Warning – There are a TON of pictures of Key West! I went a little crazy since it was so beautiful!

Ah… freezing cold Ohio… got to love it.  I really, really, really miss the warm 80 degrees that we had in Florida.  My parents and I were in Florida for almost 2 weeks and it was lovely.  We drove down which is mostly why it took almost 2 weeks, but it was a fun car ride.  We enjoy traveling and road trips are always an adventure with my parents.  Scott stayed home with the animals for 2 weeks.  I don’t know who missed me more – Bentley or Scott. I got numerous texts and pictures from both of them while I was gone.

I am going to break up the vacation pictures into a couple of different posts because there are a million pictures… alright… not a million, but pretty darn close to it! I had my big girl camera down there that I have for weddings. I usually do not take that camera with me, but the big girl back up camera is what I normally take. I figured for Key West and the gorgeous sunsets and sunrises I would want the big camera.  I also had my little point and shoot, my video camera and my phone… yeah.. a lot of pictures were taken!  We also spent a week in Disney – that is mostly why the vacation post is being broken up into multiple posts because I have a ton of disney pictures. I have really only gone through the pictures that were off my big camera, I haven’t even touched my little camera yet. I was going to look through the parades and fireworks on the video camera last night to show Scott, but that didn’t happen. I know he is just dying to see the electric light parade!

So here is Key West in a nutshell.

The first evening we were there we just wondered around – our hotel was about a block from Duval Street and 2 blocks from the southern point.  It was a great location. One of the things I loved about the atmosphere of Key West was that everything was within walking distance.  Everyone had bikes they rode around on or just walked everywhere.  There were a ton of local artists around too which is always exciting.  I love purchasing local artist items and did so on this trip. They are some of my favorite souvenirs to take home, since they are one of a kind.  I will go more into detail on those exciting purchases in another post next week.

The next couple of days we just wondered around Key West enjoying everything that was there.  We went to Mallory Square during one day to check it out – that was a blast!  We also went to Key West Garden Club Martello Tower.  It was an old fortress that they turned into a garden.  It is all volunteer based and gorgeous!! They have weddings there too!  I think a wedding in Key west at the Martello Tower would be amazing – any brides want to take me up on the offer?

They have some of the best food in Key West as well.  We ate multiple times at Caroline’s that was on Duval street.  It was amazing.  I had a mahi mahi sandwich for lunch one day that was great. We went back there for dinner and I had a spicy chicken cajun pasta. It was amazing.  I did have some key lime pie… since you have to have some while down there. I can say I am not a huge fan of Key lime pie.  I think it is the fact that I want something that is sweet for a pie, and the pie was kind of tart. Oh well.  At least I tried it!   We stopped by Margaritaville, but didn’t eat there.  We have eaten at one several times in North Myrtle Beach so we figured we could forgo this adventure.  My mom and I did get Margaritas on Duval Street from Sloppy Joe’s which were great.  They had a little camera outside that was live – liveonduvalstreet.com  That is a fun thing! I called Scott to say hi to him while we were on it!  I just opened it up to look at it and it looks so warm there.. people walking around in shorts, tank tops, swimsuits.  Haha just right now while I was watching it two girls came up to it, one on her cell and they both waved at the camera! I think they are doing exactly what I was doing that evening!

We got to see some gorgeous sunsets – one by our hotel and another by mallory square.  We woke up early one morning to catch the sunrise at the end of the road by our hotel.  There are a lot of pelicans around and there was one that was pretty friendly in the morning that we did the sunrise pictures.  There were tons and tons of chickens and roosters running around Key West as well.  That was a whole other experience in itself with all the chickens running around.  There were some cute baby chicks running around too – they were adorable!! It made me want to come home and get chickens.

Alright – onto pictures.  There is a ton more I can tell you, but you can get the idea of the vacation over the next couple of blog posts through all the pictures!