On July 3rd, I found myself having stacked up 13 mystery shops to do down in the Keys, starting from Key Largo, working our way down to Key West, and working our way back up to Tavernier (south of Key Largo). It was a law-haw-hawng day, but I managed to get a dozen of those assignments completed, missing just one lunch in Key West for which we arrived too late. So that's me, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the start of the day.
North of Key West, we stopped at our usual Circle K for a potty break and Big Gulp refill. We saw this huge-ish iguana, just chillin', you know, relaxin' and maxin' by the side of the road. I crept up oh-so-slowly to get a snap or two, but he bolted. So this was me, trying to get a good capture in one...
... two...
...three, before he escaped up into the foliage, out of sight. At the same station of gas, we found four more, much smaller iggies racing around after each other in the yard. What fun! Of course, there were the ubiquitous chickens, but none wanted to be photographed there that day.
At last, after about five or six shops to the north of Key West, we made it to the Southernmost Point. I had about five or six more shops lined up down there, and my good gosh, it was a HOT day. I was sweating, er, glowing profusely as me grammy would have said. It was a great day, however, much better than our last trip down there, and the flora were blooming mighty prettily all over the island.
Somewhere along the famous Duval Street, this rooster was busy jumping off and on a street vendor's kiosk, taking whatever bits of food was being doled out to him. We were told Mr. Cockadoodle-doo always hangs about, looking for scraps. Chickens amuse me; I don't know why, they just freakin' do.
Poor Rob was stuck walking around as we shopped our way through downtown, since parking is always hard to find and expensive when you finally do find it, but listen: it was the day before a major U.S. holiday, summertime, and might as well have been the weekend. Can you imagine? I parked as close as I could to the center of the action for Rob, but boy was he pooped at the end of the trip. Gratuitous camel ball picture just for shits and giggles.
At one point in this trip, I found myself flat on the ground, wearing a dress or skirt of some sort, on the sidewalk with all manner of passers-by gawking at me, photographing a pizza. Rob wanted to tell them this was my normal behavior, but no one said anything, because hey, it's Key West after all. Anything goes!
I raced against time to get to my last shop up in Tavernier. Traffic was against me, as there were accidents, patrols doing routine holiday weekend sobriety checks, and so forth, but I made it! I was so stoked that I actually made it and got home from a Keys trip before midnight. That, like, never happens.
Saturday evening, the 5th, found us back in the Keys for another shop. I was supposed to have dinner at a semi-upscale hotel restaurant with Hubs, while Chloë babysat her siblings, but I changed my mind and took her at the last minute. So while we sat looking at this gorgeous scenery next to us, Rob took Sophie and Jack to a nearby school playground to burn off some energy.
Sunset in the Keys, as you can probably well imagine, is just beautiful. My little Samsung Galaxy can't capture the gorgeousness substantially; one must experience it personally to fully appreciate it. So, go; put it on your bucket list if you haven't already seen it. I can't wait until, God willing, we live on a boat and get to see the sun rise and set over an expanse of water full time.
Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for popping in!
Fin.
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