Leaving the Keys

Eden House Hotel

We got up and went for coffee at a bakery a block away from the hotel.  Had pastry and espresso drinks, which were not great but were not horrible.  Then we packed and headed by car over to the Ernest Hemingway house for a tour. We had a hard time finding parking, but finally got it figured out.  It was fun.  The gardens were all planted since 2000 but looked great. I got a t shirt with a six toed cat on it.

Hemingway Office

We walked back over to Duval, bought a pretty shirt for me that we saw the day before, and had more espresso and pastry, this time at a French Bakery. Both were better than the morning fare. 

Then we left Key West.  We stopped at Bahia Honda State Beach.  It was a beautiful beautiful beach.  We walked out on the old bridge and looked down and saw two sharks and a sea turtle.  The sea turtle was huge.  Seeing the sharks made me not want to go snorkeling, but besides that, the good snorkeling seemed to be accessible only by taking a boat out, guided by a concessionaire, to a nearby key.  Because it was Veterans Day, the entrance fee was waived.  Some American people and many Germans and French.  We went in the water, which seemed a bit tame because no waves! Then we set off.

Bahia Honda

Betsy the Giant Lobster

We stopped to find the giant lobster, which was quite impressive.  We almost missed it again, but Neil spotted it.  Later he looked it up on the internet and found that it was named Betsy, and it was art. We stopped at Cafe Mocha again, had good coffee and then headed out of the keys to Delray beach. I worked on this blog in the car because I had gotten behind.  Neil witnessed some crazy driving, but thankfully, my head was down. 

The last time we were in Florida, 2001, we had gone out to eat in Delray beach for Irv's (Neil's father) birthday.  We remembered it being very crowded with some kind of festival.  This time as we drove into town on Atlantic Ave, it was also very crowded with a ton of restaurants and clothing stores and bars.  It was kind of reminiscent of Orange County in a way.  Our hotel was between the intracoastal and the beach and was kind of 60s.  They were doing some work on it. They upgraded us to a suite, which was huge, but a bit on the dingy side.  It also had a door connecting it to another room, through which you could hear everything.  Although i was put off by the suite, we ended up sleeping really well.  You could open the windows and the bed was huge. There was a very unlikeable and disagreeable couple checking in right before us.  She was actually wearing a Lilly Pullitzer dress, and i noticed there was a Pullitzer store on the main drag.  I didn't realize that was still a thing.  We walked down to the beach and ate at a sports bar type place.  People smoked outside, so we moved our table indoors.  Then we walked around.  There was a huge resort hotel around the block from us on the main drag with live music and a roaring over 50s pick up scene.  Lots of the clothing shops were still open or just closing at 8 or 9.  Neil had what was advertised to be gelato, but was actually ice cream.