Thursday, September 27, 2007

Key West -- the isle of cats and chickens

So I have a piece of advice regarding vacations: Don't plan more than 2-3 meetings, appointments, or otherwise un-missable events for the week that you return. You won't breathe, sleep, knit, or talk to friends/spouse. You will end up grumpy and stretched too thin and feel more than moderately insane, which stinks since you were just on vacation to stop feeling insane.

Yes, I did all of the above. Hence, my advice not to do that. LOL

The trip, though, was wonderful. Dan and I were in Key West for 6 days (although about a day or so was taken up with the actual traveling). We flew into Miami Airport, and drove through the keys on Rte 1, all the way to Key West. We got lucky... the rental place upgraded us to a convertible for no extra charge! It was a great way to begin....

We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast called the Island City House. They own six really cute cats, most of which were very friendly and loved to be petted by the guests. This lil guy was my favorite. His eyes look soo much like Puss n Boots from Shrek II; the pic doesn't show it that well, but they were HUGE green eyes!


The hotels's cats weren't the only ones; Hemmingway had a house on the island, and kept many cats. I guess his cats had many kittens, for there are lots of cats running the island. And chickens, but history says the chickens were brought from Cuba in the earlier days of the island's history. The chickens are hysterical; they just run wild, cock-a-doodle-dooing where ever they please. No one owns them, per se, and it's illegal to hurt them in any way.


Thursday night, we opted for a sunset sail aboard the Liberty Schooner. The sunset was so-so; half obscured by patchy black clouds and not all that vibrant. But the crew was wonderful, the sailboating was neat (I've never been on one before), and ..... I got to "drive"!! Yes, the captain said anyone who wished could "man the wheel" for a bit. Not only did I do it, but I got to yell commands to the crew while doing so, in order that the sails would catch more wind. My next career? No. But it was fun that once!


Friday Dan and I went snorkeling. It was pretty neat; we saw a lobster, and a moray eel (Dan said most scuba divers don't even get to see them the way we did 'cuz they often hide in caves), barracuda, and lots of pretty colorful fishies. Unfortunately, there were quite a few jelly fish, and we opted to get out of the water rather than get stung. And my pictures didn't turn out all that great. Bummer. It's harder than you'd think to take a picture of a fish when you are being moved about by waves, and the fish are moving in currents below you.

Those are the highlights. In between and afterward there was shopping, terrific seafood, some enjoyment of the late-night scene, and a few beaches. It was a great trip!

3 comments:

reluctantMANGO said...

Yay! I'm so glad you had a good time, even if the re-entry was a bit rough :) I don't think I've met a single person who doesn't love Key West!

Sarah said...

Seems like a fun trip - I like the roaming chickens and cats. More places should be like that!

I also really like the dress you're wearing in the boat picture, the colors are so cool!

vbjenn said...

I am SOOOO jealous... but glad that you enjoyed yourself. Hopefully the restful attitude that you went looking for will return to you soon.