The Florida Rundown

Well, we are back safely from Florida. Unfortunately this means that we had to leave fairy tale land and return to work, but we have some cool stories (and pictures) to show for it.

We started off by spending our first night in Miami Beach, which is a little island off the east coast of downtown Miami. There are 2 bridges going out there from Miami, just in case one is closed down because of an accident or something. We in the industry call this high availability through redundancy. Our flight arrived late, so we pretty much ate dinner at the hotel (Wyndham Miami Beach) and crashed. A picture is available from our 11th floor room.

The next morning (Friday) we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant... Swiss Enchiladas and stuffed Shrimp, if I recall correctly, and then headed down towards the Keys. The Florida Keys are actually an archipelago of 40 islands, starting with Key Largo at the north-eastern end and going about 120 miles to Key West on the South-western end. Our resort in Key Largo is called Azul Del Mar, and it was totally awesome. There are only 5 suites and Dominic (the owner) is always around and taking good care of the guests. Several grills were scattered throughout the resort, so we bought steaks and kabobs and grilled our first dinner. Superb.

Azul Del Mar is on the Gulf of Mexico side of the island, where the sand is fine and the water is warm. We went snorkeling on Saturday in John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, which was Michelle's first time experiencing the underwater world first-hand. We saw tons of different kinds of parrot fish, as well as zebra fish and other fish I don't even know the names of. There was very little wind, so there were very little waves, which seemed odd because we were in the Atlantic Ocean. No complaints, because the weather was gorgeous! We could not have asked for better snorkeling conditions. After snorkeling we went to a local dive called Hobo's for Conch Fritters and cold beer. Well, I had beer (Killian's). Michelle had Amstel Light.

The next day Dominic set us up with one of his guide buddies, Captain Mike. Captain Mike took us on a personal eco-tour through the Everglades National Park and some of the areas surrounding Key Largo. What a way to see the "glades"! We saw lots of birds, fish, Mangroves (salt-water dwelling trees that excrete tannic acid), a spotted eagle ray, 3 black-tip sharks, crabs, and some iguanas! The weather on Sunday was as perfect as it was on Saturday, so this was a great way to spend the day. After the eco-tour we drove down to Bahia Honda State Park to hang drive through the Keys and hang out at the beach. We ended the night having a sunset dinner on Isla Morada beach.

On Monday, we had to leave (total bummer). We had lunch and spent the afternoon back on Miami Beach, where Michelle went crazy snapping photographs of anything that reeked of Florida. The hotels really are flamboyantly-pastel there, as are the cars and the lifeguard shacks. It was a relaxing end to a very relaxing weekend. See the Florida Photoalbum to check out the photos.