My Brother In Law asked me if I was interested in going down to pick up a 1940's Victrola Phonograph for a friend of his that does not drive. He also followed it up with an offer to keep Sierra so that Desiree could go with me. I have to say I was pretty stoked since I had never been that far south. I started planning a place to stay and figuring routes right away, estimating costs. Now here are few things to consider when making a trip like this. Gas prices, food prices, time, distance, and lodging. Yes we could have taken a tent down and then dealt with Sand Fleas all night but who wants that? first off with any trip that takes more than a tank of fuel I will advise you to check the local gas prices and plan ahead, which is something that I failed to do. Yeah our first gas stop netted us a $70 fill up, which is horrible for the car at current average prices around here. I am unsure why but the station we stopped at was charging close to .25 cents more per gallon than in Melbourne and further south it was as low as it is here. Still a little disgusted about that but it gets worse, trust me!
The drive was good until we hit the traffic down around Hollywood and then eased up again once we got past Florida City. It was a lot of stop and go but being me, I had also elected to avoid toll roads so the trade off is time in this case and lots of it. I recommend, at least in this case, Pay the toll roads!!!
So I figured distance with the car and all of the other fun stuff but I still had yet to secure a motel, which turned into a blessing, sort of. The blessing was that they had a room that night. At $100 it was no Ritz, and I have stayed in 1 Motel 6 that was nicer but the Coconut Cove Resort was almost OK. The bed was comfy, the room was small, and the TV was small. It actuallyy surprised me what some places down there can call a resort. I mean really, if you have an acre of land down there you can put a cpl of tiki huts out by the water and call yourself a resort... If it had been me, I would bulldoze the buildings being used as an office as well as one next to it. The main building on the other hand looks like it was once a pinnacle of elegance and with some TLC and $$$ could be again.
After checking into the room we decided that we better hurry and get some dinner and then find a place to watch the sun go down. After all, it had been sunny ALL day. I asked Desiree to look for a place to eat on her phone and she pops up with Smugglers Cove. A little dive in Islamorada that serves up some serious grub. To say it was good would nearly be an understatement. I had blackened shrimp with roasted baby reds mmmm. These are the types of places we like to go when we go away. we can eat at the chains anytime so finding local fair is always nice.
I checked my watch while we were relaxing, letting our food settle and realized that we had to find a place to watch the sunset quickly. So off down the road we went. We ended up at the southern tip of Lower Metecumbe Key with clouds in the way, oh well it was pretty to see anyways. After it was to dark to see we decided to call it a night
You know it is funny how a little time just for yourselves can really bring a couple together. Our daily lives tend to get so wrapped up in kids, work, and life, that we sometimes forget or take for granted part of the reason our lives are so great. While we both enjoy a movie night or a trip as a family, it is times like this that bring it all back around. I wish that all couples would take the time to connect on this level more often. I think if they did there would be a lot let divorce.
Monday morning started out good, with the exception that it was cloudy so a sunrise shoot was not going to pan out the way I had hoped. So at 6am I got up grabbed my cameras and tripods and decided to try a time lapse. Now I am not really good at time lapse yet but I am getting better. I set up both cameras to be shooting at different angles and them moved them around after the desire number of shots had been taken.
We checked out of the motel/resort between thunderstorms moving through and headed toward Key Largo. it was nearing 12 and we had not eaten so we decided to stop at the Conch House. We both had a wrap and a bowl of Lobster Bisque which was awesome. I was not super fond of my wrap but I was expecting something a bit different. I think if Desiree and I had traded wraps we both would have enjoyed them better.
North we headed, our stomachs happy for the time being. I had wanted to drive A1A north along the coast line so we headed to Miami. I will say I made a big mistake here, actually a few. Again, trying to avoid tolls, it took well over 2 hours to drive 40 miles and most of that was in a 20 mile stretch. I will never ever see Miami Beach again. My second mistake was to park in a spot that I should not have parked at. I figured it was raining so a quick look at the beach and we would be gone. We were at the beach for 10 minutes and when we were walking back to the car we realized the car was already hooked to a tow truck. Woops! The only saving grace was he had not driven off yet and after some heart felt begging, the driver relented and let the car down for $100, which he had been trying to get $140 before. What was bad was he was being kind of a jerk until Desiree walked up. hmm the power of a woman right?
The next 2 hours were spent in traffic as well and finally Desiree and I had had enough of city driving so we made a quick exit to I95 and put the hammer down. Now I am not usually one for speeding but this day had my nerves on end and I was ready to be away from the city. I also wanted to get some pictures along the coast further north where I just recently discovered a rocky shoreline that I had never heard of before. After failing to find it on a map quick enough we settle on Hobe Sound in hopes. Our hopes were dashed but only slightly as we walked onto the sand. A local with a metal detector told us a Sea Turtle was making it's way down the water line and I kind of thought that would be cool to photograph so we attempted to follow only to find it in the water just out of lens length doing the naughty with it's mate. As I snapped a few shots up and down the beach, I hear a fishing spool make it's tell tale noise and the 3 teens fishing had a fish on, But not just any fish, a Shark! Woohoo!!! Talk about turning my afternoon around. After that I was happy and in a photo taking mood like you would not believe and if it had not been for the swarm of Blood Thirsty Sand Fleas that descended on us, making life hellish, I would have stayed longer but in 5 minutes my arms were specked black with thousands of the little creatures covering my body and Desiree was just as miserable. The itching commenced and showering was pretty much all that was on our mind the remaining hour and a half home.
Over all we did enjoy our trips and although I know a lot of folks that say that adventure starts when things go wrong, on this particular adventure I could have done with things going a bit more right lol.
Wondering where all the pictures are? I took over 7000 pictures...
What to see what we seen? Check out the YouTube Video below, I recommend watching on YouTube itself
http://www.keylargocoffeehouse.com/
http://smugglerscoveislamorada.com/
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