Long trip after breakfast to Key West, stopped at an IHOP (International House of Pancakes) another of the snouts in the trough chain restuarants very popular in US. I'm always a bit suspicious of a resaurant with picture menus & multiple pages thereof. Anyway the choice is so vast, I finally settled on a multigrain, nutty with blueberries whipped butter & maple syrup which owed nothing to a maple tree in Canada, first listed ingredient corn syrup, which is of course liquid poison and has featured heavily on most of the listed ingredients on packs of convenience foods we have had here, ie breakfast spreads etc. Long drive to Key West which is the southern most tip of US, bit like long causeways punctuated by little settlements - the keys, probably best appreciated from overhead. Stayed at another best western, very tropical setting, with crabs burrowing in the bank of the mangroves & iguanas skulking around. Dumped cases & took straight off for
town, best way to describe it, bit hippyish & shabby (prices chic tho) all old weatherboard houses (which I have always thought the yanks called clapboard but when I questioned the young guides, they didn't know what I was talking about.0
Overall impression, reminded me of Airlie Beach but more character & many many more shops. Then to the main drag where we sated ourselves on shopping, I did not indulge ....then .... then had group tea at Hard Rock, ok & sensibly (for once) Pat & I shared a main course, or what they call an entree (really)
Then to the shop which created the key lime pie, we had ours on the quay, it reminded me of that old cheesecake recipe which starts with condensed milk, a tad lighter perhaps, anyway we can say we had it!
After that we set off for the boo-ee (buoy) which marks the southernmost spot of the US of A. Yes you got it, buoy is pronounced boo-ee in the states. Teala, our guide, was puzzled with our pronunciation, why would you pronounce it like that?
Because this is the english language!
Problem with this trip to the boo-ee & Mallory Square to see outstanding sunset, route took us past the shop where I had seen silver jewellery set with a stone called lorimar, lovely stone, only found in 1 square kilometer in the Dominican Republic. Teala let us veer off with express instruction to be at the sunset viewing at 8.10. Choice made & deal done, off we hotfooted, trouble was Mallory Sq was heaving, finally found the group & righton time, but still personas non grata as sunset a washout due to cloud & they wanted to go back earlier....whoops. Lesson learnt - no deviating from the crowd on a group tour!!!
So far I could easily go back for a more leisurely look at both Miami for the Art Deco district & Key West for the beachy bohemian feel - also if it's good enough for Ernest Hemingway, it's good enough for me!
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