"It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down. I had the radio on, I was driving"
So here we are on a new adventure. Been a minute since I posted. This trip has been in the works for a while now. The Irish Cannonball was turning 13 and I thought "Hey you only become a teenager once, so let's make it memorable." So I planned a trip, not the usual one we do for his birthday by doing an indoor water park for a few days. Nope I decided that we would fly into Miami and drive the keys all the way to the end. The missus and I ran away in 2000 and eloped on the beach of the Galleon resort in Key West and we haven't set foot on that island since. Also I've always wanted to do the drive from Miami to Key West. The planning was a bit fluid as we were trying to pack in as much as possible over a couple days. As we started the planning, we decided that our dear friend who did SXM with us last April should tag along. She's as close to being family with out sharing a drop of DNA.
Over a couple months of putting this trip together I made up an itinerary for the week. The trip would be from Tues-Sat, and much more action packed then the SXM trip. That was all about just decompression and sand gravity. Okay maybe about food also.....if you read the SXM reports you will remember the slight food obsessions I have. So stay tuned for that to be a part of this one also. Let's get to the start of this adventure!!!
We did the usual routine and stayed at the airport the night before just for ease of convenience. We use points to stay so it's a no brainer. Woke up on Tues morning and headed over to the terminal. Stopped at the Priority Pass Club for all of our morning needs. The Cannonball was all over the omelet bar, why wouldn't he be. We had our breakfasts, coffee and maybe a blood orange mimosa. Boarded Jet Blue, hunkered down for the flight and enjoyed. The flight was seamless to Miami. We landed and headed over to the car rental. When the trip planning started we discussed what kind of vehicle we needed for the drive, a convertible mustang. What else would you drive down??? So we got the dream car for the Cannonball and squeezed our bodies into it w/ our carry ons packed in the trunk.
Got outta Miami around 1ish and headed south. Weather was perfect, 65 degrees and sunny. As we made our way down there was literally one cloud the whole drive, and we all made a joking sad sound over losing the sun for a minute. We drove for about an hour and forty, stopped at Robbie's of Islamorada for the first culinary treat. We grabbed a table, ordered some drinks and opted to split some apps knowing we were going out for dinner later. The apps were: smoked fish dip, conch fritters, thai mahi fingers and coconut shrimp. Those were devoured in minutes. All of it was delicious. We had all agreed prior to the trip that we were going to live off seafood for the week. Got one more round paid the bill and decided to walk around the little retail area at Robbie's. After we paid we realized we forgot to get the obligatory slice of key lime pie!! Luckily I noticed a food truck of some sort and grabbed a couple of key lime pie on a stick, dipped in dark chocolate. Crisis averted!!!!
Jumped in the car and made the drive to Capt Pips in Marathon where we would be crashing for the night. Stopped at the Publix down the street for some small provisions and checked in at Pips around dusk. Got settled and decided to make our way across the street to Castaways for dinner. I had been eyeing this place during the planning, the sushi menu had me interested. We got there and sat outside on the docks for dinner. The place was jamming for a Tuesday night, so we ordered everything at once to make it easy and just filled the table with all the food. The table consisted of: gator bites (promised the Cannonball we'd have gator on this trip), buff & blue oysters, spider roll, andrea roll, surf & turf roll, spicy mae roll, an order of unagi (for the missus) & a double order of lionfish nigiri. No one was dissapointed or hungry upon departure of the restaurant.
Stopped off at Porky's BBQ on the way back to Pips for a nightcap. Live music playing and sitting outside on a January night wasn't a horrible way to end our first day on vacation. We made some loose plans for the next morning knowing we had a lot to do. Went back to the room and crashed. Wednesday is a whole new day and action packed adventures.
