On Sunday I got up before 5am so that we could be on the road early for a full day in Key West. I am taking my phentermine again and one side effect is that I don’t sleep much the first week before my body adjusts, so those early morning wake times are much easier. We piled the kids in the car before the sun came up and then I drove to Key West, during which drive we listened to an Ernest Hemingway short story and also started The Old Man and the Sea. Then we arrived and had breakfast around 9:30am at a cute Key West restaurant called the Banana Cafe.
After breakfast we headed to Hemingway’s house to take the tour, but it is cash only and our debit card expired two weeks ago without us realizing. So there was no way for us to take a tour. That was disappointing, but the kids loved petting all of the cats in his garden. (They are descendants of Hemingway’s pet cat, Snowball.) I also peeked at his pool when various children had potty needs.
After this outing, I was sweating from the heat and Clarissa was melting down. Just as we were about to get into our car and drive to a different part of the keys to find a beach, a woman started talking to us and convinced us to take a snorkeling tour. Abe jumped out of the car and arranged for an afternoon on a boat, which turned out to be wonderfully fun.
We saw so many dolphins! They swam right up to the boat and we could see mother-baby (or auntie baby–after the first year the baby dolphins graduate from their mom to an auntie) pairs swimming together. It was mating season so the dolphins were in very affectionate moods. I asked if we could swim with them and the captain said that would be a terrible idea because dolphins don’t distinguish between species and you don’t want it mistaking you for a fellow dolphin during mating season.
Snorkeling was a little tricky because none of the kids had done it before. Abe took charge of Clarissa and I took charge of Ammon, and I kept positioning the mouthpiece incorrectly in his mouth in the water. Finally he said he was tired of the water and wanted to be done, right around the time both Mary and Clarissa also wanted to be done. So the four of us snorkeled for maybe…five minutes? Lydia lasted much longer, and Abe was the second to last person on the boat. So we learned that now that the kids can swim, they need to practice with snorkeling masks so that the next time we do this everyone can snorkel!
After the boat tour it was time for dinner. We drove to Mallory Square. It was very hot and humid, so we ate at the first restaurant we saw. I forget its name, but Abe said the fish sandwich was the best he had ever had.
Then we headed over to Kermit’s key lime pie shop for the best key lime pie we have ever tasted. I thought that all key lime pie was basically the same, but I got a coconut key lime pie with such a light and airy curd, and the crust was not too buttery or too hard–it was a Goldilocks kind of “just right.” Soooooo yummy. Ammon and Clarissa got chocolate coated key lime pie on a stick, Mary got key lime jelly beans, Lydia got key lime fudge, and Abe got plain key lime pie. Everyone was thrilled.
After dessert we headed over to Fort Zachery Taylor State Park to swim, play in the sand, and watch the sunset.
Then everyone watched a magical sunset over the Atlantic while listening to Taps from the nearby army base.
After we finished Old Man and the Sea on our drive back to Miami. It felt like an epic finish to an incredible day.