Anklo blog

Packed the car. Breakfast at The Wooden Spoon. Stop at the Shell Man. Drive north on US1. Rain. I75 across Florida is a dead zone.

Stopped at outlet mall north of Naples for some food. Most of the stock at outlet stores is there because nobody wanted it.

Onward a few more miles to Mark’s out in the middle of nowhere. Very enjoyable visit. The next generation of Febbos is great.

Next day is all about getting home. After breakfast at Cracker Barrel, we got on the road about 9:00. Drive. Rain. Drive. No rain. Repeat until we get home at 11:30. Loooonnnggg day.

Today was our last full day here and we decided to make it a day at the beach.

Had a light breakfast at the condo then suited up and drove to Sombrero Beach. This is a very nice city park with everything you need handy. The water was warm and calm with minimal seaweed. Maewyn really enjoyed her snorkel gear. Whole family had a great day. Right on verge of too much beach, but not quite. Just about perfect.

Back to the condo to get clean. Dinner at the Tiki bar for the third time. Condo. Girls had a night swim. Sleep.

Shopping. End of story. For a place that doesn’t appear to have much in the way of shopping, we managed to spend pretty much all day in stores.

Started the day with a very nice breakfast at the Wooden Spoon. This is a little diner with ten tables and a counter. Simple food but done well and another friendly server. Friendly service has been a common theme everywhere.

First stop was a Kmart for some toiletries, etc. Then we hit a string of clothing, shoe, souvineer stores. Rinse and repeat.

About 4:00 we decided that a full lunch was pointless and went on a snack quest. I’m sorry to say thar the best we could find was Wendy’s for a frosty. Marathon has sit down restaurants and fast food, but no snack type places that we could find.

With a second wind, the girls found a few more shops, then we went back to the condo for a little down time before dinner.

For the record, Maewyn got a snorkle set, a watch, and a Vera pencil pouch. Kinnamon scored a new Vera lunch box. Maria was the big winner with a tumbler, a shirt, and a handmade dress. They also got a puzzle for the group.

Oh, and a new table clock for the condo. The original met it’s demise when it slipped from Maria’s hand to the tile floor.

Since we first saw Chappy’s, Maewyn has been plotting for a swim in the restaurant’s pool. We finally relented and made a return trip. While we were waiting for a table I ordered an appetizer from the bar and Maria supervised the swim.

I finally got to see a sunset over the water. No green flash, but still pretty impressive.

Our table was ready and Maewyn’s swim ended. Dinner was uneventful. It was hot.

Condo. Shower. Bed.

The day of the only scheduled activity had arrived. It was Maria’s birthday and she was going to swim with the dolphins.

We didn’t really know what to expect. We knew the location of the Dolphin Research Center and we knew Maria had a 12:00 reservation. We ate breakfast in the condo, packed the sunscreen and cameras, and off we went.

The DRC is a really nice place for being up close to the dolphins. All of the staff seemed truly excited with their jobs. Maria was the only one in the family to actually touch a dolphin, but all of us had a good day there.

The layout has a Tiki-covered spectator penisula surrounded by several interconnected habitats with two to six dolphins each. So the visitors who aren’t participating can observe any and all of the activities. We all had a good time and stayed longer than we expected.

On the advice of a staffer, we had lunch at The Wreck on the other side of the lot. Once again, great food and very friendly service. The girls went back to the gift shop while I finished the pie and my beer.

Hot and tired (again) we went back to the condo. I crashed in the AC and the girls went for a swim in the pool. Eventually we all got clean and went to a late dinner. We returned to the scene of the thunderstorm and ate light. A classic margarita and peel-n-eat shrimp for me.

Back to the condo and bed.

This has been a long day. We decided that today would be a daytrip to Key West. First time for all us.

We started with a return to the Stuffed Pig for breakfast. Crab cake and eggs today. Still good and more than I could eat. After a quick family photo op with Willy B. Bacon, we headed south on US1. Very pleasant drive down to Key West with some great scenery.

Just as we hit mile marker 5 it started to rain. Didn’t think too much about it at the time. We made our way around the west side of the city to Caroline St. and on to Duval. At this point the pedestrians were extra aggressive due to the rain. Somehow we managed to get ourselves on a dead end alley behind the Westin parking garage. One five-point turn later and we got into a small parking lot to get our bearings.

It was still raining and a bit of a mad house, so we decided to head east to the southernmost point marker. The closer we got, the more it rained. We parked within sight of the marker and tried to wait out the storm. After about 30 minutes, and seeing a trash can float past us in the street. We went back west to get in the parking deck and just do something.

We parked and set off in the light rain. Next door is the art museum where we stopped briefly to come up with some sort of plan. It was time for lunch so we asked a hostess at the museum for a suggestion and she pointed us to the Roof Top Cafe. Excellent choice. We had a tasty, fun lunch. Girls even hsd virgin cocktails By the time we were done the rain had stopped and the urban flood waters had begun to recede. We started walking east on the south side of Duval.

I’ve never been to New Orleans, but Maria the veteran traveller says that Duval St. is an island version of the French Quarter.

We walked, we got hot, we bought a few trinkets. By 7:00 we had made our way back to Mallory Square. That was enough for one day and we decided to leave Key West and head back to Marathon. I may write more about my impression of Key West in another post.

Maria found a restaurant on the south end of Marathon for us. I can’t recall the name at the moment (I’ll update the post later), but it had good reviews. When we walked up, all we could see was a shack, a half dozen picnic tables, a 10-seat bar, and a hostess stand. We waited. And waited. No employees in sight. Waited. Near the end of our patience an apologetic hostess emerged from the shack. It turns out that the shack was hiding a fairly large, air conitioned dining room. I know this because we had to walk through it to get to our crappy table on the dock. Actually it was more of a covered storage area with four tables next to the canal. Kinnamon picked the table and it was her birthday so … As a bonus there was an industrial fan on high sitting six feet behind my chair. What? Speak up, I can’t hear you over the gale. The food was bland too. Finish eating, drive to condo, shower, bed.