Ahhh, the Keys. Well, who am I kidding? The islands in general. I’m a sucker for them, have been my whole life, dating back to when my parents took me all over the Caribbean as a kid.

We went to Florida to visit my parents because we didn’t make it down for the holidays, so we went as soon as we could sneak a week or two away. I realized we had a few days in a row that were free, and somehow I talked Matt into heading down to the Keys for a few days. I managed to find us a hotel about half an hour north of Key West – hotels there are prohibitively expensive – and booked it. We were going!

We got up early-ish, loaded our stuff in the car, and headed south.

I’d researched somewhere to stop for lunch and landed on Lazy Days, a place on Islamorada that was supposed to be the best this and that in the upper Keys. It did NOT disappoint. Matt and I each had a different fish sandwich, which were both amazing, and the hurricane I had was also delicious. The location and the atmosphere was also pretty awesome. The restaurant was right on a beach, and we practically had our toes in the sand while we ate fresh fish. The views were to die for, and the pelicans hanging out at the end of the dock near the restaurant were fun to watch for a bit.

We continued on our drive, stopping at Seven Mile Bridge next. For all the times I’d been to the Keys, we’d never actually stopped and walked on it. We ended up walking all the way to Pigeon Key, a little museum a mile or two out the old bridge that had to do with the old railroad that used to run down the length of the Keys. It took us a little while to walk out and back, but it was a beautiful day and it was nice to get out of the car for a bit. We even got to see some stingrays just under the water while we were walking!

When we got back to the car, we jumped across the street to the Sunset Grille, where we grabbed a drink and killed a little more time before continuing on to our hotel.

We checked in to our hotel – Looe Key Reef Resort – and found our room. It was nice and comfortable, and even had a little area out the back door with a couple of chairs that over looked the canals. Super pretty!

We stopped by the lobby a bit later to ask about snorkeling trips, and signed up for one the next morning. While we were there, the person working recommended Kiki’s Sandbar for dinner. It was super close, and it had live music. Dinner was delicious, the drinks were good, the food was better, the live music was pleasant and the sunset was awesome. A great way to end the evening.

The next morning, we went to the little sandwich shop/grocery/drugstore that had also been recommended to us for breakfast. Our snorkeling trip was at 8:00 am, so we had to get some food before we went. The little place – Five Brothers Two – was cool, and they even had crab claws for sale which looked delicious, but not so much for breakfast… We got breakfast sandwiches and Cuban coffees and took them back to our hotel and ate out on our little back deck as the sun came up.

We sat there eating, looking down at the boat parked behind the hotel, the one we assumed we would be taking on our snorkeling trip, and it was oddly quiet. Even a few minutes before our trip was supposed to start, it was empty. Weird. We went down to the lobby, where we were told not enough people signed up and it wasn’t going to go. We were given the option to reschedule for the following morning, or get a refund, and we chose to try again tomorrow.

Great. Now what? We already had plans to head down to Key West for the evening, but we had a whole day before we wanted to head down there. We know better than to try to drink all day these days… So we headed down to Sombrero Beach on Marathon Key. That’s really the only REALLY nice beach in the Keys, and it was lovely to spend some time with the sand in our toes.

When we’d had enough, we went back to the hotel, showered, chilled out for a little bit, and drove down to Key West.

We got to the island, found a place to park, and started walking around. I had a loose idea of places I wanted to go, and first on the list was the Hemingway House. I’d always wanted to go and check it out and learn a bit about its history, and mostly, I wanted to see the six toed cats. They were SO cute! I mean, I love cats, so that helps, but… Anyway. We took the tour of the inside of the home, and it was cool to learn about some of the history of the home, but the cats are what really did it for me.

We wandered around for a while, looking at all the cool houses, and eventually went into Captain Tony’s Saloon, the Oldest Bar in Florida. There was a guy who happened to be from Dayton, OH, playing music, and we listened to him for a little bit while we sipped on some Coronas.

Finally, we moved on to watch the sunset at Mallory Square, swinging by The Smallest Bar to grab a drink to go on the way. We hung out there and watched the sun go down, and then made our way to Blue Heaven for dinner. The snapper I had was ah-may-zing!

After dinner, we wandered for another minute or two, found our car, and went back to the hotel.

The next morning, we saw activity on the boat behind the hotel early on, so we figured our snorkeling trip was on. We made sure our stuff was all packed up – we had to check out before the trip – and went to the lobby to wait to board the boat.

The boat took us out to a couple of different reefs so we could snorkel. I jumped in at the first one, which was pretty cool, lots of fish and coral to look at, but then I got super cold. I got out and warmed up on the boat, and of course Matt was the last one out of the water. We pulled up anchor and went to the second reef, where I stayed on board because I was still frozen, and Matt was once again the last one out of the water.

We headed back to land, changed our clothes, grabbed lunch at the tiki bar restaurant attached to the hotel, and headed back to my parents’ house. What a lovely few days!

Here’s the video: