We flew down to Fort Lauderdale Sunday morning. The flight was good, but I had to sneak the penguin on in my backpack so they didn't put him in the cargo hold again. Then we had a 4 hour long drive down to Key West. The scenery was good, but we were anxious to get there!
Sunday night, we went down to Mallory Square for the sunset celebration, and there was a guy there with his trained cats. (If you look closely at the left hand side of the picture, you can see Brian standing off to the side. He had a lighter, so he got to light the hoop.)
On Monday we went out on a sailboat and kayaked and snorkeled. (After learning he couldn't eat the fish, the penguin elected to be a beach bum.) While kayaking, we saw a sawtooth shark, then while snorkeling, we saw a nurse shark. The boat trip was probably the best thing in the whole vacation. I took pictures on a waterproof camera that we need to get developed, so I'll have to post those pics later.
On Tuesday we did all the touristy stuff in Key West. First, we went to the Butterfly Conservatory. Who's that on the bench?: It's kinda hard to tell, but there were butterflies everywhere!
Then we went to Ernest Hemingway's House. This is the penguin with Joan Crawford, a six toed direct descendant of Hemingway's original cats:
Then we wandered down Duval street, in and out of galleries, and stopped for some conch fritters:
Then we went to the Pirate Soul Museum, where they don't allow photography. It was still really cool!
Then we went to the aquarium. They give guided tours where they actually feed the fish and sharks, so we waited around outside with the characters from the Shipwreckers Museum:
I had to remind the penguin yet again not to eat the fish while in the aquarium, no matter how big and tasty they looked:
At that point, we had been walking all day and we were beat, so we got supper and went to bed.
Wednesday morning, we had some coffee, then drove 8 hours to Bradenton.
We spent the next two days with my grandparents, playing shuffleboard and cards and such. We did stop off for some more beach time on Friday though!
It was still really cool!
