Brendan's Senior Trip: Key West

Tuesday - Day 4 of our trip
Up and at 'em early Tuesday morning for breakfast in the dining room before heading out to explore Key West.  Lily was ready!  My favorite breakfast was eggs over easy, hash browns and a cinnamon roll.  The steak and eggs were yummy, too.  JC really enjoyed the eggs Benedict and Bren liked the omelets and hash browns.  The kids tried all kinds of goodies, the girls usually ate scrambled eggs and fruit and Cam says he really liked the cereal.

A beautiful morning!

 Once we were off the ship, I was a little surprised at how hot it was.  Although it was probably only in the 80's, we were used to temps around 60 and the sea day prior was much cooler than that!  We sprayed on some sun screen and tried to decide what to do.  Most of the family wanted to go to Hemingway's House but that didn't sound like fun to Bren.  We decided to take the Conch (pronounced Conk - I still struggle saying it correctly!) Trolley Tour that my parents and Les suggested from their previous visit.

It was a hop-on, hop-off tour.  The port was super packed and crazy busy and it was a bit stressful (to mom) waiting and getting on the trolley but once we did, we enjoyed our day.  Again, the day flew by and it seemed there was too much to do and too little time!  We wanted to get Key Lime Pie at the shop in the picture above but we didn't have time to get back to it.  We all loved seeing the abundance of roosters ("cockadoooo" as Lily calls them) on the island. We found out that it's against the law to harm any bird on the island so after cock fighting became illegal, the island was inundated with roosters!

I love seeing different parts of the world with their different vegetation.  In Key West, we were enthralled with the Banyan tree and Kapok tree.  And Bren, who loves to climb, really loved the Banyan!

 We got off the trolley in search of something to drink because we were pretty warm.  We walked down a street trying to find a restaurant that the trolley driver mentioned...something about roosters.  We didn't find it but came upon a restaurant called Firefly.  It was a quite little place hidden on a side road.  We sat upstairs where they had doors open to balcony and breeze.  JC and Granny shared shrimp and grits and Bren and I shared a BBQ pork sandwich.  The food and service were wonderful.  We relaxed and drank lots of water then we watched the roosters from the balcony.

After lunch, we wondered back down the street we came from.  We went down the main road to find the lighthouse.  We ran into my folks and visited with them for a bit before going to the lighthouse.  Granny and PawPaw decided tour Hemingway's house and we climbed 88 steps to the top.  Try that carrying Lily!  Whew!  It was beautiful to see all of Key West from the lighthouse.  

 Back on the trolley, we great tour guides on each leg of our trip. We learned lot about the island that seceded from the country, formed the "Conch Republic" and have a motto of, "We seceded where others failed".

We got off the trolley at the "most southern point" area and walked a bit for a picture of the famous spot.  When we got back to the trolley pick up area, we had about a half hour wait for the next trolley.

 The kids enjoyed some coconut water in a coconut and we bought some Key Lime Pie from the shop where we waited.

 There was some debate as to whether our towel animal as a bat or a sloth.  I guess no one ever asked Picard!  It was a fun and exhausting day!