If there is one thing in Lisa’s life that she absolutely hates when traveling, it’s backtracking. If you go to Key West and through the dozen or so islands along the way, there are only two ways not to backtrack. Either you fly out or you stay. We didn’t stay because we have so many places to see, so we drove back out and after Islamorada we stopped at Key Largo again. We spent one night at an AirBnB before checking into the State of Florida’s premier Coral Reef Park, The John Pennekamp State Park.
The AirBnB advertised themselves as being like a hotel room on the bay with great sunsets. This was largely true. The couple running the AirBnB live in what Douglas would say was a mansion and we stayed on the ground floor apartment behind the garage. The room was comfortable, but smelled musty which may be unavoidable when you are right on the bay. In fact, the name of the Airbnb was “Something Fishy”…Maybe in the future the owners will get rid of 30% of the furniture and pull the carpet and replace with hardwoods. This would do a lot for the place. The sunset across the bay was nice and the husband came down and out to chat with us as we watched it. He was a wealth of information and had great tips on places to eat like a local.
Using our host’s suggestions, that night we ate at Lazy Days Restaurant that is quite popular, but Douglas wasn’t impressed- the usual large servings with mediocre taste and presentation. Douglas, you sound like a food snob. The next day we hit a fish market that has a restaurant tucked around back and it was a WINNER! Behind the Key Largo Fisheries is the BackYard Café where you can buy a meal from the kitchen, or seafood you want to cook yourself or somewhere in-between. Below in the photos you can see a gal going to work on some fresh Spiny Lobsters for a customer. We were hankering for some Stone Crab claws, so we ambled into the market and ordered two pounds of the large and they crack them for you. We bought some of their Stone Crab mustard horseradish sauce and headed outside to the covered picnic tables and dug in. Excellent. And where we were charged $20 for two claws the other night at a fancy tourist sunset restaurant, here the same $20 bought you about a pound and a third. Lesson learned! http://www.keylargofisheries.com/cafe.shtml
John Pennekamp State Park is one of the State’s most popular parks and since we hadn’t done a whole lot of planning, we were only able to slip in for one night. And to confound that, the winds were high, so snorkeling the reef or glass bottom boating wasn’t going to happen. We still enjoyed exploring the park, going to the beaches (including Cannon Beach), hiking the nature trails, and visiting the excellent aquarium. We both get a kick out of seeing this sign at many Florida beaches. The no lifeguard is a sign that this is a swimming beach but the alligator sign makes you want to think twice…
We also discovered another type of Lobster that we’d never heard/seen before. You can see a picture of him below. Amazing iridescent blue whiskers/sensors. We need to come back with a touch more planning filling our sails.
