Reflections on a Wonderful Vacation

Finally, a detailed account of our wonderful trip. I will tell you, it was one of the best trips I have ever been on. Laura and I travel so well together, which always makes it easier. This was our first "big" trip together and it was simply wonderful.

We left Kansas City early on Saturday (8th) morning. For some reason I was pretty nervous leaving. I had to make sure all the cats had enough food/water, etc and that the house was closed up well. All the way to the airport I kept asking Laura "do you have such and such". Everytime I would ask her she would simply look at me and smile and say, "yes dear". Once on the plane it was smooth sailing. We made it to Ft. Lauderdale with no problems. We caught the bus to the car rental place and picked up our car and we were on our way down south. Now the Florida Turnpike is quite the experience. People were fucking nuts on there. Laura drove and at one point we were in the far left lane and there was a sign on the ground that said merge and then you had 10 feet to merge. It was kind of scarey because there was a huge semi-truck right next to us. After that we just stayed in the right lane and minded our own business. Once we hit Homestead the Turnpike ended and Highway 1 started. We stopped right after we got off the turnpike for some lunch. The minute we got on the Highway 1 you could feel it change into an "island" feeling. Everything slowed down and calmed down. Laura also became a totally different person once we hit that highway. It was as if she had finally arrived "home". It was neat to watch her in all her excitement. Driving down highway 1 we had about an hour before we hit Key Largo. It was stop and go traffic the entire way. Not only were they working on the road, but the draw bridge in Key Largo was keeping busy. But we finally made it to Key Largo. We knew we had only 6 miles to go til we got to our resort.

When we pulled into our resort we looked at each other and were like, "wow, this is pretty cool". There are only 10 cottages in the place and a husband/wife run it. How we found this place was funny. We had seen soemthing on the Travel Channel and we serach the internet and found Island Bay Resort instead. We are so happy we found this little resort in Tavernier. Once we were settled into our place and over the shock of how beautiful our place was we went to dinner. All our meals (except one) were wonderful. We always tried to eat at places that were right on the water. Because our cottage had a stove & fridge we bought all our snack food and drinks. And we tried to eat less expensive for lunch so we could really have a nice dinner. IT helped that we were right across the street from a Dairy Queen. There were a couple days that we went and got chili dogs and brought them back to our deck to eat. Somehow, eating a DQ chili dog on our deck overlooking the ocean takes better then eating them back here in KC.

On Tuesday (11th) we ventured down to Key West. The drive down was so beautiful. We were amazed to still see boats that were in the ocean turned sideways and looked like they were abandoned. And these were really nice sail boats. You could see how hard they were hit this past hurricane season. Once in Key West we parked at the Welcome Center and bought tickets for the trolly. Once on the trolly we headed right for Margaritaville. This had been a dream of Laura's for most of her life. Once there her excitement was almost overwhelming. Her quote leaving there was, "I now know why there is a song after the cheeseburger". As we were sitting there having lunch she looked at me and said, "expect to spend $500 in the gift shop". That coming out of her mouth kind of took my breathe away. I prayed she was wrong. After spending about 45 minutes in the gift shop we came away unharmed with having spent $140. We even got the dog a toy cheeseburger. (which, by the way, she loves) After Margaritaville, we headed to Ernest Hemmingways house. Another dream for Laura. ONe thing about his house...there are cats everywhere and not just your ordinary house cat. They all have six toes. Literally, they were everywhere. And most didn't care if you took their picture. That was pretty cool. Laura said if she lived at his house she could easily write the all american novel.

Key West is very busy. We were there at prime time when all the cruise ships come in. It was so crowded everywhere we went. After Ernest Hemmingways house we decided it would be best if we headed back up north. Key West is a great place and everyone should experience it once in their lifetime, but we prefer the more laid back feeling.

The next few days were spent soaking up the sun. We did a lot of snorkling. Laura had never done this before and quickly fell in love with it. We also did some kayaking. Neither of us had done this before and realized this is something we really love. I spent 1/2 my childhood in a canoe and kayaking is very similiar, but you are a lot lower to the water. Plus, it was great exercise. We are really considering getting one for all the lakes around here.

It was sad to go, but we know we have found our new vacation spot. As we were leaving we were talking with our hosts about rebooking. We had decided on our last night to book our new trip for June 2007. Because we booked the day we left we are getting this years rate. Cool!!!! So, in June 2007 we will go back for another week. Looks like 2007 will be a very busy traveling year for us. We decided early on in our trip that this was the very reason we get up every morning and go to work. In 2008 we are planning to take Laura's parents down to Florida for their 40th anniversary. I think we talked her younger sister & husband into coming with us. That would be an awesome trip.

Tomorrow (Tuesday for me) it's back to the real world. I decided to take one more day off to catch up on the laundry, etc. Laura at first was upset and said, "hey that's not fair." My response to her was, "well, it wasn't fair you had two weeks off at x-mas". All were said with smiles of course.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. We went down to see the family and had a wonderful time showing off our tans and pictures.