Still completely euphoric from last night. I’m planning to ride that feeling as long as possible. We had booked our return to Minneapolis for Monday, on the chance that it might rain on Saturday and push the race out a day. So that gave us a full day to blow in Miami. Sadly, Miami is not really someplace I want to spend a free hour much less a day, so we decided to drive to Key West. Since my favorite dessert is key lime pie, it just seemed appropriate.
We actually attempted to eat the free breakfast at the hotel today, but found it to be a complete mob scene. So we settled for the Golden Arches with a follow-up visit to Starbucks. Have you ever ordered a large orange juice at McDonald’s? I swear it was Big Gulp sized. Of course after splitting that with Tim and having a Tall Bold at ‘bucks, the three hour drive to Key West without a bathroom break was not the best idea. By the time I reached the really urgent stage, we were in a long stretch of bridges and smaller Keys with no gas stations or fast food restaurants in sight. We stopped at a Shell/Circle K about 7 miles short of our destination. I knew we were in the Keys because there was a rooster in the parking lot.
Early October is the dead season for south Florida. A lot of places close down completely the first two weeks of October. If this is the slow time, you couldn’t pay me to be here during the high season. Key West was a zoo. A really, really hot zoo. With roosters. The heat just sucked all of our energy. We walked around listlessly, had lunch (decent but over priced), bought a few souvenirs, and ate the obligatory piece of key lime pie (good but not exceptional). We stopped at Bahia Honda State Park on the way back to Miami. It was beautiful, but way too hot to really be enjoyable. It was only 86 degrees but the humidity was just oppressive. I can handle it in Phoenix up to 100 or 105, this was much worse. I guess it’s true what they say about dry heat. I did get a few decent photos.
We made it back to our hotel at 8 PM. Dinner was wine, cheese and crackers from the grocery store across the street. It was better than lunch.