On the Road Again

OK. So I was going to post each day as we go along our new adventure, but it didn't happen, so here is a catch up on where we have been, where we are and where we are going.

This is to be our South East tour of '08. We left home on Thursday, November 15 and headed south on I-95 for the Florida Keys. We stayed at Richmond Hills, GA (just South of Savannah) that night. RH is a standard stop for us when south bound to Florida. We stay at the same Hampton Inn each time and know the neighborhood pretty well. We always look for new dining adventures, though. This time we found an Scottish "Pub" near by that was really great. It has a nice homey feel with good food, friendly people and Guinness (yeah, I know that's not Scottish). They also have a darts area and the wall behind the bar is lined with single malt (mostly) Scotches. They had a complete list of them like a wine list. We passed on the Scotch and stuck with Guinness.

The next morning we got ready to set off and noticed the "wheel falling off" light (or is that the low tire pressure???) was lit. We couldn't tell which was the offending tire and none of them seemed to be leaking. We decided to give the local Lexus dealer a call and headed over there. It turned out it was the spare was just a bit low (how does that happen?), but it took us a couple hours between going back up to Savannah and waiting for the car. Fortunately, our second leg was not too long.

Next stop was Hallandale Beach just south of Ft. Lauderdale and about 10 miles north of Miami. We did end up having to go through Lauderdale during rush hour, but we made it. We ran over to a very nice Cuban restaurant and grabbed a couple of Cubano sandwiches and Dos Equis (XX) to go.

Next morning, we headed down the A1A (Coast) highway through Miami Beach and South Miami Beach. That was really a fun drive. We saw lots of interesting buildings and the renowned art deco architecture in South Beach. From there we picked up US 1 and headed south and west. It is about 123 miles from the Florida mainland to Key West (our destination) and that took us the better part of 3 hours. It was a very nice drive. The highway is called the Overseas Highway, and it lives up to its name. It just goes from island to island with frequent long causeways and bridges connecting them. One of those bridges is Seven Mile Bridge that was featured in the movie True Lies. Of course we stopped in Key Largo and took pictures of the inn where the great old Humphrey Bogart movie was shot.

We stayed in a Bed and Breakfast in Key West. It was very nice and our room had a veranda off of it that overlooked the street. Unfortunately, that street was US 1. Actually, it wasn't that bad as traffic dwindled to nothing by the time we would sit out there in the evening.

We spent Saturday evening through Tuesday morning in Key West. We walked everywhere. One of the main evening activities amongst the 20 and 30 somethings (and several folks who never out grew that) is to stroll Duval Ave with drink in hand stopping in at the nearest bar when said drink was gone for a refill. We did the stroll Saturday night, but without the drinks. Sunday we walked over to the Southernmost Point in the US and wandered back down town. Then we took a tour (the Conch Train) to see all the sights and get filled in on the architecture of the old town area. Sunday night we went on a sunset dinner cruise on a schooner that was fantastic. We actually saw a better sunset on Saturday night, but the cruise experience was awesome.

Monday we visited the Hemingway House and met several 6-toed cats that were descended from Earnest Hemingway's Snowball. It was very interesting to see his house and here some of the stories that went with it. Our tour guide was a character.

We also visited the Mel Fisher Museum*. It was very interesting to see all those artifacts from a couple of wrecks he found. One was the Nuestro Senora de Atoches which sank in the 1600s and was carrying a large amount of gold and silver. Some of the stuff in the collection was phenomenal.

From there we went on and did more wandering about. Grabbed a lunch of salad at an open air restaurant (among the chickens), got a couple of tats and headed back to our room at the B&B to rest before dinner. Before dinner, we walked over to the Old Town cemetery and wandered around a bit in there. The cemetery is about 2 square blocks and almost all the internments are above ground. It was quite an interesting place with many old graves from the mid 1800s. It was also interesting to see the mix of cultures and the different ways the inscriptions were done. For dinner, we went to a small restaurant in the Cuban section that was recommended by the woman at the B&B. It was a fairly small place in the middle of the neighborhood and didn't really look like much. The food was great! We got there a little early, but by the time we left the place was packed with tourists and locals. We had so much food we had to take at least half of it (except for the key lime pie) with us.

Tuesday, we reluctantly packed up and headed out. Our time in Key West was great. The weather was beautiful the whole time (we did have some sprinkles briefly on Sunday) with highs around 80 and lows around 70. We headed back up US 1 to the Florida Turnpike to Orlando and on over to DeBary to our usual Hampton where we stay when visiting Vikky and her family. That is where we are now.

We visited with Lorraine and Wyatt all day (I played a couple of console video games with Wyatt). Then we went out to dinner to celebrate Mary's birthday. Tomorrow, we head over to Erik's folks for a big Thanksgiving dinner.

Friday we are planning on going to Silver Springs. Saturday we will head west along the Gulf Coast getting to New Orleans on Sunday. After two or three days there we will head up to Natchitoches for a day or two, then... Who knows???

* Yes, I know there is some controversy about what he does, etc.