Alarms were set for 8 again today to make it to an 8:30 hotel breakfast. Thankfully, Mom had started the laundry at that point too, and by the time I had finished breakfast they had our clean clothes ready and folded to pack away! Thanks Mom and Dad!
We headed back to the room and did some last minute packing and reorganization for our upcoming adventures. With a little time on our hands, we ended up doing some hair and makeup, too. See below for today's episode of Boy Meets Comb.
With that, we were in the car and on the road to our destination: Key West. But on the way there we had to stop for some provisions and supplies for the most adventurous part of our trip yet and perhaps ever: camping at a deserted island for a night. And this was how we planned to make the most of our time at Dry Tortugas National Park. Don't get me wrong, I was very excited to see some great stars and maybe do some snorkeling, but I was not sold on the camping and deserted island bits.
Anyway, we got to the Publix and picked up some subs for lunch as well as the aforementioned provisions. And only at that point did Gideon and Dad deign to mention we need to bring an extra day's food and water in case the ferry can't pick us up AND WE GET STUCK THERE. ON THE DESERTED ISLAND. YEAH. Yikes, I am scared.
We ate our lunches in the car and tried these peanut butter covered peanuts… DELICIOUS. All full and happy we began the true trip to Key West. This drive consisted of many many bridges and cute vacation towns. Dad drove so Mom could take in the sights, which may have been a good idea because we were driving through at low tide and Mom was not happy with the smell. There was gagging involved.
So, to keep ourselves busy, we read some google reviews about Dry Tortugas. 4.8 and beautiful reviews overall, but we like to read the negatives to get a little chuckle. One guy mentioned he disliked this park because he missed pizza and AC. Oh man, I could see my future already. We also checked the reviews on the hotel we were staying in that night. Again, a 4.3 and generally great reviews, but some people were angry. In fact, many of the reviews were complaints about the shower in the suite Mom and Dad were assigned. Lovely. The one night we were planning on showering. We will have to see how that goes.
We arrived nice and early at about 3:30 PM. There was only street parking, so it was gonna be really fun to reorganize and pack the whole car on the curb before our camping trip. And we checked out Mom and Dad's shower… yeah. Tiny. We offered to let them use ours and Mom took us up almost immediately.
At this point we took a little break to recover, and then decided to head to dinner in the downtown area of Key West: Duval street. We took an uber because parking is wild here and we weren't into a 20 minute walk when we were about to spend 24 hours outside. We went to a little pubby place that was actually pretty yummy. On the walk over from the Uber drop off, we saw some vibrant chicken souvenirs in a shop window and me and Mom knew we had to go in. It was fate.
As you may know, Key West has wild chickens that are just roaming everywhere. We have quite literally seen several chickens cross roads. And they are so lovely and cute and I absolutely love them. So does Mom.
We took our time perusing the shop and bought some small memorabilia and then headed to the restaurant, where the guy offered to let both me and Gideon drink underage and repeatedly called us gorgeous. Yeah, we're good, buddy. On both fronts.
We had a nice slow meal and the food was pretty good, so I was happy we chose the place we did. We certainly need to fill up, considering we will mostly be snacking for the next two days.
After dinner we wanted to do a little more walking around downtown, so Dad led us to the start of route 1. We got some fun pictures with the sign then decided it was time to head back to the hotel for an early night. We have to be at the dock at 6 AM tomorrow.
We all took our last showers before camping in the sun for 24 hours, did some final packing and reorganizing, and slept in preparation for the long days ahead of us.
Nice deed of the day: I helped some girls take a nice picture at the start of route 1.
Boy Meets Comb: Episode 2 -
Today, armed with his new hair products, Gideon attempted yet another mohawk. There was just one issue -- this man has never read a set of directions in his life. Apply to damp hair? Who knows her? Apply generously? I think this pea sized amount will do. I tried to instill a love of directions in this generally rule-following man, but oh, well.
He did fairly well with what he had: a vertical styling gel, some wax and some hairspray. I think if he applied more generously, used his brush to make the hair style, and generally read the directions, it would have been even better but… hey. It's a process.
