In this trip journal entry, I take my family on a quick weekend trip down the Florida Keys, focusing on Key West, but stopping at Islamorada.
Saturday, January 7th, 2023
I was driving late at night through some forgettable place when fatigue hit, so I pulled into a truck stop for what Taco Bell might call “fourthmeal.” The café offered a questionable selection: sad, pre-made sandwiches, a mysterious short-order cook without a menu, and iced tea. I settled for the iced tea, grabbed a styrofoam cup, and headed to the cashier.
Paying for my “meal” turned into an interrogation. The cashier asked for my email, if I wanted life insurance, home insurance, a home warranty, and just about every other service I never knew I didn’t need. After declining all these offers for what felt like an eternity, I was given an absurdly high total. I handed over my credit card, watching in horror as the cashier slid it into a sketchy machine beneath the counter and tapped away like he was hacking into the Pentagon. I was convinced my identity was being stolen right before my eyes.
As I left the counter, I spotted a plastic “thermos” style mug labeled repeatedly with “ANALYST” in big, 1980’s font. In a moment of impulsive rebellion, I ditched the styrofoam cup for the mug, stealthily making the swap unnoticed. I also grabbed a few extra bags of cookies, because why not?
While waiting for whatever mystery food I’d ordered, I fired up my laptop and connected to their unencrypted Wi-Fi. Against my better judgment, I hacked into their Oracle-based point-of-sale system, which was surprisingly well-funded for such a sketchy place. I pulled up my bill and saw they even tracked the ridiculous questions I’d been asked. This made me feel a little guilty about the extra cookies—though not guilty enough to return my new, retro ANALYST mug.
It was about that time that I woke up and saw that it was about 5:30 AM and I recalled that I was actually in Miami, Florida. It had been a short night–and not a super comfortable one, perhaps a contributing factor to the bizarre dream I’d just had.
I jumped in the shower. As I got ready to get in the shower, I read the news that Kevin McCarthy barely eked out the votes last night to become speaker of the house.
I jumped in the shower–it wasn’t a very good one, with a strange cloth shower curtain–I felt like there was some sort of vinyl that was supposed to be clipped onto the curtain that had been left off–though at least it was warm. I was out by about 6 AM. Alicia was snoozing her alarm after a long night of getting kicked by Andrew in her bed. (Our room had 2 queen sized beds in different rooms–it was a suite, and Alicia figured it would be easier to put him in bed than to try and figure out the pull-out sofa late last night.) Alicia jumped in the shower soon afterwards as I fired up my iPad and typed out this entry.
As Alicia worked on getting the kids ready, I brought some bags down to the car. Luckily we didn’t try to get out of the hotel earlier because a huge 18-wheeler Sysco foods truck was replenishing the hotel’s food supply as I brought bags down to the car. When we left the hotel, the 18-wheeler left right before us. The food was picked over at the hotel buffet, but I managed to locate a couple of Otis Spunkmeyer muffins that we grabbed for the car. As we got in, Andrew told us that he was hungry. When I offered him a muffin, he balked at the blueberry flavor of the muffins. He ultimately decided to have one, but told us that he would “avoid the blueberries.”
We then went to a nearby Chick-Fil-A (3995 NW 107th Ave, Doral, FL 33178) where we got breakfast–10 Chick-n-Minis, Alicia got her burrito, and we decided to try the regional 4-count Chorizo Egg Bites, which was not an option available to us in Texas at our Chick-Fil-As. We were getting our food in the drive thru at 7:32 AM.
As we drove down to Homestead, my friend and old co-worker Bill called and we chatted for a few minutes. We then arrived at Wal-Mart (13600 SW 288th St, Homestead, FL 33033) and Alicia remained in the car with Allison and Andrew while I ran in to select underwear as I had somehow forgotten all of mine at home. After searching all over the store for a decent pair of underwear (they had them spread out over like 3 aisles of the men’s apparel section), I was in line at 8:10 AM waiting for the cashier to check me out with two “Pair of Thieves” underwear in hand. It took forever to get checked out. I got behind some extremely poor lady who obviously didn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. She tried to get $10 back (I don’t think she could afford to get $20 in cash, which was the default option on the card reader) but was denied this request despite her three requests to do so in the “20 items or less” line. I think she had some kind of welfare card she was paying with. When I eventually got to check out, the cashier was pleasant, but her heavy, southern accent she spoke to me with was rather challenging for me to decode.
As I returned to the car, Alicia related her experience that she had while I was gone to me. Allison had a really gross poop that eked out of her diaper and got all over the place. 💩 Alicia spent the entire time that I was in Wal-Mart dealing with the cleanup of said diaper disaster. She then went into Wal-Mart because she now needed to wash her hands. She returned with a couple of Monster energy drinks in her possession as well. We were finally getting back on the road at 8:25 AM.
We were getting off of the Interstate (the Ronald Reagan Turnpike / Dixie Highway, I think) at 8:33 AM, getting on Highway 1. We then drove through Key Largo around 9 AM. We started to get the feeling for what the different keys were like. Key Largo looked very much like an old-school Destin-esque place. Islamorada looked a little more modern and spruced up but still felt “homey.”
Islamorada 🐟
We scoped out a couple of locations as we drove on Islamorada: There’s a place with a huge lobster out front that would be a fun picture, and there’s a store that looked promising–the Green Turtle Inn–whose signage boasted some nice brands, including Patagonia and Vineyard Vines.
We stopped at Robbie’s (77522 Overseas Hwy, Islamorada, FL 33036) at 9:35 AM to stretch our legs and check it out, as it had received good reviews online. After using the restroom, we poked around the premises. Robbie’s almost felt like a little village of gift shops and a restaurant. It was homey but nice. There was a number of opportunities to do boat rental stuff which we didn’t take advantage of, but the main attraction was feeding the Tarpons.
It cost $2.50 per person (Allison was free) plus $5 per bucket of 6 fish to feed the tarpons. We promptly went into the feeding area and I volunteered to feed the tarpons first. I did the first one by putting my hand pretty much in the water and it took a minute for the tarpons to find my presence, but when they did, BAM–one jumped up and grabbed the fish in a shocking, memorable manner. (You were convinced that the giant fish was going to swallow your entire arm whole. It was unnerving and exciting.) We then asked Andrew if he wanted to try. He quickly “NOPED” out and focused on (rather unsuccessfully) scaring away the pelicans who were trying to poach fish from the tourists. Andrew tried his best to scare off the proactively poaching pelicans.
So, Alicia and I decided for me to do 3 fish and for her to do 3 fish. My second fish got poached by a pelican (due to it sneaking up behind me, and Andrew and Alicia not telling me or managing to scare the damned bird off), and then my third fish was super memorable. Holding the fish above the water, the tarpon missed the first time, but got the fish the second time. I got a good view of how big a tarpon’s mouth was–big enough for my head to go into the mouth of the fish.
Alicia then had her three feedings of the fish. Alicia said that “she really felt the tarpon on her hand when they grabbed the first and third of her fish.” It was a fun stop.
We then went back to the gift shop and purchased our planned purchases–Alicia got a sticker sheet for $5.99, and I got a laser-etched magnet that said “I fed the Tarpon” for $8.99. (An expensive magnet, for sure, but this stlye of magnet is always really nice…)
Before we left Robbie’s, we returned to the restrooms to wash our hands. We then left Robbie’s after getting the kids in the car at 10:39 AM.
We arrived at the “Welcome to Marathon” buoy sign at 11:00 AM. The Duck Key area looked really nice as we passed it.
We got on the 7 mile bridge at 11:20 AM and we passed “Pigeon Key” on the 7 mile bridge at 11:23 AM. It looked interesting because it looked nice but only accessible by boat. As we drove by “Fred the Tree,” (the most famous landmark on the 7 mile bridge) I took a picture. Fred was still decorated for Christmas.
Andrew said “hello” from the back seat to Fred.
Key West
The trip was long, but it was an enjoyable drive. We arrived on Key West at about 12:15 PM. As we arrived on the island, Alicia related a story to me about the newly wed couple that was on our flight to Miami yesterday. Before they got on the plane, Alicia overheard the couple. One said to the other:
“Do you want a Starbys?”
She responded, “You know, I could really go for a Starbys.”
They were referring to getting coffee at Starbucks. Jeez… what a doofie thing to say.
As we pulled onto the island, we discussed places that we could park at. I did a Google search and located a parking garage owned by the City of Key West at 300 Grinnell St #236, Key West, FL 33040. We drove there, and arrived at 12:27 PM. It cost $5 to park per hour, and we figured that 4 hours sounded about correct for the time of parking that we’d need. So, we ended up paying $20 and walking to the Duvall St. Area. We walked around the area and took a few selfies.
Sloppy Joe’s Bar
We eventually arrived at Sloppy Joe’s Bar (201 Duval St, Key West, FL 33040). It was packed. I told Alicia though that we should really try to get a table, as I always wanted to go to Sloppy Joe’s. I managed to find a table fairly quickly, though it was right by the guy playing live music. The music was rather loud, and just under the stage-left speakers. This threw Andrew off. As we were seated, a server approached our table and mentioned that there was a more quiet room in the back of the restaurant, behind the stage. It sounded like there was room in this room, so we packed the family up (along with the double stroller, which was a challenge to get into the restaurant in the first place) and went to the back room. The back room was teeny tiny and only a couple of high-top tables–both of which were full of people.
We walked back outside, dejected. (I looked around for something that might be able to lighten my mood, perhaps a “starbys.”) I figured our tables in front of the stage had been taken. However, we were able to secure the same table again. We had a seat and the same waitress that told us about the back room returned to the table and we told her about our experience in the back room. She offered the kids earplugs, though we told her that it wouldn’t be necessary.
For our meal, we ended up getting:
- Drink: A frozen “pain in the ass” – This was a Rum Runner and Pina Colada frozen “swirl” type drink.
- My Meal: The famous Sloppy Joe. I always wanted to have this here.
- Alicia’s Meal: Fish tacos with corn tortillas
- Andrew’s Meal: Cheese Pizza. We also got Allison and Andrew a virgin strawberry daiquiri.
The fried fish in Alicia’s taco were big, chunky, and tender. The corn tortillas were very dry and brittle, though. The slaw was just okay and the salsa was basically chunky tomato. Alicia said she would probably not get them again. Andrew’s cheese pizza was okay–nothing to write home about. But my sloppy joe was great–unlike any other I’d had before. It was more of a tomato base, which almost had more of an Italian food type taste to it, compared to what I was accustomed to. We all enjoyed our drinks although Andrew was fussy about the cherries that arrived in his drink. (We gladly relocated those cherries to our drinks, and Allison enjoyed munching on them as well.)
While I was eating my sandwich, I managed to get it all over me–my shirt and my pants. This really wasn’t my fault. The sandwich was served of wax paper, which the sloppy joe had soaked through, but the sandwich was served in a basket with square holes on the side, which then made its way onto my shirt and pants–all in one go. The server was kind enough to bring us some soda water to help clean my shirt quickly. (The soda water seemed to do a good job in cleaning me up.). Then, Andrew managed to knock his plasticware off of the table onto my shorts and my lap, getting more sauce on my pants. I was able to use the extra napkins and soda water again to clean his pants up.
After we were done with lunch, we finished up and started towards the Mel Fisher Museum, which was only about a block away. As we walked over, we made one stop at the Kino Sandals store in Kino Square and tempted ourselves with some of their sandals. We didn’t ultimately get anything, though Alicia was tempted to get the special “Halloween” ones.
The Mel Fisher Museum ⚓️
We then walked to the nearby Mel Fisher museum. We got in, paid for admission, and began our self-guided tour. The museum experience starts with a video describing the life and history of Mel Fisher–from his early life in Indiana, to him locating the wreck of the Atocha, to his death. It was an interesting little video–I didn’t really know much about the Atocha or treasure hunters before I arrived at the museum.
The most interesting things in the museum were the items that were salvaged from the Atocha. My favorite artifact was probably the green emerald cross, which historians believe was to be a gift to the pope upon it’s arrival back in Europe. The exhibits displayed some of the treasures that were recovered from the wreck, but also described the history behind the jewelry and how the loss of these treasures hurt Spain. The entirety of the downstairs area was dedicated to these exhibits. The upstairs of the museum had a room that discussed conservation of artifacts as well as the description of how they’d find a rock, x-ray it, remove the original metal from the rock, and re-assemble the rock to build an injection molding that would let them re-create the artifact very authentically.
Next to that room was another exhibit that was dedicated to another wreck that Mel Fisher found–however, it wasn’t a treasure ship, rather a slave ship. It showed some artifacts from the slave ship, but also had some exhibits discussing the history of slavery and slave ships.
Finally, at the end of the museum there was a small exhibit that described Key West in the Cuban Missile crisis, with some artifacts about the situation.
We went down to the Mel Fisher museum gift shop and did a little bit of shopping. As we shopped, the lady behind the desk gave Andrew a bag of “treasure” (plastic gems) and Allison a small pirate rubber duckie. We admired the HUGE Pete the Cat doll for sale ($80) but ended up getting a small ($20) Pete the Cat plush for Allison, as she was instantly obsessed with it.
We were finishing up at the museum at 3:24 PM. As we walked out in front, I checked out the artifacts on display out front of the museum, including two anchors recovered from the Atocha and a refugee raft constructed from metal barrels welded together. The raft arrived in Key West 2 months after the last (and our first) time that Alicia and I had visited the island.
Mallory Square
We then walked around the Mallory Square area. We walked around the art and history museum (the old customs building), looking for the Matisse “Dance” sculpture we’d seen last time we were there, but it was no longer there. I asked about the statue in the art museum, but the lady in the gift shop told me that there had been other statues on display behind the museum over the past, but they had rotated them and changed them over the years, and that she didn’t know what the fate of the dance sculpture was.
We then shopped around the Mallory square area. The most notable thing that I saw while we were shopping was actual jewelry that was recovered from the Atocha at The Shops at Mallory Square. We saw a really cute looking Conch Fritters stand (Key West Conch Fritters) and decided to get 6 fritters for the family at 3:43 PM. Alicia had to bring Andrew to the restroom, so I ate my conch fritters first. Allison was very interested in the conch fritters, while Andrew wasn’t so much.
After our little snack, we stuck our head in the sponge factory and did a little shopping. We then walked through the Key West Historic Memorial Sculpture Garden (401 Wall St, Key West, FL 33040) and re-assessed how much time we had left. We had just under half an hour left on our parking, but we figured if we could book it down to Mile Marker 0, we’d be able to get our photo opportunity in before heading back to the car.
Mile Marker 0
So, we walked quickly down to mile marker 0. Here’s a few snapshots from our quick walk to the mile marker, including an impressive addition to my ever-growing “Social Distancing” picture collection. When we arrived, a few Asian Instagrammers were doing peace sign poses with no smile on their face and taking forever. When they were done, we jumped in and did our best to get a selfie as quickly as we could. I also took pictures of Alicia and Andrew with my SLR. Andrew didn’t disappoint here–he parodied the Asian instagrammers by throwing up a peace sign and putting his knee in the air–just like the Asian Instagrammers. It was hilarious. We then did our best to get back to the car as quickly as we could.
We ended up arriving back at the car at 4:43 PM, about 5-10 minutes after our parking had expired. I was happy to see that our car did not have a parking ticket. We jumped in our rental car. As we did, I reviewed the pictures that we took with the selfie camera and saw that the mile marker 0 sign with Allison had been covered up with her head. Frustrated, we decided to return to the mile marker.
Once we did, we secured a parking space nearby for $2.50 for 30 minutes. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, Allison was passed out. I started to set up the iPhone camera when a lady behind us offered to take our picture with the Mile Marker sign. She took this picture of all of us.
Quite satisfied with the result, we walked across the street to one of the gift shops–“End of the Road” – 405 Fleming St, Key West, FL 33040 – caddy corner from the sign we were at–and poked around the store for a few minutes. Andrew ran around the store hyperactively making raspberry noises with his tongue, despite our effort to get him to calm down. So, we returned to the car.
Planning on taking a few more pictures before sunset, we drove past the “Southernmost Point” of the continental United States. Not only was the line super long, I noticed that the lighting wasn’t super ideal for the shot. So, we planned on returning to the Southernmost Point tomorrow morning.
Hogfish Bar & Grill
We were starting to get hungry, so we drove over to Hogfish Bar & Grill (6810 Front St, Stock Island, FL 33040). It was on Stock Island, so we had to temporarily leave Key West to get there. It billed itself as “A great place, if you can find it.” We found this to be true, as locating the restaurant amongst a bunch of RV and trailer parks on Stock Island wasn’t super easy. Once we got there, it looked busy but we managed to find somewhere to park and checked in. We could see the pretty sunset over the restaurant as we walked in.
We’d expected a wait, but were happy to learn that we were able to be seated immediately. We were served by a woman with an unusual accent who was very nice. (I couldn’t place her accent–perhaps New Zealand?) After looking over the menu:
- We decided on getting an Appetizer: Island Coconut Shrimp with Sweet Chili Sauce ($19)
- Alicia and I were in the mood for a drink, so we got the Stock-Rock Rum Punch (Dark and white rums, pomegranate liqueur, apricot nectar, pineapple juice, and a dark rum float.). This was boozy. ($14)
- Alicia and I split the Hogfish Sandwich with fried hogfish. The hogfish sandwich was described as “smothered with Swiss Cheese, Onions, and Mushrooms on fresh Cuban bread. (We kind of wished we’d gotten blackened.) ($22)
- Andrew got a fried shrimp kid’s meal for his main dish. Cocktail sauce came with his dish and he didn’t waste any time in using the sauce to dip his shrimp. He got a generous portion of the cocktail sauce on a piece of shrimp, took a big bite, recoiled, grimaced, and rapidly stated “This is the worst ketchup I’ve ever tasted!” 🍤 🍤 🍤
- Allison got the kid’s mac and cheese for her main dish.
- For dessert, we all split a slice of Key Lime Pie, which was delicious.
It was on the expensive side (I think the bill after tip came out to around $100) but we felt it was worth it. There was live music starting as we were wrapping up our meal which Andrew enjoyed dancing to. Unfortunately, at about the same time, Mosquitoes started to eat us alive. We were leaving the restaurant at 6:59 PM. As we did, we saw that the restaurant had gotten very busy. We had arrived at the restaurant at a good time.
We then drove to the hotel (Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Key West at the Keys Collection – 3852 N Roosevelt Blvd, Key West, FL 33040). When we arrived, we were able to get a great parking spot right by the lobby and checked into the hotel. The gentleman that checked me in upgraded us to a 2-queen room (as he said the king room sofa bed was extremely uncomfortable) and gave us room 212. He also told us about the hourly free shuttle to downtown / Mallory Square area from the hotel, which would have been really nice to know about earlier in the day–oh well, we know about it for next time. They had free slushies in the lobby (I had a little strawberry slushie and some water) before we went to our room.
The hotel property was nice and picturesque–especially for a Fairfield Inn. (I didn’t see an option for a “Starbys” nearby, though.) We were at our room at 7:15 PM. Our room faced the small pool, which was very pretty, but we didn’t take advantage of it (despite having bathing suits with us.) Andrew played like he was a frog jumping around the hotel room.
We were exhausted from the day. I got cleaned up with Andrew and got ready for the evening. Unfortunately, the bathtub and sink in the room drained extremely slowly, so despite my desire to take a shower and Andrew’s desire to take a bath, in some messed-up way, both of us were satiated.
Allison enjoyed running full-throttle into my chest, slamming into me, falling back on the floor, getting up, and doing the same thing over and over again–laughing harder each time she did it. We eventually all went to bed at 8:44 PM. Allison wasn’t happy about going to bed and cried loudly for about 5 minutes as we got in bed. Alicia had taken the light-blocking sheet (designed for pack and plays) and stretched it out around the large, metal crib that the hotel provided for Allison. The final result was a vertically oriented dome-like structure, which I coined “the Allie-dome.”
After we were all in bed and happy, we all passed out after a long day.
Winners of the day:
- The Tarpon Feeding was trippy yet fun. You really felt like you were going to lose your hand to one of those things.
- The Mel Fisher Museum was pretty cool. The artifacts on display were pretty incredible. I especially enjoyed reading about how they get metal artifacts out of the rock that forms over them.
- The Weather was very cooperative.
It’s hard to think of highlights of the day because there were so many. We agreed that we’d do this trip again–even with the long car trip.
Losers of the day:
- The challenge and cost of parking around Duvall street / Mallory Square area in Key West.
- The mosquitos at the Hogfish Bar & Grill
- My clothing at sloppy joes. As Alicia said, I was a “sloppy joe at sloppy joe’s, eating a sloppy joe.” 🙄
- The expensive prices in general of Key West, but that’s to be expected.
- The drain of the bathtub and the sink in the hotel room. We didn’t fully appreciate how bad it was until late at night, but both barely drained and were in dire need of service.
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