand out as anything wildly special.  until you step over the threshold.  then, you’re greeted by the friendliest staff, who takes you on a personal tour of the facilities before showing you to your room–for which you get real-life actual door keys.  and the atmosphere?  unreal.  there’s a small pool with a lovely waterfall, a whole bunch of hammocks hidden in the royal palms, a diy happy hour, and a house cat.  what more could you ask for?  awesome tunes piped softly in the courtyard until quiet time?  check.  a private sun deck?  yep.  ceiling fans and comfy seating perfectly spaced along the wrap-around porch, both upstairs and down?  you’re covered.  plus a community library, a relaxed lobby, and convenient bicycle rentals.  the place was everything my inner hippie craves!

lex managed to make himself right at home.  here, he’s pictured in our room (with tulie in the second shot), at the top of the stairs, and in the library area

me, showing just how happy i was with the location

lovely sights around the grounds

shortly after arriving at eden house, we sat down and started loading the pictures and video we’d taken on our trip so far onto my laptop.  we headed out to get to wander the grounds and came back to discover that my computer was in trouble–i had mere megabytes of space left.  with my average of 1,000 pictures in a day, i had to do something fast!  we drove reluctantly back into civilization so that i could pick up an external drive.  yes, it’s true.  i have a little nerd cred. now

looking over our feet to the palm fronds; the house cat thought i was comfy

lex and me in the hammock

later in the evening, after we’d been out and about (don’t worry, pictures of those exploits will follow soon!) we settled into one of the hammocks to read and enjoy the last bit of sunshine for the day.  and when the sun went down?  we hopped in the pool for a night swim, of course!  we had a really kind lady from the hot tub offer us the rest of her pizza and an unopened bottle of wine.  sadly, we had no use for either, haha.  it reminded me constantly of the hostel–if the hostel were in the keys, and the people were a little less naturalist

the waterfall during our night swim

the eden house comes complete with quiet hours.  the pool music fades out and dies down by about 10:00, and guests are asked to keep their coming and going as courteous as possible.  after our swim, lex and i went down to the lobby to see if we could rent bikes for just a bit.  the super-friendly guy at the front desk gave us keys, and we pedaled around for about half an hour.  it was remarkably nice–they have those big, old rally bikes (the kind my dad prefers) everywhere down there.  we wove all around, drifting through quiet neighborhood and sleepless duval street, with the cool sea breeze keeping us company.

it was the perfect way to end the evening before heading for bed in such a relaxed get-away of a place.

tuesday
sunrise at bahia honda

tuesday morning, i woke up to find lex ducking out of the tent to climb the tree that hung over the back corner of our campsite.  first light was just breaking, and he was checking to see if we’d be able to catch a good sunrise.  i grabbed my camera to snap a quick shot of him up in the limbs.

he reported back that things looked good, so we made our way down the boardwalk to take a look.  the early light was gorgeous, and the depth of the clouds and the colors were (again) unreal.  the sea breeze was strong and salty, preparing us early on for an excellent day on the ocean.

looking out to the east as the sun began to peek up over the horizon

we stayed to watch the sun come all the way up, then wandered over to the shops to see if snorkels and kayaks would be available that day.  unfortunately, with hurricane alex playing around in the ocean, they weren’t recommending any rentals.  after all, what can you really see when in the ocean when the winds are kicking up waves full of sand?  luckily for us, we knew that thursday held an awesome charter with all the sea adventure we could dream of, so we thanked the lady at the counter kindly and headed back to pack up our camp.

lex took this one of me, watching the sun come up

lex and me at the campsite

after showers (remarkably nice bath house facilities at bahia honda, complete with composting toilets.  huge thumbs up on that!) we hopped in the car and headed to check out.  after thanking (profusely) the gal at the desk who’d given us the great upgrade, we were on our way to the next stop, which would put us in key west.

it’s tough to call any one picture my favorite, but this definitely comes close to the top of the list!

monday
bahia honda

our final stop on monday was bahia honda, the state park where we’d booked a campsite for the evening.  when we got there and went to check in, the woman at the desk said, “ooh, you are going to love me!  i’ve got a site upgrade for you.  do me a favor:  when you get a chance, go look at the site you were going to have.  you’ll thank me in the morning!”

the entrance to the park

you see, bahia honda has a year-long waiting list for camping.  somehow, though, we’d actually managed to find one site with a two night range of availability back in may.  we’d booked it for a night immediately, and planned the rest of our trip around it.  because of that tiny window, we’d gotten a site in the r.v. portion of the park.  not terrible, but definitely not up to comparing with the site we got–20 feet from the beach, gloriously shady with trees, and nice, soft, sandy ground to sleep on.  we thanked her profusely in the morning.

lex, in the tree that shaded our campsite;  our tent all set up in the soft sand

lex, on the boardwalk from our site to the ocean;  one of denny’s cousins, making his way over the tide pool rocks

we were lucky to get to the park early enough to set up our tent and still have plenty of time to check out the tide pools and walk the beach for a few hours.  i’d never seen real-life tide pools, so it was really neat for me to get a chance to wander and peek at all the little sea slugs, crabs, coral, sponges, and other ocean whatnots floating around in them.  there were also lots of chunks of bleached driftwood and brilliant seashells everywhere.  it was mind-blowing!

little crab i spotted in one of the tide pools

lex, with a snazzy pair of sunglasses he found on the beach; and me, having conquered this large rock

gnarly bleached driftwood along the way

while we were walking along the beach, lex came across a coconut and quickly worked some survivor-style magic to crack it open.  we toted it back to camp with us, and he cored one end open so we could see if the meat was any good.  sadly, the milk tasted a bit like onion, and the bits of meat we got were slightly funky–so we tossed it away in the brush for any little island critters who might like it. 

lex:  master of survivor skills

moments before we discovered that the coconut was gross

after sitting at our campsite picnic table to chow down the leftovers of our delicious lunch subs, we headed up to the other side of the park to see what we could of the sunset.  the cloud cover was dense enough that all we really saw was color, but the colors that we saw were worth the trip up to the end of the bridge.  i took an unbelievable number of pictures throughout the day, so what you see here is the result of a significant effort to reduce the mass quantity down a choice selection.

the pathway up to the bahia honda bridge;  lex walking ahead and shooting video as he neared the end of the bridge

looking across to the other side, where the old bridge ends

lex and me, at the end of the bahia honda bridge

looking out to where the bridges meet; lex took this one of me with the sunset behind me   

looking back at bahia honda from the end of the bridge–check out the line of turtle grass along the shore

various shots we took as we swapped off the camera and waited for the sun to set

the gorgeous, hazy colors of the sun setting at bahia honda

we also took in the beautiful rise of the moon.  out there on the park beach, with practically no artificial light around us, the effect was unreal.  the beach and ocean lit with only moonlight, the fresh, salty sea breeze, and lex’s strong arms around me made the evening perfect.  when we finally turned in for the evening, i fell asleep readily.  it had been a pleasantly long, amazingly wonderful day!

**remember, non-xanga members can leave comments by clicking the “add comments” link and choosing the “anonymous” identity option.  this will allow you to add comments (along with your name and url, if you like) without having to open an account **

monday
robbie’s marina

one of the things that we’d read about and that had been recommended to us for our trip was the tarpon feeding at robbie’s marina.  we’d both kinda thought that feeding a bunch of big fish seems a tiny bit silly, but figured that we’d give it a try.

turns out?  it’s awesome!

lex, dangling some bait to get the fish interested

we’re not just talking big fish.  these are enormous fish.  and they leap out of the water to snatch the bait fish out of your hands.  lex and i got both got drenched by their splashing, haha!  and each time i held my hand down to them, it was like watching a scary movie–you know something is about to happen, but it still makes you shriek when it finally occurs! 

lex, laughing after a tarpon splash

me, soaked and fishy–but having a great time!

i’m wildly proud that i managed to grab this shot!

the tarpon have small, sand papery teeth, and guess who took one for the team?  this girl! 

i got the tiniest, most hardcore-looking scrape in the world on my knuckle.  it made me feel pretty special

to this point, everything we’d done in the keys (out of all, like, three hours we’d been there, haha!) was a high recommendation.  that definitely had our hopes and energy high as we looked forward to the rest of our trip!

**remember, non-xanga members can leave comments by clicking the “add comments” link and choosing the “anonymous” identity option.  this will allow you to add comments (along with your name and url, if you like) without having to open an account **

monday
rain barrel artisans’ village

the next major stop we made on the road was the rain barrel artisans’ village at islamorada.  as if the front of this wild establishment wasn’t enough to entertain, it opens up into a tiny, awesome community of shops and displays.  sneaky, sneaky awesome!  we went into a handmade jewelry shop (you’d have to know i couldn’t pass that by!) and talked for quite a while with the owner.  she had the coolest handmade silver bracelet that was inlaid with several pieces of fossilized palm that i fell for immediately.  lex got it for me, because he is wonderful and i am unbelievably spoiled by his generous goodness

the displays were awesome, all around, and there was all sorts of neat stuff to snap pictures of!  as tends to be the case these days, this post is basically just a photo post.  so, enjoy!
  

these fellas, along with lots of others, welcome guests to the village

excellently busy displays that are simultaneously entirely too much to take in, overwhelming to look at and ridiculously fun!

pretty pottery shop

lex took these two awesome shots of the common area inside the village

and this one of me, grinning as i enjoyed the crazy effects the tree limbs overhead created on the walkways

seahorses and the surprising appearance of a familiar southern phrase

lex and me and a glimpse of the palm bracelet he got me (on the right)

**remember, non-xanga members can leave comments by clicking the “add comments” link and choosing the “anonymous” identity option.  this will allow you to add comments (along with your name and url, if you like) without having to open an account **

monday
john pennekamp coral reef state park

monday morning rolled in easily, bringing with it fruit salad for breakfast and sunny skies for our drive.  we headed out of aunt brenda and uncle frank’s early, because we wanted to have a lot of time to explore the road through the keys. 

my first good look at the breathtakingly turquoise water

we made amazing time–traffic was surprisingly light!–so we had plenty of opportunities to pull over and check out all sorts of cool sights.  we even managed to sneak in a thrift store or two, because it just wouldn’t be a true roadtrip if we didn’t take in the local secondhand treasure!

we made a nice, long stop at the john pennekamp coral reef park, and i’m so glad that we didn’t pass it by!  we drove through the park to find this nice little area (pictured above, and throughout the rest of this post) where we got out to race into the ocean.  there was a small, open beach and a mangrove cove right there, so we took a ton of pictures.  lex even gave the waterproof capabilities of his camera a shot–it still worked after he took some videos of the little fish and crabs we spotted in the water, so that was a good sign!

lex, the moment his toes touched the sea

the path through the mangroves

a happy, busy woodpecker

looking back at the exit from the mangroves and across the water to where the path began

particularly creepy doll arm amidst fallen debris on the path

lex, enjoying the convenient position of this low-lying limb;  lex took this one of me framed by mangroves

tiny, feisty hermit crabs
(at least, i think they’re hermit crabs.  they don’t look much like denny.  speaking of denny, he molted completely the day that we left town, which made me a very, very proud hermit crab parent!)

lex, showing me some coral bits from the pathway;  me, with a few pieces that had washed up on the beach

a speedy, crafty little crab, who kept alluding my pictures, along with some fish who didn’t seem to be too camera shy

once we’d gotten the overwhelmingly immediate and desperate need to be in the ocean out of our systems (after all, the rest of our week would be spent by the sea!) we jumped back in the mini and got back on the road, looking for our next mini-adventure.

**remember, non-xanga members can leave comments by clicking the “add comments” link and choosing the “anonymous” identity option.  this will allow you to add comments (along with your name and url, if you like) without having to open an account **

really, friday?  i like you.  i’ve always like you.  i even have a t-shirt that touts your glorious awesomeness.  it has unicorns.  and majesty.

so why, oh why, are you making such a nuisance of yourself?

sunday

so, sunday morning, we woke up at our leisure and got ready for a visit from my grandma.  it was so, so good to see her!  we had a nice visit, and then we ate left-overs for lunch and watched a bit of religulous (which sparked massive conversation, no matter how many times anyone in the room had seen it) with my uncle.  and then?

we swam.  and swam.  and swam!  the weather was still perfect, and the pool was glorious. 

we even had some backyard visitors come up from the canal while we splashed around. 

a happy duck waddling across the yard

an iguana emerging from under the dock to grab some sun

my sweet, handsome boyfriend.  i know i dote, but look at that smile!

while we were drying out on the patio, we played with my cousin cats, samantha and chelsea. 

it made me miss nari and rorschach like crazy

we made plans to grab dinner at sweet tomatoes, which i’d been looking forward to as a minor highlight of our trip.  for a vegan, a restaurant with a vast salad bar full of fresh and fun ingredients is crispy, zingy heaven.  and i got a chance to pick my aunt’s brain about future career plans, which was really cool.

happily, aunt brenda and uncle frank have hbo, so we actually got to watch true blood in real time–what a nice nightcap!

it was another simple, easy day of vacation, and we went to bed with visions of the keys dancing in our heads

so, i’ve (obviously) made a new page theme.  i’m still tweaking it, but it’s almost there.  let me know what you think?