This weekend we headed back down to the Florida Keys for a destination wedding. We were able to find some amazing deals on flights with Allegiant Air, and since the deals were only on certain days, we had to head south on Thursday evening. We flew into Ft Lauderdale and headed to Miami Beach for our first two nights. On our way to the hotel, we stopped for dinner at 11th Street Diner. It was a Diners, Drive In and Dives place that was close to our hotel and opened late. The place was pretty disappointing. We didn't eat what they featured on the show and what we did get wasn't great and was pretty pricey for a diner.
Saturday was the perfect beach day. We eventually rolled out of bed, threw on some bathing suits and headed down to the water. We spent time hanging out in the water, walking to beach to people watch and took a swim in the hotel pool.
After a full morning at the beach & pool, it was time to wander across the street to lunch at Primo Cafe & Market. This place was great. It is pretty much a convenient store but it had sandwiches and empanadas!
After lunch, we decided to rent some bikes and explore. It was so great to get out and enjoy the day.
We made it down to South Beach in no time and decided to park the bikes and hit the beach.
After some time in the water, walking the beach and people watching we headed up to the Lincoln Road Mall area. We walked around the area, checked out some shops, got some ice cream and watched a commercial shoot. It started raining on us about half way through but we didn't care.
It wasn't long before we hoped back on some bikes to head back to the hotel so we could make the Marlin's game on time.
I have really missed going to baseball games. I had forgotten how much fun they were. We were able to scalp in only $10 a tickets. There was no one at the game so every few innings we would move to a different area to watch.
After the game, we went to go find dinner back down at Lincoln Road Mall. We found a Japanese/Chinese/Italian restaurant. The food was good and sitting outside people watching was great.
On Saturday morning, we headed back down to the beach and pool for a few more hours of sun and water before making the trip down to Key Largo for the wedding.
Time flew by and before we knew it, it was time to head south. On our way down, we made a side trip to Alabama Jacks.
This place was AWESOME! It was so much fun. What an awesome biker bar. I just wish would could have stayed longer.
We allowed ourselves plenty of time to get to our new hotel, shower, iron our clothes and get to the wedding with plenty of time to spare. After our amazing lunch we headed down to the Historic Tavernier Inn.
Jed stayed in the car while I headed in to get us checked in and make sure we had an iron and hair dryer in the room. I walked into the "lobby" and there were two guys sitting in chairs just talking. I looked around and couldn't find the front desk. The confusion must have been written all over my face cause one of the two guys finally say, "Are you looking to check in?" "Yes", I respond. He then informed me that there is no front desk and that I needed to go back into the walk way where you would call a number and they would tell me what to do. Clearly I was pretty confused and walked out to the little walk way and stared at this.
I kept looking for the guest services phone that I was to pick up for someone to tell me what to do when the same nice guy saw me though the window still struggling. So he poked his head out the door and informed me that I had to use my phone to call the number on the wall. DUH. So I did. I got an automated voice on the other side. They gave me two options, neither seemed to fit for us and I was starting to wonder where the hidden cameras were. When I realized I had to pick one of the two options they listed on the phone, I chose one and I got a person on the other end of the phone. Much to my continued surprise, the person didn't say anything like, "Welcome to the Historic Tavernier Inn, how can I help you?" No, it was a locksmith/lock box company operator. She proceeded to tell me which lockbox to open using a three digit key. And with that, we were in. By far the weirdest check in for a hotel to date.
The place was nice but all the "extras" were no where to be found. Luckily they did have a hair dryer but unfortunately we would be going to this wedding in clothes that had been balled up in small bookbags since Wednesday night. We even tried to hang them in the bathroom with hot water running to no avail.
We did make it to the wedding with plenty of time. It was a beautiful wedding. We were so excited for Jimmy and Kim and they both looked gorgeous! We laughed and joked about how they are the perfect wedding couple that you see in all the wedding picture frames and department stores.
The reception was over looking the water and we got to watch an amazing sunset before spending the rest of the night eating, laughing and dancing the night away. We had a fantastic time and we are both so glad we were able to make it down to celebrate with Jimmy & Kim.
We were not ready to stop exploring on Sunday. We still have a handful of hours before we had to be at the airport so we were going cram in everything we could, starting with breakfast. We found this cute diner on our way out of Key Largo called Doc's Diner. The food was great, we got to sit at the bar and just watch as all the waitress ran around as tons of families came in and went to celebrate Father's Day. It was such a fun and relaxing way to start the morning.
After breakfast, we decided to find more animals. On our way down, we noticed Crocodile Lake so we headed there. Only to find, we had no idea where "there" was. We kept driving the same area looking up different areas to stop for what felt like forever. Finally, we found it...
As soon as we got out of the car we both started to get eaten alive by bug bites but we weren't going to let that stop us. We walked the Butterfly Area and spotted one butterfly. Then we were going to hike the Lake. The trail looked over grown and the bugs were bad. That is about the time we saw it. The sign that read Crocodile Lake is closed to the public. Perfect. Clearly on this trip, reading has not been a strong point. We laughed our heads of all the way back to the car.
We were determined to find wildlife so we decided to head to the Everglades National Park. This trip was a success! We didn't have enough time to explore it all so we made it to the first area and went for a walk. They claimed this was our best chance at seeing alligators.
Our first animal we saw was a unique looking turtle called a soft shell turtle. He was pretty big and I don't know who was more intimidated of whom.
After the turtle crossing, some others on the trail pointed out a gator tail. We got pretty excited and Jed even stuck his head in the plants so he could get a look at his face. After that excitement, we kept walking and other people pointed out two other gators. You could clearly see these guys and they were HUGE!
I kept staring at them thinking they had to be fake but then they started to move. They were so cool and really could care less that we were all right there checking them out. We were so excited to be able to see these guys. We spent the rest of our time just walking around enjoying the weather and the sights. But before long it was time to start making our way to the airport.
On our way to the Everglades, I had read and we had seen a place called Robert Is Here. It is a large fruit stand that got started by Robert when he was 6 years old and has grown to what it is now. We had to check this out and get one of there advertised fruit milk shakes for the road.
This trip was so much fun. Thanks so much for the invite, Jimmy & Kim. Congratulations!
