Key West Adventure

Key West Adventure 

Monday November 13, 2023

This morning after much procrastination, we got it together after a late breakfast. Gathering information for the bus to go into key west. We packed what we thought we needed, mainly water, and went into the office here and talked to Heidi,  after calling her first. 

She gave us more information. We thought we could get on a bus here, but after talking with her, we decided to drive the truck up to the Winn-Dixie and park it there. A bus would pick us up across the road going to Key West for only $2 a person one way. 

Once we arrived at the parking lot at the Winn-Dixie we saw a lot of speed boats packing up from this past week's race. Then we walked across the road.

 It was very hot and sunny, so I waited under a shade tree and we only waited about a half an hour till the bus showed up. It was a great drive about 2 hours long to get into key west.

Nice view of water while on the bus.

There was a couple that came on, I wanted to talk to, he had a Delaware shirt on. Jim tried to stifle it for now. There was a few characters on the bus. A young guy with a Styrofoam cooler got on. He almost immediately started talking to Jim. You could tell he was drinking or smoking weed, or both. He was very nice and from Key West. But you could tell he was on something. He was telling us places to go and things to do. And how not to get arrested, OK, Told Jim he was jealous of his hair. Took off his hat and he was bald, but had a beard. Nice kid. You could tell the guy in the Delaware shirt was a little annoyed by him I think. 

We drove quite a long time, finally we were on the 7 mile bridge, and glad we got to see it. 

We did pass the other Encore Park in our Thousand Trails membership. Sunshine Key. 

We talked to a couple later staying there.

Then the bus pulled over and the young guy said the driver was going to take a break. So we briefly stopped for a good 10-15 minutes waiting for the driver. Meanwhile we met character number 2, a guy also probably drinking. But super nice and gave us a list of places that are the only must see touristy places in Key West area. I did write some down, one was this Butterfly Place. Then he left. A couple minutes later he came back and said oh I forgot one more thing and proceeded to tell us of some other location to visit. Which I think was a bar with half price booze and appetizers. Shocker

I guess this is a security picture that I took of us on the bus. So funny

Long story short Jim wasn't that impressed with Key West. It was a little dirtier than we expected. Nobody cleaned up at least where we were. We did get to see the southernmost point.

Saw the couple from the bus. Said HI, You have to get inline to get a quick picture. We didn't.

Took a picture of a beautiful Church.

 There was rental bicycles, golf carts and scooters everywhere. A lot of it looked pretty unsafe. We did enjoy seeing the water and this big cruise ship looks like it just left port. 

We found a place for lunch that was called Caroline's. We shared a turkey club sandwich, with fries and  a southwest salad. I thought it was good, we were pretty hungry by now. Jim wasn't as happy with it. It seemed a little dirty in there.

The other thing about Key West is there's chickens everywhere. Which I had also heard, but forgot about till you started seeing them everywhere. We all know how dirty they can be. 

 There was one right there in the restaurant under a table. He just looked like a stressed out City chicken.

We did stop briefly at this Butterfly Place. It was recommended by  character number 2 on the bus. I went in and checked it out, but should do it earlier in the day. Jim wasn't really into it.

We were going to stay for the sunset when we were looking at the water. But it was almost an hour away, so we decided to start walking toward the bus stop pickup, to head back.

 Long story short we walked and walked. Eventually a bus had stopped, very condescendingly he told us that  bus went by an hour ago. Like we should know that. Really set Jim off, he wasn't too happy. Also in pain from walking. 

We went a little farther, and eventually we're picked up. We walked over 3 Miles today which I really enjoyed, him not so much. 

Guess who was on the bus? NO.  The couple I originally wanted to talk to. Bus was pretty full, I had to sit next to, Bill. We chatted NOW. They are work campers. She did said the guy earlier was helpful though. 

Unfortunately the bus ride home you couldn't see anything, but it went very quick. 

When we arrived at Winn-Dixie we went into the store for a few grocery items. And then headed home, but this time it was way after 9:30 p.m.. 

did get a great Sunset picture with palm trees as we were walking towards the bus earlier.