I had, of course, gotten back from a big trip at the end of last year, but I’d known I’d want to get away mid-spring and once my schedule was set, I saw a window between the run of Jesus Christ Superstar and the start of orchestral rehearsals and the two concerts we’re doing at the G&S Society. Was thinking about taking a cruise, but it had to fit a specific date-window, and then I looked at my ‘trips I’d like to take someday’ and thought, ‘huh, Florida Keys’. It shouldn’t be too hot at the end of March, I’d always wanted to do that drive and spend more time in Key West than the few hours we’d gotten off a cruise ship 25 years ago.

So I put in for exactly the days between my first and second orchestra rehearsals (Thurs-Tues), ordered what turned out to be a really great book, and started plotting. Turned out that the time window was actually about the right amount to do the whole thing right: fly into Miami, two nights in Key Largo (north end of the Keys), one night halfway down in Marathon, and two nights in Key West. So I booked the car, three hotels, and started plotting stops on an online map.

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Day 1 was mostly travel, and I didn’t really have time to do much of anything. But I got where I was aiming!

Wednesday had been kind of a scramble – not only work but getting ready for the cleaning lady, running errands at lunch, packing in the afternoon and then off to my first QUO rehearsal. (more on that later, but it’s gonna be fun, and it was so great seeing everyone again). So I didn’t even get to bed until 1130 or so.

I had to get ready and out by about 9-ish, but woke up early enough that this wasn’t a big deal. Off to the airport. Not a big deal checking in. I decided even though I wasn’t particularly hungry (thank you, weight loss drugs!), I should probably eat because I wouldn’t get another chance until late afternoon, so sat down at one of those way-too-expensive bars and had most of a breakfast burrito.

Flight to Miami was packed. I was in a ‘comfort plus’ seat, and an exit row, but it was still pretty squished, at least in the buttwise dimension. Also was positioned such that I couldn’t see out of any windows. Ah well. Flight was about 3 hours and pretty painless. I did some knitting sewing-in, read my Keys guidebook and my Kindle.

At baggage claim, my suitcase took long enough coming out that I was afraid it was lost, but it did show up. Then I had to find the people mover to get to the rental car center, and this was somewhat under construction. Finally, after going up the wrong elevator, I asked a friendly employee what to do and he told me to go down and go over to door #8, and then up that elevator. I did – turned out I was at door #21, so quite a schlep with my luggage to #8.

At the rental car lot, another schlep to find the car, and then there was a long backed-up line to get out for some reason. Then I had to pull over before I actually left the garage to set up the Google Maps instructions. It’s like mid-afternoon now, but traffic was pretty thick and slow – partially due to some poor soul having to abandon his little van in a middle lane with the hazards on.

Halfway down to Key Largo, I wanted to make two stops: at a Walmart (or whatever) to buy supplies and also at Robert Is Here, which sounded like fun. I don’t eat fruit very much, but I thought a fruity milkshake would be nice way to start the trip, and I could suck on it (!) while shopping at Walmart. It took about an hour to get there from the airport.

I took a picture of my rental car so I could remember what it looked like. Turns out that didn’t even help a couple of days later. *foreshadowing*

First I wandered around – there was the fruit stand part, which also had snack and jams and fruit butters and stuff, then went outside, where it was kind of a fairground/picnic table setup, with live music (a guy playing old hits) and food trucks. Poked around, used the bathroom, then went to order my shake. They made real clear that a shake was with ice cream, but a smoothie was with just ice. You got three fruits (or flavors, like coffee) to put in – and I was going to get like banana, coconut and pineapple, but they advertised a special of sapodilla, banana and coconut, so I got that. I had no idea what a sapodilla is. The shake was yummy!

Off to Walmart. I love having a car (which I don’t in my real life), all that room to dump stuff. I bought bottled water, distilled water, a six-pack of caffeine-free diet coke, a box of kleenex, etc. Two towels to keep in the car since I expected I might be swimming at some of the stops – and a snorkel kit (mask, snorkel, flippers, $40).

Following the recommendation of the guidebook, I took the ‘old road’, not Route 1, to Key Largo, which theoretically was more interesting. Well, it was less built up, I’m sure, but not that interesting. I passed Alabama Jack’s, a recommended restaurant, but, full of fruit shake, didn’t stop (it looked pretty seedy anyway).

Onto Key Largo, then headed south through a lot of greenery and ended up at the built-up part. Found my Hampton Inn. This turned out to be not-too-bad, though low on aesthetics – and they had not only a pool, but a beach and a tiki bar (and breakfast included). I unpacked, chilled, and decided to try Sundowners for dinner.

This turned out to be a perfect choice for ambiance – I got to sit on the deck and watch the sun go down over the water – very reminiscent (as was a lot of this trip) of my post-thing Martha’s Vineyard/Cape Cod trip in 2022. Oddly enough, I never managed to have this kind of setup for dinner again for the rest of the trip, although it was certainly something I wanted to do. Anyway, the service (in terms of attentive waiter) was good, but something was going in the back where all food and drink was real slow. I didn’t get my cocktail until at least 45 minutes after ordering it. I was definitely (in my head) starting to channel my mother – “where’s my DRINK!?” I could hear her grumping. But the cosmo was adequate. I waffled on the food ordering – having just taken a Zepbound shot the day before, I really was not hungry, but ordered what ended up being a really good choice, a tuna poke bowl. I left behind most of the rice, but ate everything else.

Back to the room to watch MSNBC and knit, and gear up for actual adventure tomorrow.