This was my first trip to the Keys, but it was Curtis' fourth trip! We were there from June 10 - June 15. We got a pretty good hotel deal through priceline. Our first day in Key West, we went snorkeling. I have a slight fear of water and I kinda freaked out on our snorkeling adventure during our honeymoon, but I was willing to give it a try. Curtis claimed that the best place to snorkel in the United States is in the Keys.
We boarded the Jolly Roger in Marathon, Florida to begin our excursion.
I was a little nervous!
I think I did pretty well! I was able to swim around and see all sorts of fish and coral. I'm pictured above in my snorkeling gear.
The view was amazing! We actually were able to see dolphins when we were traveling to our second location to snorkel.
Unfortunately, Curtis got a little seasick during it, but he was fine once we were back on stable ground.
For dinner, we went to a place called 2 Cents Restaurant. Everything on their menu was much more than 2 cents, however. It was very tasty though. It was fun to see Curtis finally able to completely relax.
On our second day, we took a trolley tour to explore the entire island of Key West. We thought this was a pretty cool sign above - it showed how many miles away we were from lots of places, in and out of the country. We actually ended up purchasing a picture of a similar sign that we are hoping to put up in our Master Bedroom.
One of my favorite things that we did was we went to a the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory. It took me forever to get a good picture of the morpho butterfly pictured above. I love the blue color!
Orange.
Yellow.
These are baby quail birds. I thought they were so cute! They were placed in this ecosystem so that they will eat the fruit flies. (Butterflies eat fruit, which brings fruit flies.)
Look at how little this bird is compared to Curtis' hand.
There were two turtles there too.
Here we are in the conservatory. Curtis had a bird poop on him when he was sitting in one of these benches. It was kind of funny...although, it probably wouldn't have been funny if it happened to me. He had a good attitude about it though!
We also visited the Southernmost Point of the United States. We were actually closer to Cuba than Miami.
You have got to love the dorky cut-outs! Here's our advertisement for Old Town Trolley.
Everywhere we walked, we found baby chicks, hens and roosters. This was the best one that I got all week. Apparently, roosters were brought to Key West back in the day for cock fights (which is now illegal).
We also had the opportunity to see not only the beginning...
...but the end of US 1!
We went to Mallory Square because we heard they had some of the best sunset celebrations. Not only were they selling all kinds of unique items, but they had magicians and performers. We watched this guy do really cool gymnastic tricks. I was impressed because he gave all the glory to God when he succeeded. :)
Here's the sunset at Mallory Square. I even have a sailboat in the distance (on the left) and I caught a bird in mid-flight. Not a bad picture for a iPod Touch camera.
Of course, we had to try Kermit's Frozen Dark Chocolate Dipped Key Lime Pie!
These pictures aren't the best, but it was my favorite way to eat a key lime pie! (But I am a chocoholic.)
I think the third day was my favorite. We went to Higgs Beach. The weather was amazing and we had shade under this nice palm tree. You can see Curtis was reading a book.
Here I am under the palm tree. I am in the midst of reading The Hunger Games Trilogy. I thoroughly enjoyed it. What a great book for vacation!
We ate dinner that night at a place called Paseo and it was probably our favorite place to eat. We tried to eat there on about 2 or 3 different occasions, but they have really odd hours. It was definitely worth the wait!
Margaret on Margaret Street.
We went on a Sunset Sail after dinner. It was beautiful on the boat. We met some nice people and got some great photos.
I love this picture.
And then the sun began to set.
How romantic!
Yes, this was my favorite day.
We even had an amazing dessert called "Cookie Monster." It was a half-pound chocolate chip cookie, with 3 huge scoops of ice cream - "Brownie Boom," "Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough," and "Cake Batter."
On our fourth day, we went to No Name Key and had a kayak tour! I had never been in a kayak so Curtis helped me out by taking a double-person kayak.
We were able to see sponges, conch crabs, birds, fish and jellyfish.
Every day we were there, it was perfect weather.
What a fun experience!
On our final night, we went to the top of the Crowne Plaza to watch the sun set go down one final time. Curtis and I are already wishing we were still there!
