Vacation!

FINALLY have my pictures from vacation - I don't have a (working) camera, so we took all our pictures on my mother's camera. That meant I had to wait until they came to visit to get my pictures, since she wouldn't have known how to email them even if there weren't way, way too many to email without wrecking my inbox. The complete photo album is here.

We left on Saturday, and this trip started out slightly complicated, since I was flying from DC, my parents were flying from Philadelphia, we wanted to arrive in Ft. Lauderdale at approximately the same time, and I had to use a specific airline, since I was using my airfare credit from when I canceled my trip to San Francisco last year. And yet, somehow, we managed to get there with relatively no trouble. My flight was overbooked AND overweight, so they were actually kicking people off the plane (oddly, the plane was only half full when we took off, so there must have been some serious overpackers for us to be overweight).

We rented a car in Ft. Lauderdale and drove down the Keys to Key West. If you've never been to the Florida Keys, it's basically a 120 mile string of islands, many of them just wide enough for one road. US 1 runs the whole way, which made it kind of hilarious when my mother pulled out a map, as though it were physically possible for us to be lost without driving into the water.

We got to Key West around dinnertime, but since we'd eaten lunch so late, we weren't hungry for dinner and decided to go straight to dessert. My mom and I ordered key lime pie, of course, while my dad ordered this monstrosity known as the "Cookie Monster" from Caroline's on Duval St. And yes, he managed to eat the whole thing (with our help).

We stayed at this adorable bed and breakfast called the Curry Mansion Inn. We got a full breakfast AND happy hour, which was pretty awesome (my parents loooove happy hour, lol).

Sunday turned out to be too cold to go to the beach, so we visited the Hemingway House, where my mother took way too many pictures of the six-toed cats. Afterward, we stopped at Fat Tuesday's for drinks, a bar which I'm told was featured on The Real World, but I can't verify that since I've never watched it. We went to Mallory Square, the hotspot to watch the sunset, where they have all kinds of vendors and street performers - including the famous cats who jump through flaming hoops, which is about the only thing I remember from the last time I was in Key West about 15 years ago.

We ate dinner at a bar called Guy Harvey's, and Toryn Green, the former singer for Fuel, happened to be performing there, so I got pictures and an autographed CD. Then I had to explain to my parents who he was, which was pretty hopeless. :)

Monday was a beach day - we went to Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. The thing about Key West is that the beaches all kind of suck. (This is the other thing I remember from the last time we were there.) Someone explained to us that it's because they have a barrier reef, and you can't have both a barrier reef and good sand. The waves break on the reef and all the broken shells and rocks wash up on the beach. Every beach we went to was really hard, and the shells were so sharp it was painful to walk on, which made it hard to go in the water. Of course, the water was also pretty freakin' cold, so we didn't go in much anyway. Still got plenty of sun, though, and I have the freckles to prove it!

Monday was, of course, my 26th birthday, so we went to a French restaurant/bakery for dinner. This was, hands down, the best meal I had all week. My mother had called the bakery to order a cake, which was also awesome. Check it out - isn't it gorgeous? Anyway, after dinner we went to the bar on the corner of our street and watched Drunk Santa make friends with Drunk Graduate.

Tuesday was cold again - they told us this was an unusually cold winter, and it normally isn't this chilly this time of year - so we stopped by Harry Truman's Little White House and then went to the Shipwreck Museum. That night we did a ghost tour, which was super lame. Apparently, Key West doesn't have many ghosts, so much of the tour was spent taking random pictures of places that have "a lot of energy" to see if we could get orbs in the pictures. We were hoping for good ghost stories not an episode of Ghost Hunters, so we were pretty bored.

It rained on Wednesday, the only rain we had, so we went to this Nascar Simulation place (my dad's a big Nascar fan). My dad drove one of the races, competing against two little kids, a boy and a girl, both under the age of 10. My dad - who has, by the way, driven an actual race car on a real Nascar track - only managed to beat the little girl. It was kind of sad. :) After that, we went to Peppers for our sauce-tasting, and then visited Kermit, whose key lime pie was featured on the Food Network.

We had lunch at the Conch Republic Seafood Company, and then walked around the harbor. By that time, it was starting to clear up, so we decided to go on a dolphin watching cruise. OMG so awesome! We were the only ones to sign up, so we had the entire boat to ourselves. And we saw SOOOO many dolphins! We also saw a great sunset.

Wednesday was also St. Patrick's Day, which is why I am wearing green. :) My parents were a little afraid of the spring breakers, lol, so we stayed in the harbor area for dinner and drinks.

We left Key West on Thursday and drove to Bahia Honda State Park to go to the beach. Proof I went in the water, even though it was coooold.

On our way to Key Largo, we stopped at a little dive called The Wreck and Galley Grille in Marathon, right next to the Dolphin Research Center (that's where I swam with dolphins for the first time). We collectively decided that this was the best key lime pie we had all week - and then, of course, my mother insulted the place by asking the bartender, "Where do you get your key lime pie?" The bartender replied, "Uh, we make it." Oops?

Frday was another beach day, this time at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, which was definitely the worst beach ever. We lasted a couple hours, and then went back to our hotel, which had a little lagoon in the back. My dad made friends with a squirrel, whom he named Rocky and plans to teach to jump through a flaming hoop, so they can have an act in Mallory Square (get it? Rocky the flying squirrel, heh).

That night we went to dinner at a place called Ballyhoo's, and I have to recommend it because they were awesome. The food was great, but even beyond that, our waiter gave us free drinks, an order of crab claws, and key lime pie, AND gave us 50% off our check, because we told him it was my birthday and because we had to wait a little bit for our dinner to come out. Seriously, seriously awesome service.

Saturday we drove back to the airport, with a little detour through Hollywood while my parents picked out their retirement home, lol. As it turned out, we probably shouldn't have spent so much time driving around, since my parents almost missed their flight home. (Oops?) I was fine, since my flight wasn't for another two hours.

Wow, I am kind of exhausted all over again, just from writing that out, lol. And I still want to quit my job and move to Key West. Who's with me?