Mark and I travel to Florida every year in February or March. This year we visited the Florida Keys for the first time. In one of our past trips we did go to Key Largo, but this trip was the entire length of U.S. Route 1 down to Key West.
Our flight to Fort Lauderdale was delayed a good seven hours so we didn’t leave Toronto until the late afternoon. Unfortunately our scenic drive from Fort Lauderdale to Marathon Key was in the dark. We couldn’t see any of the Keys or the bridges ahead of us. The only sensory stimulation was olfactory in nature: the Keys have a distinct smell, somewhat swampy yet not malodorous. Whenever we drove through one such smelly part I would often say to Mark “It’s the smell of the Keys”.
We spent the night at Knight’s Key Inn and the following morning as we loaded the car I was greeted to the wondrous sight of the Seven Mile Bridge:
En route to Key West we stopped to take photos of the Old Bahia Honda Rail Bridge:
Mark by the highway:
Look how shallow the water is:
At Mallory Square, Key West:
Not really the southernmost point in the continental US. It was a poignant moment to stand here because I have a photo of my late mother in the same spot when she visited the Keys with her second husband:
Where U.S. Route 1 begins:
and ends:
At South Beach:
At Green Cay Wetlands, Boynton Beach:
Our last day was spent in Miami Beach. I got a sunburn on a patch of my chest while we were watching a spring training baseball game between the NY Mets (and saw Tim Tebow) and the St. Louis Cardinals. The Mets won 9-1.
