Dry Tortugas National Park

Today was my day. While NASCAR Championship Weekend was hubby's activity of choice for the week, mine was a visit to Dry Tortugas National Park.

Dry Tortugas is located some 70 miles west of Key West. The only way you can get there is by boat or seaplane. Since the boat was cheaper (but still way too expensive), we went with that option. The ferry takes two and a half hours to get you there (and of course, another two and a half hours to get you back) so it made it an early morning and late evening for us. Check in at 7 am? Yikes. We don't do mornings, and hubby really doesn't do mornings, but he was a good sport about it. The ferry provides a continental breakfast, a lunch onboard, and snorkel equipment.

Snorkel equipment? Oh, yeah. That's why I went. (Well, that along with the fact we're working on getting to all the National Parks.) Unfortunately, so many things went not as planned today that I lost track. It was Thanksgiving and I wanted to make the day full of new, wonderful adventures. It didn't turn out that way. I even started making a list of everything that was not so fun about the day, but stopped myself. I'm about choosing joy. Looking for the good in each day. I believe life is flippin' awesome. So I had to change my attitude. It was Thanksgiving and despite the hard day all of a sudden realized I should be thankful.

Thankful we got to walk a bit of the fort.

Thankful we were able to each lunch on the dock while having this view.

 

That we were able to watch seaplanes load and unload passengers and land and take off.

That we wound up wandering Key West at night and came across a Thanksgiving meal in a restaurant at the marina. At sunset.

 That we were able to have yet one more piece of key lime pie.

 Thankful we saw the moon peeking through lit up palm trees.

Thankful and grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Florida Keys

Today felt like a road trip, and I love road trips. I love being able to stop whenever we want to see and do new things and try new foods. Our first stop this morning was in Islamorada to eat breakfast at Mangrove Mike's. Another place that was hard to find but worth the stop.

We shared an omelet called the Kitchen Sink. Chock full of ham, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, peppers, onions, potatoes, and cheese.

Hubby was quite generous with the pepper.

And of course, we needed a slice of homemade key lime pie before noon. While it might not look pretty, it was darn tasty.

The shop next door was clear about the origin of their items.

We then made a stop in Marathon, Florida for gas and a beach stop. Two things to note:

• Once I checked my email when we got to Key West I found an email from Shell. My gas card had been frozen because of potential fraudulent purchases. Uh, no. They must have problems in this particular area because I've used that card for years and years all over this country (and plenty of times in Florida) and it has never been flagged before. We quickly cleared it up and all is good now.
• We planned on spending an hour or so at Sombrero Beach in Marathon. A beautiful but busy beach. (I do keep forgetting it's Thanksgiving week. It's like I'm on a different calendar for some reason!) The busyness itself wasn't the problem, but the lack of seating for hubby was. He can't stand for long, and with all the picnic tables being taken it left him without a place to sit we couldn't stay. Looked like everyone was having a grand time in the water, though.

Thankfully our hotel (surprise - a real hotel this time) allowed us to check in early. It's one of the nice benefits of being a Best Western Diamond member. We saw lots of folks sitting out in the sun at the pool with multiple pieces of luggage. I tried not to make eye contact - didn't want to rub it in. Although there are worse places to be waiting for a room than at the pool.

After a little rest, hubby was ready to go out. We walked a couple blocks down to the southernmost point in the continental United States. I remember seeing this spot on TV during last year's hurricane.

It was such a beautiful day. We decided to eat not far from that spot at the Southernmost Beach Cafe. We wound up there during happy hour. A $5 rum punch? Yep, I'll take a couple. Hubby went with sangria which was not on the happy hour menu.

All of our food came from the happy hour menu. And bonus - we have leftovers for dinner tomorrow.

$4 pizza rolls.

 $5 buffalo chicken wings.

The most unbelievable tasty combinations were in this $4 grilled cheese sandwich with fries. Pork, onion jam, and cheese. It could probably easily make it to the top of the best thing I ever ate list.

And just to prove to ourselves we really are in Key West, we had another slice of key lime pie. This one had an Oreo crust and strawberry topping. I don't know how it is possible that each one we've had these past few days has been different but amazingly delicious. 

 

As we were sitting there watching the sun go down, we noticed a cruise ship heading out of port.

 Then another one. We  had both a Royal Caribbean and an Azamara in Key West today.

 It was a good day. Tomorrow should be just as good as we have an adventure planned involving a ferry and a fort. Stay tuned.

Find out how we spent yesterday in the Florida Keys here.