We headed south the next day anxious to work our way over the 40+ bridges and 100 miles of road that connect Key Largo and Key West. On our way down we stopped at a roadside attraction called Robbie’s. This place advertised having huge Tarpon swimming around their docks that you could feed. Sounded too good to pass up right?? I thought so too. We quickly made our way to the docks and, sure enough, they had a school of 100+ fish. Some of them were huge – easily 100 pounds or more. We bought some herring and the kids had a blast hanging over the dock having the tarpon literally pluck the fish out of their hands. One of the things that the place didn’t advertise was the pelicans – there were over a hundred of them as well and they were aggressive. They were literally picking the herring out of the kids’ hands as they ran down the dock to feed the tarpon. The kid’s had some pretty good gouges on their hands after it was all finished. Needless to say I spent my time trying to keep the birds at bay.
We made it all the way down to Key West, found a place to park the motorhome and headed out to see the sights. We saw Ernest Hemingway’s house and local haunt – Sloppy Joe’s bar - and hit the main drag, Duval Street. We got our picture taken next to the marker designating the southernmost point in the US and enjoyed key lime pie from the Key West Key Lime Pie Company. Key West was a great little town – really nice old homes and lots of neat history. I was expecting a lot more eccentric behavior on display on Duval Street particularly later in the evening but, thankfully, there wasn’t any. Not having a Walmart available on the keys – Cuba is actually closer to Key West than the nearest Walmart - we chose a Sears parking lot as our home for the evening. I thought I had a solid plan in that I parked with a few other cars next to the Sears automotive center hoping to disguise our overnight stay as just another car in for service. It didn’t work – we were awakened at 2:30 in the morning by security threatening to call the tow company if we didn’t move. We successfully made our way 4 blocks down to the K-Mart and finished out the night. Nancy wasn’t too happy about it but in my mind this is sport and part of the fun that comes with trying to finagle a free camp spot for the night.
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| Heading out to feed fish |
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| Elizabeth loved this kind of fishing - see tarpon and pelicans behind |
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| Lucas getting close to the action - these guys take food right out of your hand |
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| This little guy was beautiful. He was eating pieces of fish out of our hands. |
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| Marker designating the southernmost point in the continental US. We can't drive any further from home and still be in the US. |
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| Key Lime Pie Company |
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| One of Hemingway's haunts |
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| World's largest flip flop |
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