The "Dee Don't Do Disney Doh Do Dee" Tour 2011 - Day Four

[mkingdon]

Previously on this tour...

The Pre ramble

Day One

Day Two

Day Three


Day Four - Saturday 30th July 2011

Another decent sleep did us the world of good, and my notes say that I was awake at 7.30am. How then we did not make it out until 9am can only be down to the abundance of females within our touring group.

Still shell shocked from the bill for food last night, today, I had declared would be a “cheap food day”, so to start the day as we meant to go on, we stopped at a McDonalds for breakfast a couple of miles down the road.

We always feel that the sheer choice and variety of food at a US McDonalds puts the UK ones to shame. We had –

Me – Steak, egg and cheese bagel (that is all on one bagel, I didn’t have three bagels! )

Louise – Steak Burrito

Emily – Sausage & Egg McMuffin

Rebecca – Cinnamon Rolls

We all had orange juice, but Louise had a smoothie, which goes to show that even when you pay $230 for a meal it can still go right through you.

We ate in, to allow Louise time to deal with her “smoothie”, and with less than $20 spent, we left, me feeling all frugal and back in control of the budget, as if I had a budget.

Today was to be a drive down the US1, through all of the Keys, until we got to Key West. The scenery was a feature of the day, but the journey down pretty much looked like this.

Louise took lots of photos, be warned!

The bridges between the Keys were impressive, and I couldn’t help thinking, how the heck did they build them?

Even though it was a long straight drive there was always something to look at.

Louise coped well, as she has a bit of a phobia of bridges. Mind you, these were so wide and big that it was hard to tell when you were on one, and when you weren’t.

The old railway bridge which runs alongside the road had some “issues” which meant that it was probably a good thing that it was no longer in use.

It took around ninety minutes to get to Key West, which made it 11.30am.

With no map, plan or sat nav, we just followed the flow of traffic, and soon enough we saw signs for Duval Street, and headed in that direction. We found a parking spot surprisingly quickly, and I expertly slotted the beast in, which is easier said than done with the kids in the back…..by which I mean I didn’t have a clear view out of the back window!

As we were walking away from the car, a kindly shop owner popped out of her shop and told us that if we left the car parked in that direction we would get a ticket. So not for the first time I had to have a second go at slotting the beast in. I drove down the road, did a highly dangerous and illegal U turn, and motored back to make sure I could secure the same spot. I did, executed a text book bit of parallel parking, and caught up with the ladies.

My word, it was HOT today. We started to wander, and looked in a few shops.

Duval Street has a weird mix of shops. Some are classy boutiques, and shops with high class art, and others, often next door are pseudo reggae shops, selling Bob Marley tat and josticks.

Now, at the ages of 16 and 14, it isn’t very often that we have cause to have words with the girls. I know we are lucky in this regard, but there we are. However, the heat, and delayed tiredness no doubt played a part, both on them and me. They, for their part were being sulky, spoilt brats, not appreciating at all where they were, how lucky they were to be there, and the amount of work and effort it had taken to get them there.

We told the girls that they needed to have a hat as the sun was so strong, and their faces were already burnt from yesterday. Fashion related nonsense happened, with them more concerned with their looks rather than well-being, and I was not best pleased.

This went on too long for my liking, and I had “words”, and wandered away from the girls, telling Louise I needed to calm down. My anger distracted me obviously as I made the mistake of leaving them to look around several shops without my supervising presence. Quickly realising my error, I caught them up, and prevented any excess spending.

Air cleared, things picked up, and we found our way down to the south of Key West. Right at the end of Duval Street is, not surprisingly, this….

Note Rebecca is wearing a hat. A search for Emily continued but failed to find one she would accept, therefore we made her wear her large sunglasses at all times to protect her burnt cheeks. This resulted in the finest white panda eyes seen this side of the Bamboo Curtain, so justice prevailed, and that’ll teach her for not listening to her wise old Dad.

So it appears we had stumbled across the southernmost part of the US.

Cuba is somewhere thataway.

Another advantage of wearing a hat is that your hair doesn’t blow all over the place Emily!

This is the Guest House we had our photo outside. At the risk of sounding like Kevin McCloud, it is a great example of the typical architecture of Key West and it looked gorgeous.

I can’t really convey the level of heat today, and we were all struggling and needed to go somewhere, anywhere to get out of the full effects.

So we wandered back up Duval Street and found a Dennys, styled in true 50’s diner manner, so we decided to go in for a drink. It was mobbed, and although we were greeted quickly, the wait for the table was just too long, and to be honest, the place itself was not much cooler than outside, so still sweating a lot, we left.

Across the street was a shop called Dogs on Duval, which looked like a bakery. It did, honest. So we crossed the street hoping for Air Con and a drink. As we looked in the shop window we saw….

They had half a dozen dogs for sale, which made sense really based on the shop’s name and the fact that it was a pet shop! We spent a long time watching and fawning over them as they were indeed very cute.

The girls were plotting which one would fit in a suitcase.

Continued...

[mkingdon]

Do not worry, any concerns we had about them being in a shop window were satisfied when we entered the shop. The air con was excellent, and they were in a perfectly lovely temperature, despite being in the window.

Having cooled off, we walked on, and were “delighted” to hear the bar across the street producing chanting from some Brits, who were enjoying what is a very lively drinking culture in Key West, whatever time of day. En-ger-land chants fading behind us we pressed on, and finally came across a suitable shop for refreshments.

I had a Key Lime Pie Lolly….really.

Ice creams, coffees and frappes were also enjoyed, not all by me I might add.

More shops, and we wandered them. To make the point again, there is a very strange mix of beautiful buildings like this Church….

And this

All along

Mixed with tat shops, rowdy bars, tattoo parlours and tourist souvenir shops.

At the other end of Duval Street, we consulted a map and came across the marina, which is stunning.

At this point I had my hat on backwards. This was not some sort of hip hop fashion statement, although as you know I am all over that look like a pimp’s suit, but more a vain attempt to stop the relentless burning sun taking another layer off my neck.

There were more lovely houses in this area.

Some like this were hotels, which I would imagine are delightful to stay in.

It was late afternoon at this point, and having enquired about the Conch Tour, which is a road train thing which takes you to all points of interest, and decided it was far too pricey (over Ł100 for the four of us) this late in the day, we decided to make a break for home. We were so hot, sweaty and knackered.

Our take on Key West. It is odd. I would imagine that as a couple without kids, even older kids like ours, you could spend a couple of days there, staying in one of the lovely guest houses, and make the most of the more adult culture and feel of the place. I don’t think younger kids would get much out of it, but we were glad to have been, although we only probably scratched the surface, and I would imagine it takes on a whole new persona after dark.

On the way back up the US1 I had to refuel. Note that this is day two of the holiday, and the tank is empty. This Ford Edge that we had drank more than Oliver Reid. I passed many well lit, major chain petrol stations, for a reason I cannot explain, and then resolved that I HAD to stop at the next one or else we would break down. Well the next one was a privately owned affair, with the guy behind the counter playing a banjo and spitting out his “baccy” all over the counter.

For some reason, the deeper into Hicksville I go, the more Hugh Grant I sound. So I ask in my finest English if I could pre-pay some fuel on pump one (there were only two), and the chap behind the counter, and the couple of folks shopping for grits, jerky and podgy English bloke skin, all turned to look at me as if I had just asked to marry their twelve year old daughter.

I pass him my card, and he asks how much I want to pay. I have no clue at all how much this car will take, and I explain that it isn’t my car, and I am of course a foolish tourist who has pulled into a scene from Deliverance with a bum bag full of money and credit cards, and would they be so kind as to take that from me, and stake me out in their back yard to fry.

He shrugs, and tells me to leave my card with him whilst I fill up. I do so, like an idiot, and go and gas up. It costs around $63 for the fuel, but no doubt once he had cloned my credit card, and paid for his extended family to visit Graceland, the cost would be higher. I sign the receipt and stroll rather quickly to the car, and leave in a cloud of dust and excess sweat.

I know you saw a lot of the US1 on the way down, but here is some more.

You may have noticed a lack of lunch today? I hadn’t refused to buy any as some sort of economy measure; we just hadn’t felt hungry, apart from when I had a cake on a stick! So we decided to stop for food before we got back to the hotel. I had spotted what looked like a popular pizza place a few miles from our hotel, so we stopped there. It was called The Boardwalk funnily enough.

It was great. A proper local’s place. It was also nice and cheap!
We had some mozzarella sticks to start, and the Louise and I shared a pizza.

The girls have Sinatras. Which were huge meatball subs.

Emily likes some fries with her tomato ketchup.
Costing a very welcome $70 including decent tip, I feel much better about the whole “having enough money to last the holiday” thing, and we drive back to the hotel.

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[mkingdon]

We all indulge in showers to remove the sweat of today, and then we head down to the beach area to watch the sunset.

It was lovely.

Now here is a first for a Williams trip report. Let me transport you to exactly this point by the power of video, YouTube, and ten minutes of trying to figure out how to add a video to a thread.

The temperature was now perfect, the atmosphere lovely, the only thing spoiling it was that bloke you can hear singing. Christ he was awful. He sang depressing, monotone tripe for about two hours. You would think any artist in this location would put on their best Hawaiian shirt and do any song they like as long as it was in an upbeat reggae style. Nope, we had not one song we recognised, and all of the songs he did consisted, it seemed to us, of the same two chords, and two and half notes he could sing.

See.

Pardon the heckling from me, but we were two hours in at this point.

Anyway, we wandered down the jetty, and sat on the edge watching the sunset and having a drink.

When we could stand the singer no more, we took our drinks (different ones, we didn’t just have one! ), to the pool, as we hadn’t seen it yet. Naturally it was pretty quiet at this time, with just a few kids swimming, and no bar open so we didn’t stay long, and decided to call it a day shortly after.

We wandered back to our room, some reading happened, and we were no doubt asleep quite quickly, whilst our mate on the guitar did his third encore of Smells Like Teen Spirit! Happy Holidays.

Tomorrow – Some driving, then Naples.

[BriarRose]

Another great day Craig, The Keys look amazing. Glad you managed to keep your food bills down to a respectable level after the previous days wallet buster! That singer was dreadful, maybe it is to encourage you to purchase more alcohol?

Looking forward to your next day.

[Mouse mess]

That made me laugh out loud (Emily and the hat situation) Key West looks lovely but I think you right, with our 3 and 6 year old, probably not the place just yet... great to see some video, the sunset looks fab.

Looking forward to more

Sophie

[JoJo88]

You failed to mention the sobbing females littering the streets after reading what was written on your tshirt...

I think the guy in your clips could teach Adele a thing or two about being 'upbeat'

Great day, and a lot kinder on the pocket too

[TinkerBabe]

Thoroughly enjoying your trippie, and its really interesting to see some other parts of the state. The architecture looked stunning and its really given me a desire to explore this area.

[DarrellAS]

Fantastic as usual, roll on day five!

[Guest]

Hmmm... Key West looks... interesting? Some beautiful older buildings to look at but I think my two girls would probably have a similar expression on their faces to those worn by Emily and Rebecca should we take them there in the near future!

I'm keen to find out whether you manage to convince Emily into purchasing a hat this holiday?! You rock the hat on backwards look by the way, very down wiv the yoof and all that!

Excellent budgeting today and another great read!

Kate

[Guest]

Originally Posted by JoJo88

You failed to mention the sobbing females littering the streets after reading what was written on your tshirt...

See more...

LOL! I had to go back just to look!

KAte