Monday March 6, 2012

We woke up on Monday morning after a great night’s sleep in the van. We were pumped to have all day in one spot. Parmers Resort offers continental breakfast, which consists of fruit, toast, donuts, blueberry muffins, english muffins, and cereal. After enjoying our small breakfast while looking out at the water, we hopped in the van and drove to Bahia Honda State Park. It’s not too far north of us and we hear that it has the best beaches in the Keys.

We had to pay $9.00 for two people to enter the park. We’re glad that we got there early because they have a limit to the number of people allowed in at the same time. Apparently, they are not afraid to make you turn around. As we entered, we hung a left to go to Sandspur Beach, known for it’s white sands and beautiful views. No disappointment here:

We walked up and down Sandspur Beach and we were amazed by the views. Along the way it seems that someone or something likes to decorate with shells.

We don’t know who it is. We’re torn between the natives or random people that walk the beach. It’s still up in the air.

After hanging out at the beach, we decided to spend the rest of the day in Key West. Part of this decision was influenced by the fact that we had unusually high winds and kayak and snorkeling trips were canceled everywhere.

We  found a free parking space along Virginia Street. It’s a little far from the hubbub around town, but it’s better than feeding the meter. Our first thought was to get lunch at a small, cheaper place. So, we stopped at this little yellow building on Duval Street called The Banana Cafe. It looked great. We also had a good feeling about it since we loved a similar small restaurant in Laguna Beach called The Orange Cafe. Well, we were seated and immediately started to regret our choice. Half of the menu was in french. Then we started to read all of the French signs on the wall. This is a french restaurant! Not only are we wary of anything French (well, at least Aaron is), we just don’t know french food. The service ended up being terribly slow (This is not an exaggeration. We sat down at 1:30 and left after 3:15) and the crepes were not that great.

The next part of our journey was the southernmost point in the US. A short walk and we were in line to get our picture next to a very large buoy.

We then walked all the way back across the island in search of more sights. We saw the historic lighthouse, the home of Ernest Hemingway, and Route 1’s Mile Zero.

Further down Key West, we finally found the spring breakers. If anyone wanted to the reason why the Founding Fathers wanted a 100% estate tax, just travel down here in the spring. These kids are that very reason. This is not the scene we were looking for and we quickly found our way back to the better part of town.

This is right about the time that we found an internet cafe to update our Sunday post on thejanadaexperience.com.

Then we went to dinner at The Black Fin. It was great and we highly recommend it. The atmosphere is nice and quiet, although it is right on Duval. They have a great outdoor area in the back, as well.

Then, it was back to the Key Lime Shop for some more pie before we headed to Little Torch Key.

Sorry for the late post!

Sunday March 4, 2012

We woke up in Orlando, FL ready for a 6 and 1/2 hour drive to Little Torch Key, FL. Our destination is a small place named Parmer’s Resort in the Lower Keys. The drive didn’t start out exactly as we planned. Aaron wanted to stop at a CVS to get some juice (he was feeling Vitamin-C deprived). Well, we ended up driving a little out of the way, stopping at a Walgreens, then getting on the Florida Turnpike…going north. We swear we got on the ramp going to Miami. So, there is a sign that’s wrong off of I-4 in Florida. To top it off, we wasted $2.50 in toll money.

Aside: If anyone was wondering about why we haven’t posted much about food, here’s the deal. We’ll start with our road trip snacks. We picked up some dried fruit at the Village Market on Geneva Road. So we had about two pounds of dried strawberries and a pound of tart cherries. We also stopped at Costco for about three bags of sweet potato chips. Then, we got a couple bags of dried pineapple from the Health Foods Market on Geneva Road. Finally, we packed about fifteen Larabars and Justine made a massive bag of trail mix, which consisted of almonds, blistered peanuts, cashews, and semi-sweet Ghiradelli chocolate chips.

We try to stop at Starbucks because we know that they have clean bathrooms and good snack packs. Also, they tend to be near gas stations where we can kill two birds with one stone.

Back to the Florida Turnpike, it was a non-eventful drive. We saw a ton of farms and were excited to see the grass-fed cows in the pastures. It’s also a cultural shock for us to see service plazas in the middle of the tollway. We did see a cool car being towed.

The only really exciting thing was that we stopped at a Starbucks at the end of the tollway (this is just before you get on Route 1 for the Keys). We were getting ready to leave when Justine spotted Vanilla Ice. She thinks it was his look-a-like, his doppleganger, if you will. But, Aaron was pretty sure it was him. He’s seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II enough to know when he sees Vanilla Ice.

We then left to go south on Route 1 and see the Keys. We couldn’t believe the views and the color of the water. This drive was definitely the best so far for sightseeing.

We ended up on Little Torch Key at our hotel. It’s a very nice place to stay. It’s not a Marriott or the Hyatt. But, it’s quaint and quiet, right on the water. We think the character fits us very well.

We unpacked and decided to drive to Key West, about thirty minutes south. It took us a while to find a parking spot and we ended up putting all of our change in the meter. To quote a local, “those meters are highway robbery.” A Quarter = Ten minutes, a dime = 4 minutes, and a nickel = 2 minutes.

A short walk and we were downtown, walking through little shops. We found some Key Lime Pie, then headed to a restaurant for dinner (that’s a normal order for us, dessert, dinner). We went to Blue Heaven, which was recommended by Justine’s co-worker, Susan. We loved it! Great atmosphere and very good food.

After walking around some more, we picked up some more slices of Key Lime Pie. Yes, that’s how we roll..dessert, then dinner, then more dessert. It’s not every day that we can have authentic Key Lime Pie in Key West.

After getting back to the hotel, we decided that we didn’t want to sleep in our two twin beds with extra springy mattresses. Instead, we spent the night in the van on our memory foam topper. This really enhanced the “road trip experience.”

Well, we woke up in lovely Bowling Green, Kentucky this morning ready to drive to Orlando. We packed our bags and checked out of the hotel. On our way to place our bags in the van, we realized that in the middle of the night, we had parked the van under a tree. This must have upset some of the birds because our windshield was plastered with white spots, which are kind of hard to see in this photo.

In contrast to our first leg of the trip, our drive started out sunny and clear.

We were surprised to see how green Kentucky is right now. The landscape was beautiful, especially the farms. So, through Kentucky and Tennessee we listened to a lot of music. We’d say the between Aaron and Justine, the music collection is pretty diverse. It ranged from Sting (If I ever lose my faith…) to Coolio (Gangsta’s Paradise) to Fergie (Glamorous).

We then decided that if we want to make this a real road trip, we need to stop at some of the random places that are advertised on the freeway. We stopped at a Starbucks and saw a perfect little place to get our feet wet. It was the Arrowheads Aerospace Museum, right next to the Starbucks.

We walked on over and stepped inside. We were first greeted by an old bank teller window and a binder with loose-leaf paper. This was the sign-in sheet. Then this older woman yells from down the hall “Hello! Please sign in. You are now in the Museum’s gift shop. The actual exhibits are down the hall and will cost six dollars.” Well, before she even finished, we had already decided that we wouldn’t be here long. The “gift shop” was more like a consignment store. We’re serious about that, folks. This old woman was selling old, cheap, used stuff and telling us it was about the history of trains, planes and automobiles. The other part that turned us off was that this woman was sitting on a chair eating McDonald’s with her little Pomeranian dog eating her scraps. The whole place smelled like a McDonald’s hamburger. The smell of McD’s and the presence of that little, tiny, weird furball of a dog was not a good combo for us. We quickly looked around (since we’re nice people), said thank you and walked out the door.

We were back on the road and still determined to see sights if they turned up. Luckily, we knew that a particular sight was coming. Justine’s many trips to St. Simons Island has brought her through Chattanooga so many times that she knows each and every sign for Ruby Falls almost personally. We decided to make the stop. It didn’t hurt that a billboard said that it was on National Geographic’s 101 places to see in the U.S. So, stop we did.

We’ve always thought that Ruby Falls was a waterfall in Chattanooga on Lookout Mountain. Nothing crazy. I mean we’ve been to Yosemite, so what’s another waterfall to us, right (Justine has also seen gorgeous falls in Africa)? We drive up and find that we have to enter this stone building to see the falls. Thoroughly confused, we enter the building only to find out that we would have to take an hour and a half tour through caves to see Ruby Falls. These falls were inside a cave. That threw us off completely. Couple our surprise with a price tag of 33.50 each, we walked out after looking at the post cards. We drove to the top of Lookout Mountain and saw beautiful homes and some historic monuments. That was good enough for us. We then got back on the freeway for Florida.

We decided to finish the book on tape that we started the day before. It was Marley and Me. For a six hour reading, it seemed like the greatest idea for the first 5 hours. The last hour was terrible. Aaron was the first to grab the kleenex. Justine was trying to keep her composure since she was driving.

When Marley and Me ended, we were past Atlanta and on our longest stretch of road, yet. We went back to our music, then we started a new book on tape, Beach Road, a mystery thriller set in Long Island, NY.

We made it to Orlando and are greatly anticipating see the Florida Keys for the first time in our lives!!

Nothing was going to keep us from Florida

We left Chicago with severe weather warnings all over the place. Seriously…all over the place. They were coming from the news, the radio and our family. Luckily, when we checked the radar it seemed that we would be missing it. Right outside of Chicago, it immediately cleared up. But, we still had some huge gusts of winds. We made it to Bowling Green with only one stop at a Starbucks.

So…Justine and I started talking about our trips we want to take. The discussion ranged anywhere from the national parks we’d like to see to our disdain for the current day flying experience to our family vacations. It slowly dawned on us that we talk a lot of talk when it comes to our plans to see the grandeur that is the United States of America. We promised ourselves we’d see the Grand Canyon in 2011. We promised ourselves we’d visit family in Colorado and Seattle and snowboard at the same time. The current gas prices and, as we mentioned, our disdain for the current day flying experience definitely are  factors that have kept us from traveling. But, you know what…you only live once.