DOING THE KEYS PART 1

Dinner out in Homestead, Florida

Wednesday morning we woke up to blue skies and low-70s temperatures in Homestead, Florida. We had enjoyed a wonderful meal the night before at a local seafood restaurant where our waiter, Michael, catered to us and made for a memorable meal of surf and turf and Long Island ice teas. He was kind enough to indulge us with a photograph at the end of the meal as well.

We stayed in a Ramada Inn and the view from outside of our room was a field of what looked like crushed concrete graded to grow food. Apparently, the state must fertilize the heck out of their soil to keep the rest of America in fruits and vegetables. Surrounded by palm trees, there are fields galore that contain this grayish color of soil with what appears to be very healthy vegetables flourishing in this soil. I probably don't want to know exactly what they do down here to make food grow in that stuff because my soil in NE Ohio looks way better and I still struggle to get bell peppers half the size of what I saw along our way.

We packed up the bikes and headed down route 1 towards the Keys. It was a little windy, but not too much to ruin the ride. We stopped at the Key Largo visitor's center to inquire about lodging options on the Keys. Buffalo had said that he wanted to stay in a room with a view of the gulf (or ocean) if we could find one. The lady at the center, who's accent was so heavy I could barely understand her, directed us to a local dive resort called Amy Slate's Amoray, just down the street. We decided to stop there first, before running the keys, to see if they might have anything...and they did! Not only did they have something, but it was far more than we could have hoped for!

Our room with a view in Key Largo!

So we booked the room and took off for a day ride with Key West as our destination. Buffalo has been to Florida before, but wasn't able to run the Keys when he was last here and has always wanted to do it. He wanted to check out Duval Street, which is written up in all the motorcycle magazines as "the happening place" during bike week and spring break. It was supposed to be like Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

BFL (Big F**king Lobster)

I was honestly surprised at the quantity of Keys on the route. I mean, I've seen it on maps, but the maps usually only list the major Key names. There were alot more than what I expected and then there are other Keys that go off in parallel directions from the main road. Along the way, we encountered a very large crustacean that I just had to capture digitally to share with you!

The color of the water along the Keys is the most spectacular aqua marine blue that is unlike anything I have ever seen in nature. I can certainly understand the fascination of scuba divers and fisherman with this environment. It was hard to keep our eyes on the road as Route 1 climbed above the water at times, affording us an infinitive view of the horizons on both sides. Off in the distance, small land masses dotted the ocean and gulf in some spots. Further south, grassy knolls sprouted up on either side.

 

 

There wasn't a cloud in the sky the entire day, making it a perfect ride along this unique parcel of American soil. I was amazed at the way the engineers figured out how to mount the power poles in the water (check out behind Buffalo in the photograph) as well as the work that was put into pedestrian/bicycle/fisherman pathways off to the sides of the highway have been installed.

Buffalo on Duval Street, Key West

However as beautiful and unique and wondrous this ride was, it was sort of a high point to our visit to Duval Street, which was crowded with bumper to bumper traffic and trying to find someplace, any place, to park, was a near nightmare. Amazingly, we found pay parking (3 hours for $5 per motorcycle) right next to the Hog's Breath Saloon, a well known biker spot during the Daytona bike week festivities. So we had lunch there, picked up a t-shirt and wandered briefly down the street, looking at all the Chinese made junk being hawked by the small local vendors, before anxiously heading back to our little slice of heaven in Key Largo for the evening.

"Got my toes in the water, my ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, a Jacky D's in my hand, life is good today.... Life is good..."  Bobbi