Feb 26 ROAD TRIP down to the keys

Feb 26


We continue to enjoy our winter vacation here in Ft. Myers but decided to take a road trip to shake things up and make the most of the time we’re spending in south Florida.   You may recall we decided to opt out of taking the boat down to the keys and around Florida and instead will be taking the cross Florida Lake Okeechobee route.   Most likely we will start that trip this weekend.    So, before we leave we decided we should at least make a trip to the keys.   Got a rental car for a few days.  Contacted our friends Jamie and Trish on “About Time” who are in Marathon and off we went.  We spent a day driving down to a hotel in Florida City which is the last stop before entering the keys.   We took the slow route using Hiway 41 and passing through the west coast side of Everglades National Park and then crossing through Big Cypress Nature Preserve.  This is a 2 lane road a bit further south of the old Tamiami Trail through Alligator Alley which has been widened and converted into Interstate 75.  Our route is much more old Florida.  Slow and lazy with varied vegetation ranging from the typical Everglades “river of grass” to much more wooded swamplands.    This is definitely gator country.   We stopped at a few visitor centers with boardwalks  set up by the parks system along the water and were impressed by the number and size of the alligators.  Even more surprised to see manatees swimming alongside them without a care in the world. Apparently, they’re just too big for the gators to bother messing with them. After checking into our hotel, we went to Havana Spice for dinner and some outstanding authentic Cuban food.

This big guy was easily over 10 feet long

Marinated spiced pork, black beans and rice and fried plantains -YUM!!

Next morning we got an early start for Marathon to pick up Jamie and Trish and then headed on to Key West for the day.   I think we wore Jamie and Trish out with our agenda but figured we’d make the most of the day playing tourists.   Toured the Hemmingway House and the collection of 59 protected 6 toed cats who roam the property, photo op at “Southernmost Point”, tour of Mel Fisher’s “ Atochia “ shipwreck museum, sunset watching at Mallory Square, and then cheeseburgers at Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville Restaurant.

On the veranda at the Hemmingway house - Key West lighthouse in the background

Hemmingway's writing  studio

With our friends Jamie and Trish

Did I mention we stopped at the Southernmost Brewery?

Street artist on Mallory Square

Key West sunset

  Drove back to Marathon and spent the night on “About Time”. They are staying at Marlin Bay Resort and Marina which is first class.  Next time around we’ll make a point of staying there.   Got to see a batch of  Iguana’s sunning themselves on one of the rock break walls. Reminded me of a recent cold snap we had in Ft. Myers where the news channel kept reminding people to watch out for “falling Iguana’s”. Apparently they can get too cold, go stiff and drop out of the trees.

Soaking up the sun and scenery

Pretty darn ugly looking critters

Marlin Bay Resort and Marina - sweet accommodations for a layover.

Back to Ft Myers the next day.  When looking at things around Florida City when we arrived I came across something called the Coral Castle.  On our way back through we stopped for a visit.  Very unusual.  Constructed over a period from 1923 to 1951 by a single person – Ed Leedskalin - using huge blocks of coral limestone.   If you dig 6” under the top soil there’s a solid coral limestone layer that runs all the way from there to Ft. Lauderdale.  Ed figured a way to cut huge blocks, remove them and position them to form his structure and gardens. All without the use of any power tools – just simple hand tools.  He said he learned the secrets of the pyramid building Egyptians. There’s all sorts of speculation about how he did it, but he never documented it and no one ever saw him actually doing the work.  Mysticism, levitation, magic, aliens all have their believers.  

Ed used to charge 10 cents to visit the park - a bit more now!!

We got back to Ft. Myers with another big festival happening at Centennial Park.  This one was to celebrate Fat Tuesday with bands and music.   We were too tired to check it out firsthand but listened to the music wafting our way on the evening breeze as we relaxed on the back deck.   Fun couple of days.

End of another day

Sunsets in Ft. Myers are still pretty awesome.