There were many things different about this bike tour when compared to my bike tour of the Gaspésie (posts start here), this tour started with a drive.
Our initial plans involved taking the Key West Express from Fort Myers to Key West. Don’t wait too long to book those tickets if you have similar plans, because they sell out! Whoops!
So instead we booked a rental car. My mom warned us that the holiday traffic along Highway 1 (Hwy 1) can be brutal, so we decided to red-eye drive it. I picked up the car around 3:00 on Christmas day, and I left from my place at around 10:00 that night. I picked up my travel partner and we were off!
And Kathy and me ready to ride to our hotel from the airport,
where we dropped the rental.
Day 0: 01/26
We arrived in Key West at around 6:00 a.m. There wasn’t much open, so we crashed at a Denny’s and got some coffee and breakfast until we could go drop off the rental.
Dropping off the rental went smoothly (until Budget screwed me with extra, unannounced costs later). Then we packed up our bikes and rode to our hotel: NYAH Key West. Since Christmas time is high tourist time, hotels were pricey and hard to come by in Key West. I’m really glad we found this place. They had a dormitory option that was reasonably priced. There is the risk of bad roomies, as Kathy experience, but my roomies were fine. They also have other, more normal rooms. So definitely worth checking out if you need reasonably-priced accommodations.
They couldn’t get us into our room since it was 8:00 a.m., but they let us drop off our bags until they could. After that we rode our bikes around downtown Key West. We saw the southernmost point; and kept riding. There was a line to get a picture. No thanks!
We kept riding past the line to get a picture at the zero (0) mile marker for Hwy 1. We thought we might get one there when we started the bike tour. But still not a priority.
A few words about biking in Key West: 1) There are A LOT of bikes in Key West. Mostly beach cruisers, a lot of them rentals. 2) There are A LOT of cars in Key West. 3) The roads are very narrow in a lot of Key West, and the general expectation of people in cars is that the bikes will get over and ride very close to parked cars. This makes some areas feel very precarious to ride in.
I wanted to go to the Zachary Taylor Historic State Park to get a stamp in my Florida State Park Passport. They charge $2.50 to get in, even with bikes, so we weren’t going to pay. But the Ranger still stamped my book. When I seemed disinclined to pay the fee, she let us go in on her pass. I felt guilty for being a jerk and tried to pay her, but she insisted we go in. We thanked her mightily for her kindness and proceeded into the park.
It turns out it was the perfect place to wait for our hotel to open up. First, we checked out the ruins of the fort.
After the fort we rode by the water, parked our bikes, and took naps along the ocean.
The view was calm and gorgeous. We saw neon orange iguanas along the seawall rocks. A lovely shrimp boat went by.
After a few hours we were feeling restless from meandering and being in the sun. We decided to head back to the hotel even though they hadn’t called us yet. We napped by the pool for a while. Then we went exploring along Duval Street and enjoyed a Key West beverage. We got a call and our hotel room was ready!
After 36 hours of wearing the same clothes, showers were in order. Then dinner was considered. We ended up at Santiago’s Bodega. It had delicious small plates that we shared and hit the spot. The ambiance of the place was nice. Something got mixed up with our order, because one of our plates came out really late. But overall it was a good experience. And they comped that late plate.
But the late plate made us late for a Mallory Square sunset. We walked quickly to try to make it, but it was fairly dark when we did. Even though it was only 6:30ish, we went to our rooms. I got my drawing supplies and made my daily drawing by the pool. Then I was off to bed at 8:30.
I wasn’t going to take these posts day-by-day, but I fear my readers will fall asleep on me! So that’s all for the day’s meanderings.