Florida, the sunshine state, has an abundance of sun, palm trees and lizards! Along with sandy beaches and crocodiles or alligators, I can never remember which one is which, but I did see one of them. Last week I had the chance to visit Miami, Naples and Key West with my husband. The following is what I think about all of them starting with my favorite and ending with my least favorite.
Key West, the part of Florida I was dreading driving to because of driving over the water from one key to the next, turned out to be my favorite part of Florida. Go figure! I had no idea what to expect from Key West. All I knew was it was the furthest of the keys and that had me nervous. When we got there I was pleasantly surprised by how cute of a town it looked like and all the different stores there were to wonder around. My husband and I also had the best tasting Key Lime Pie there (we sampled a few to find the best — at Old Town Bakery on Eaton Street). We walked through a small botanical garden, Fort Zachery Taylor and enjoyed looking at the water.
We took a quick, yet slow, drive through the National Key Deer Refuge. This is on Big Pine Key and No Name Key. Did any of that make sense to you? If not that’s ok because it didn’t to me either. With that said it was a cute little drive where we got to see some deer roaming around and I got a little video of it too. The video is at the end of this blog. Watch the deer’s ears when I talk to it.
We drove through the Florida Everglades. I gotta be honest with you it was a pretty boring drive. we did make a couple of stops along the way so we could stretch our legs. On one of those stops we saw a bunch of those crocodiles or alligators. Like I said I haven’t a clue which is which.
You remember I mentioned palm trees above. I wasn’t kidding about them. They are all over Florida. At least the parts of Florida I was in. We saw them in Miami, Naples, Sanibel Island, Key West and everywhere else. These palm trees are tall! Most of them anyway. There were some smaller ones and getting to see there long leaves up close was cool. I have to say they are something to see in person, but after a while when you see one after another after another, it kinda feels like okay how about we see some other kinds of trees. No offense to anyone who lives there.
The beaches of Florida were nice to walk on with my husband. With the hot sun shining down on us it was nice to walk along the water of the beaches and get out feet wet. I’m really not a beach person, but doing that with my husband was nice. We did manage to walk on the beach in Miami, Naples, Sanibel Island and Key West. I would have to say with all the places we went to Miami was my least favorite because of all the people there drinking and the very loud music. On the other hand, when we visited Naples we found it was full of older people. We fit somewhere in the middle.
With all that said my husband and I agreed Florida is nice to visit for a weekend getaway, but that’s about it for us. And if we ever do go there again it would only be to Key West. The heat and the beaches really aren’t our thing.
Kathleen Smith is an indie author and blogger and she has a podcast called Kathleen’s Korner. If you would like to read about her and her husband and a part of their marriage you can read about it in either Brooklyn Raised Livin’ Upstate or Good-bye Brooklyn Hello Upstate