Florida: Keys and Sarasota

After our night outside Charleston, we had a giant driving day to get down to Key Largo. Florida is a really long state.

In the Keys Hilary did some diving, including a trip to Spiegel Grove. We drove down to Key West for a quick look at the old houses and a stop at the southernmost point in the continental US. On the way we made a short detour to see the Key Deer. They're so cute! The bucks were a few feet tall and the does were maybe half that size.

We also met up with Marc at Alabama Jack's on the Card Sound causeway for lunch. The restaurant was half shack, half deck hanging out over the swamp. Perfect! We were treated to an awesome thunderstorm which shook the building and set off car alarms. Marc sent us off with several bottles of mead and starfruit cider. Yum!

Did lots of eating in the Keys. Had smoked fish paste a couple times, very good. Conch fritters, peel and eat shrimp, seafood scampi with fresh hogfish. We love fish. We happened to be in the Keys for our 5th anniversary, and we got Key Lime pie to celebrate. We also hit a few driving milestones while here: 12,000 total trip miles and 20,000 total vehicle miles. We drive too much.

The Keys were nice, but really you need a boat to enjoy yourself. We didn't see if the Outback would float sufficiently. We drove out of the Keys and into the Everglades. We stopped here and there to wander on a few paths and boardwalks in both the Everglades and Big Cypress; we'll have to come back some time with more money and take an airboat and rent bikes. Didn't see any alligators. Got to Sarasota to hang out with Emily.

We went out with Emily on the fishing boat. Hilary of course sucks at catching fish, though she did wind up hooking a puffer fish and several snake fish before hiding from the sun. Too bad you can't eat those. Aaron got 4 keepers: two each silver groupers and grunts. Lots of red groupers were caught (by Aaron), but none reached the 20" required to keep. Emily was a fish catching machine, getting her first keeper about 30 seconds after starting and catching the only keeper red grouper of the day. We ate a previous day's catch in a chowder for dinner. Yum fish!