Around the State (and what we ate) - A Florida road trip report-COMPLETE 9/23

[tarheelmjfan]

April 23 - Fort Lauderdale​

We started our morning with breakfast at the Springhill Suites which was decent for hotel breakfast. We then decided to try to get some steps and see some wildlife. I searched Trip Advisor and found good reviews for the Long Key Natural Area & Nature Center in Davie. We arrived to the parking lot and struggled a little to find the walking path but eventually found it. As we headed down the path we were swarmed with mosquitos so we headed back to the car to apply some Bull Frog sunscreen with bug repellant, which by the way was really sticky and gross. We walked the path for a while and ended up in a residential subdivision. We retraced our steps back to the parking lot, never seeing any wildlife. This was not at all as it was described in the reviews I read on Trip Advisor. I don't know whether we chose a wrong path or even the wrong park (but Google Maps said we were in the correct locale). This was by far the least impressive nature walk we did on the entire trip but at least we got some steps in.

We then headed to find lunch in Fort Lauderdale. We had watched a review on YouTube (by Off Our Couch) of Henry's Sandwich Station and decided to head there. We arrived at the address to find it was permanently closed. Fortunately, across the street there was a marketplace called Sistrunk Marketplace & Brewery so we headed over there. Lo and behold, Henry's Sandwich Station was actually relocated there so we were able to eat there after all!

My DS-26 ordered the Buffalo Fried Chicken sandwich: crispy chicken, frank’s buffalo hot sauce, pickled jalapeños, shaved lettuce, homemade bleu cheese dressing

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He thought this was excellent. It was a huge, tender chicken breast fried perfectly with plenty of buffalo sauce and blue cheese. This was one of his favorite things he ate all week!

My DH ordered the Southwestern Club at the recommendation of the cashier: roasted turkey breast, smoked bacon, pepper jack cheese, shaved lettuce, tomato, chipotle mayo, pressed baguette

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This looked delicious to me and he enjoyed it but felt it was lacking in something. He felt it needed a sweetness to contrast with the savoriness. As you can see it had nice fresh turkey and lots of melty cheese.

I wanted to go for something out of the ordinary for me so I ordered the Truffle Philly: shaved ribeye, exotic mushrooms, caramelized onions, truffle whiz, Italian roll

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Man was this delicious! The ribeye meat was well cooked and tender and it was filled with lots of juicy mushrooms. It was very mushroom forward so unless you're a mushroom fan, you may not like it but I thought it was terrific! Soooo glad I ordered this! My DH isn't a mushroom fan so there was no sharing this time.

This was a great lunch stop. I highly recommend a stop here at the Sistrunk Marketplace if you're ever in Fort Lauderdale. There were also many other eateries in this marketplace that looked very good as well but it would be hard to pass up Henry's if we were ever there again! As a special bonus, I had looked in the Upside App before we ordered and found a 6% cashback offer, so we even made some cash on this lunch.

After lunch at Henry's we headed to Fort Lauderdale beach. When we had driven through prior to lunch there was tons of parking available so we figured we'd head back and park there to enjoy the beach before our next activity. Unbelievably when we went back all the parking lots were full with people driving around stalking anyone that went to their car in attempt to snag a spot. We had reservations for the Jungle Queen Riverboat cruise so we ended up having to park at the lot adjacent to the boarding dock, which was $11 for those who had cruise tickets, not too bad.

We had taken this cruise back on our December 2017 trip at night which included a luau meal on an island. That time a cold front had gone through and we were freezing. It was so cold they had to put down plastic shades so it was hard to even see the houses along the intercoastal waterway. While the meal was decent last time it was nothing special.
This time we decided to do the 90 minute day cruise that didn't include a meal.

Fortunately this time the weather cooperated and it was yet another beautiful day. The tourguide did a nice job and we got to see quite a few millionaire's homes along the way. This is the biggest one, worth $160 million.

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There were several empty lots where homes have been demolished in order to rebuild. I'd be interested to see what shows up next. The tourguide also remarked that there were a lot less yachts docked along the way, he wasn't sure why. Here's one small dinghy we saw (can you believe the weather???)...

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It was pretty warm so we decided to order virgin pina coladas. They were quite refreshing!

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Overall we enjoyed the cruise but we expected to see a lot more homes and yachts from celebrities we recognized. It seems there's been a lot of turn over since we did the cruise several years ago and a lot less recognizable names. Most of the homes we saw were owned by Wayne Huizenga, founder of Waste Management and his extended family.

After our cruise, we spent some time walking around the beachfront area. It was quite busy as there was a navy ship in port. There were Navy men and women everywhere. It looked like they were enjoying their time ashore.

We decided to head out of the busy area and find somewhere closer to the hotel for dinner. My DS-26 was craving Italian food so I searched Trip Advisor for a recommendation and found Amici Trattoria Italiana in Miramar. This was a cute little restaurant in a strip mall with quirky decorations. We were the only patrons as we were shown to our booth.

My DS-26 ordered spaghetti and meatballs. He was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed this dish.
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My DH and I shared the Tour of Amici sampler platter for 2 which included lasagna that came in it's own separate dish....check out the size of this lasagna! This was easily a meal in itself for us. Luckily our son was happy to help us eat this. The lasagna was very meaty with a nice peppery flavor.

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In addition, here is the platter with the remainder of our sampler: eggplant parmigiana, chicken parmigiana, cheese raviolis with side of pasta.

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Our meals also came with a salad and garlic knots (which I forgot to take pictures of). This was sooo much food! It was all very tasty. I think the three of us could actually have just shared this and had plenty to spare.

Service was excellent and the place was nicely decorated. Overall this was a very good meal. We didn't have room for dessert so we headed back to the hotel and watched some Bob's Burgers before bed.

Up next...making the best of a bad weather day...

Our adult DS spends more time in Ft. Lauderdale than we do. He worked there for a few years. I'll have to ask him, if he's tried Henry's. DH & he would love that Philly sandwich.

Thanks for the riverboat tip. I've passed it many times, but didn't realize they hosted a luau on an island. We'll definitely have to check that out. Sounds like fun.

We may have to take a drive over to Miramar to try The Tour of Amici sampler platter sometime. It looks like we could get 2 or 3 meals out of that. Or, we could get it to go & invite our adult DS over to eat. That would wipe it out quickly.

 

[mickey916]

Parking in our area can be a problem, although it's not nearly as bad as many large cities. The non-existent free, beach parking is what annoys me the most. Most areas we visit have some free, beach parking. I hope you parked at Versailles for dinner, which is free. I wonder, if I'll find out in the next post.

Those empanadas look delicious. I'll have to remember that. We've never been to Ball & Chain, but it appears we need to change that. We're big fans of live music.

We were always pleased to find free or cheap beach parking on our trip and we found it more often than we expected. We live near Cape Cod and struggle to find inexpensive beach parking here. The empanadas were very good. We weren't sure we even liked guava but they were excellent. We love live music especially my DS who plays guitar. He loves to just go from place to place listening to the music.

It's too bad you didn't order entrees at Versailles. The tamales are also good. We've never tried the Cuban sandwiches. They do look disappointing. I'm glad you at least enjoyed the appetizer.

I'm curious to know why you chose Miramar for your hotel. There's nothing wrong with Miramar. I'm just curious.

When we found out DS was joining us I had to adjust our schedule a little bit. Originally we had 2 nights in Ft. Lauderdale and 2 nights in Miami then heading to Key West on a Wednesday. My original reservation at the Best Western Hibiscus was a king size bed and they had no 2 queen rooms available. I thought a king size bed was a little too cozy for the 3 of us...lol. I ended up finding a 2 queen room for Tuesday which made our Miami stop just one night. I decided to try and find a town in between Fort Lauderdale and Miami for three nights and after searching the Marriott site for 2 queen rooms, we ended up in Miramar. One of the tricky things about this trip was we did end up in towns we weren't familiar with. It usually worked out okay but not every time (that story will be up in a few days). Miramar was very nice.

Our adult DS spends more time in Ft. Lauderdale than we do. He worked there for a few years. I'll have to ask him, if he's tried Henry's. DH & he would love that Philly sandwich.

Thanks for the riverboat tip. I've passed it many times, but didn't realize they hosted a luau on an island. We'll definitely have to check that out. Sounds like fun.

We may have to take a drive over to Miramar to try The Tour of Amici sampler platter sometime. It looks like we could get 2 or 3 meals out of that. Or, we could get it to go & invite our adult DS over to eat. That would wipe it out quickly.

I bet your DS would love the whole Sistrunk Marketplace, definitely a trendy foodie spot. They stopped the Luau due to COVID but I do think it's opened up again. It was a fun night and there was a comedy show after the meal. That tour of Amici would definitely give you 2 or 3 meals!

 

[footballmouse]

OMG, conch fritters, grouper and key lime pie!!!!! I would have been a very happy girl.

 

[mickey916]

OMG, conch fritters, grouper and key lime pie!!!!! I would have been a very happy girl.

It was definitely a "key west"-style eating day! We were dying to try all three things but wanted to wait until we were in the keys and DS was with us.

 

[mickey916]

April 26 - Spending a Day in Key West
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We started our morning with an excellent free breakfast at the Best Western Hibiscus, eating outside by the pool. They had freshly baked blueberry muffins along with your regular assortment of eggs, etc. My DS made himself a delicious waffle. Since I was only able to find one night with two queens, we had to check out but wanted to spend the day in Key West. I asked at the front desk how long we could leave our car in their parking lot. They said we could leave our car there as long as we needed. Can't beat free parking in Key West! Another reason to recommend this motel.

So we headed off and walked again all around Duval Street and the waterfront. (One of the only disappointments about our time in Key West was that there was a horrible algae bloom and the ocean was just filled with seaweed. The smell was awful by the water.)

We saw the usual touristy spots, the Southernmost point, Mile Marker 0 and the Lighthouse.

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(another perfect weather day). We also saw this huge iguana.

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It was beautiful out but was starting to get hot and humid so we decided to cool off with some smoothies from Smoothie Bay. I ordered the berry peanut smoothie made with peanut butter, strawberries, and milk.

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This was delicious and very peanut butter forward.

My DH and DS ordered the key lime fresh which was made with orange juice.

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They both enjoyed this a lot. They are big fans of orange juice and found this quite refreshing.

After walking around for a bit, we decided it was time for lunch and stopped at a place we had stumbled upon the first time we were in Key West, Fritas Cuban Café. This is a little hole in the wall restaurant with just a few outdoor tables.
My DS ordered the Cuban sandwich.



He loved this! It was way better than the one from Versailles, lots of meat, melty cheese, sufficient pickles and condiments.

My DH and I shared a Cuban as well (so glad we did) and we also split an order of pork tacos.



These were delicious as well. The pork was plentiful and the slaw on top added nice flavor and a crunch. This was by far the better of the two meals we had in Key West and one of the best meals we had with DS.

We continued exploring the historic district for the rest of the afternoon, stopping for two different desserts along the way.

First, the chocolate peanut butter fudge cookie from Mattheessen's.



This was really good and easily shareable!

We also stopped in River Street Sweets to get a free sample of their famous pecan pralines which were excellent. But, we couldn't pass up buying a loggerhead candy (aka turtle).



DS was full so this was all mine and DH's! So good!

By about 3:30, we were sufficiently out of steam and up on steps (almost 20,000 for the day) so we headed back to our car at the Best Western and made the drive back up to Marathon.

Up next...an interesting motel and dinner at Porky's.

 

[mickey916]

April 26 continued - Dinner & Dessert in Marathon​

When looking for places to stay in Marathon, I found the Blackfin Resort & Marina on Priceline. The reviews were good and it was much cheaper than the Fairfield Inn & Suites. We ended up with three nights booked here since I had to shift our Key West stay forward by one night.

Upon arriving to our room it was very evident that this was a motel built around the 50s and pretty much hadn't been updated since. It was very rundown. The window was broken and taped together, the bathroom door was rotted at the bottom, leaving a three inch gap, the wall a/c unit only barely cooled the room if it was lowered to 60 degrees. It seemed however to be clean, thankfully. The bed linens and towels were clean and fresh so it served our purpose for a couple nights and there was an added bonus that made it all worthwhile.

After checking out the room, we headed to dinner at Porky's Bayside Restaurant & Marina.


Our server was only mildly interested in serving us for some reason. My DH ordered the Southwestern Salad.



He enjoyed this but not as much as the Critter Salad from Texas Roadhouse. He said "it was fine" (and it turned out to be the best meal of the three of us).

I ordered the ribs with macaroni & cheese and mixed vegetables.



This was all just okay. The ribs lacked flavor as did the macaroni and cheese. I believe I didn't even finish eating it. The veggies were the best thing on the plate.

My DS ordered the beef brisket with mac n cheese and cheesy grits.


He too felt the meal was just okay. His brisket was more like shredded beef and was a little dry. He enjoyed the grits but also thought the mac n cheese wasn't great. This was our most expensive meal to date, $95 with tip. The food and the service were mediocre at best. So far our dinners in the keys were very expensive and not particularly tasty.

We decided to try to find a good place for dessert and ended up getting ice cream at Sweet Savannah. DS ordered Oreo Health Bar & Mint Chip.


I ordered two scoops, Coconut Joy and Peanut Butter Cup.


My DS ordered Coconut Joy & Guava Cheesecake

We all felt that while the ice cream had interesting flavors, it wasn't a very high quality ice cream.

After dessert we decided to check out Sombrero Beach to see if we could maybe fit in a beach day the following day. Sadly, this is what the beach looked like. This is the algae bloom that was plaguing the keys. You could see even more washing ashore from the distance. It was going to be a while before this would be cleared up.



We visited Sombrero Beach back on our December 2016 trip and it is a lovely beach but unfortunately not on this visit.

After we returned to the motel, we took a walk down to the motel's marina. This is the bonus to this motel. It was wonderful at the marina and the algae bloom wasn't affecting this shoreline. We sat on some chairs and watched the sunset.



A beautiful ending to the day.

 

[mickey916]

April 27 - Touring Pigeon Key
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Our original plan for this day was to spend it at Sombrero Beach. Since that wasn't going to be pleasant, we searched for something else to do with the day. I had seen a video playing the night before in the ice cream shop about touring Pigeon Key so we decided to pick up a quick breakfast and head to Pigeon Key.

We went to Marathon Bagel for bagels and coffee. I ordered a sesame bagel with cream cheese. My DS ordered an everything bagel with lox and cream cheese. My DH ordered a cinnamon raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese. Surprisingly I don't seem to have pictures but I'm sure you can picture it in your mind. The bagels were very fresh and tasty.

We then drove to the ticket booth for the Pigeon Key tour and boarded the "train" to make the drive to Pigeon Key.


This was a very informative tour, all about the workers who were stationed on Pigeon Key as they built the Overseas Railway from Miami to Key West. We also saw turtles, dolphins, and an Osprey while on Pigeon Key. Another spectacular weather day.

Definitely worth a visit if you're ever in the Marathon area and reasonably priced. After our tour we decided to give Publix subs a try since we'd heard they were pretty good. We all ordered the chicken cordon bleu sub with chipotle mayonnaise.


I got mine in a wrap.


We thought these were very good. Unfortunately for me though she was very heavy handed with the chipotle mayo and it was too spicy. I like spice but it was a bit too much. I only ate half and saved the other half for my DH for the next day.

This was probably one of the warmest days so far so after lunch we headed back to the Black Fin Motel and spent the afternoon down at the beach/marina. We saw so many huge tarpons and beautiful rainbow fish. We also saw dolphins in the distance. Rainbow fish shown here...


When it was time for dinner, we decided to ensure a great meal by going with the #1 restaurant on TripAdvisor, the Florida Keys Steak & Lobster House. It was just up the road from the motel so we decided to get in some steps and walk there. We were early enough for the early bird specials which included salad, entrée and dessert. DH and I got the tossed salad.



DS ordered the Caesar salad.

The salads were fine. Nothing special. Pretty basic.

For entrees, I ordered the Royal Hawaiian Delight - Coconut shrimp in a pineapple with Pina Colada sauce.


The shrimp was nice and crispy. The pina colada sauce was delicious. The pineapple wasn't ripe. It was hard and tart. Overall, it was an okay meal.

My DH ordered the grilled chicken breast with mashed potato. This is what he received.


The chicken breast was microwaved to death. It was so dried out, he had to saw it with his knife. He said it reminded him of the turkey dinner scene in Christmas Vacation. He mentioned to the server that he ordered mashed potatoes, not broccoli and the server brought out a small side dish of cold mashed potatoes.

My DS ordered blackened Mahi Mahi with broccoli. This is what he received for $22.95.

We pointed out to the server that his broccoli was missing and then he brought some out for him. How a server could present this meal to someone and think it was okay is beyond me. Two dried out fishsticks of Mahi Mahi....pathetic. (The odd thing about the wrong sides is that the server came back to us twice to verify what we ordered and it still came out wrong.)

To conclude our meal, we had a choice of flan or key lime pie. We ordered the key lime pie. I didn't take a picture but it was terrible. It was so bitter and had a bright green gel sauce on it. It was the appropriate ending to a lousy meal. This was hands down the absolute worst meal we had the entire trip, so much for #1 on Trip Advisor.

We walked back to the motel and enjoyed the sunset again from the Harbor. We then watched the NFL draft as DS is a huge NFL fan (cool story about that to come).

 

[mickey916]

April 28 - last full Marathon day
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I haven't updated in a while, mostly because it's been such beautiful weather here in New England but also because I wasn't sure I wanted to share this first story, but here goes...

This was to be our last full day with our DS in Marathon so we decided to go out for breakfast. I had seen great reviews of the Stuffed Pig so we headed there. We entered the front of the restaurant and a waitress greeted us. She asked if we wanted inside or outside seating. We told her we'd prefer outside so she directed us to go out back to the outside dining area. As we entered the area we didn't see a sign indicating that we needed to wait to be seated so my DS headed for a table. He walked directly past two waitresses who were cleaning a table. As he walked by I saw them stop what they were doing and stare at him with their hands on their hips. My DH and I stopped where we were, assuming one of them was going to say something about waiting to be seated. They said nothing and simply watched as my DS walked across the entire area and sat at a back table. Once he was seated, one the servers yelled across the entire restaurant "You're supposed to wait to be seated!" My poor son stood back up and apologized saying, "Oh I'm sorry. I didn't see the sign." The waitress snarled, "You don't have to get up. You're there now so you might as well stay." At that point, my DH pointed to a podium off to the side that had a piece of paper at the bottom saying "Please wait to be seated and cash only". He looked at me and said "we're out of here." I motioned to my DS to come back to us. The waitress said, "No you can sit there with him." I just calmly said "No thank you. We're good." She responded, "You don't have to leave." I simply said, "No we're all set." She responded, "There's no need to be that way." I just shook my head and we left. The waitresses behavior still baffles me. They could have easily said to him as he passed, "please wait to be seated." But, they decided to just glare at him and watch him cross the restaurant so they could maximize his embarrassment. I will never eat there if we ever return to Marathon. My blood still boils as I recall this story.

So, we looked up another breakfast place and settled on the Mile 7 Grill. My DS ordered eggs & corned beef hash with toast.


He said everything was cold so it wasn't particularly good.

I ordered eggs with grits, bacon, and English muffin. My food was cold as well.


My DH ordered the breakfast burrito. He thought this was just okay.


I don't know why all our food was cold. We didn't wait terribly long so it wasn't sitting out. It's almost like it was all pre-made and sitting on a counter waiting for someone to order it. I guess a good breakfast just wasn't in the stars for us this day...

After breakfast, we headed to the Big Pine Key Deer Refuge. At the visitor's office a very friendly volunteer gave us a lot of information about the Key Deer and helpful hints about where to find them. She was excellent and it was a refreshing change after our morning experience. We drove around Big Pine Key for a while and saw five or six deer.





We walked the bridge in No Name Key and saw a shark in the water below.



We then went to Bahia Honda State Park and walked to the old railroad bridge.


For lunch I had peanut butter and jelly sandwich, my DH ate the other half of my Publix wrap, DS got some popcorn chicken from Publix and we had coconut patties for dessert. They were quite delicious!


Up next...the Turtle Hospital and the best meal we had in Marathon...

 

[mickey916]

April 28 continued...Turtle Hospital & Dinner​

One of the places I've wanted to go in Marathon was the Turtle Hospital. I convinced my DH & DS to stop in. The man at the counter directed us to pre-register on tablets and then return to the front desk to pay the fee. As we were pre-registering, my DH noticed the cost ($30 per person). He and my DS were shocked and both said, "it's not worth that to see some rehabbing turtles." I convinced them that we had already pre-registered and we had nothing else to do so they reluctantly went along with me.
The man at the front desk who took our payment ended up being our actual tour guide. We started in a small seating area with a presentation by him and a video introduction. We then were led into a few different areas with tanks where the many turtles were being housed. Towards the end of the tour we were given turtle food and were able to throw the food into the tank to feed them. At one point the owner/founder of the Turtle Hospital came by and explained that he originally had opened a motel on the spot and wanted to have turtles on the property. Legally he was required to get the proper permitting and eventually opened up the turtle hospital instead of running a motel. He indicated dealing with injured turtles was much better than dealing with motel guests, lol.


Some of these turtles are in permanent residence as they are too injured to survive in the wild. Others are treated and released. There were turtles there from Cape Cod Massachusetts that were rescued in the winter and due to be released. I was surprised that turtles would come from that far away. The tour was extremely well done. It was informative and fascinating. After the tour both my DH and DS said, "that was amazing and absolutely worth $30 per person!" I'm so glad I convinced them to do the tour.

After our tour we went back to the motel to relax down at the Marina. It was really hot so we decided to put on our suits and take a dip in ocean. As we were walking down along the dock, my DH looked down and saw a shark like the one in the picture in my previous post. We were both like "Nope. Not going in the water." Haha!

As we sat at the marina we pondered what we should do for dinner. So far, other than our lunch at Fritas in Key West and the key lime pie at Blue Heaven, our meals on the keys have been nothing but incorrect orders, rude servers, tasteless or cold food, and very expensive. We seriously contemplated going to Publix to pick up fried chicken from under the heat lamp or even Taco Bell. I did another search of TripAdvisor and found good reviews for the La Isla Taco truck. We decided to give it a try.

To start, we ordered some chips and guac.

The chips were crispy and tasted housemade. The guacamole was also very tasty.

I ordered the shrimp burrito. This was excellent!


My DH ordered a chicken burrito. He also enjoyed his very much.


My DS ordered a steak burrito. He too enjoyed his.


For dessert we ordered our "tie-breaker" key lime pie. So far this trip, we had one that was great and one that was awful. We decided this one would determine if we like key lime pie or not.


This was delicious! So, we've learned we love key lime pie that is done well.

This meal was excellent. Pretty amazing that the best meal we had on the keys was from a taco truck. It wasn't cheap ($78.34) but it was fresh, flavorful, and delicious.

After our taco truck dinner, we headed back to the motel, watched the sunset at the marina, and then watched round two of the NFL draft.

This visit to Marathon was so different from our trip in 2016. On that trip we rented a five bedroom/four bathroom house with a pool on the ocean. We cooked all our own meals and spent most our time at the house or walking down to Sombrero Beach. It was such a great time, we considered buying a home there once we retired. This experience was so different. Eating out was not a good experience. The motel and the restaurants all seemed tired, rundown, and overpriced. Last time it seemed like a resort vacation. This time it felt like a tourist trap. We will probably visit the keys again someday as it is beautiful but definitely not ready to rush back.

 

[Mich123]

So glad your day improved!

 

[mickey916]

So glad your day improved!

Thank you! It definitely did!

 

[mickey916]

April 29 - Driving Back Up the Keys to Bring DS to the Airport
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Sadly it was time to bring DS to the airport but luckily he had a evening flight. We checked out of the Black Fin Resort very early and decided to wait for breakfast until we reached Islamorada. We thought maybe a different key would perhaps give us a better dining experience. TripAdvisor reviews were great for Mangrove Mikes so we gave it a try.

My DS ordered a corned beef hash tater tot tower with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce.

This plate was huge! My DS really enjoyed this. The tater tots were crispy, the poached eggs cooked perfectly and the corned beef hash was tasty.

I also ordered a tater tot tower: Bacon cheddar tater tots with scrambled eggs.

This was served piping hot and was delicious but A LOT of food! I ended up taking half for another day.

My DH was craving French toast and saw they had a sampler platter where you could choose four flavors. I originally suggested we share it since it sounded large to me but he said he didn't want to share (so I opted for the tot tower instead). He chose cinnamon roll, apple cinnamon, pumpkin cream cheese, and banana bread.



Yes, this is as massive as it looks. We definitely could have shared this! In fact all three of us could have shared it and been full! DH absolutely loved every flavor. He gave us each a taste of each one and we still had tons leftover for another day. They were all so good it's impossible to pick a favorite, but maybe the cinnamon roll one...

Overall Mangrove Mike's in Islamorada lived up to the reviews and we will definitely go here again.

We continued up the keys. DS and DH wanted to stop again in Homestead at Robert is Here. We each ordered a different smoothie than last time.

I ordered banana, sapodilla, strawberry.

This was very good. It had enough sweetness due to the banana and sapodilla. I liked the pineapple coconut one better though.

My DS ordered Mango, Passion, Orange.

He felt this was too tart. He definitely should have added some honey or sugar.

My DH ordered cherry, blackberry, strawberry.

He didn't like this at all. It was way too bitter. He definitely needed to add some sweetener. Lesson learned: if you don't include banana or sapodilla, you need to add sweetener.

We enjoyed this stop again, despite the tart smoothies. There were lots of people feeding vegetables to the animals. This goat needed a boost from a friend to reach the food.

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We continued on our drive to the airport but had plenty of time so we stopped and walked Deerfield Beach. We paid the small fee and went out on the pier. Unbelievably, it was yet another perfect weather day.


Eventually we said goodbye to DS after a great week together and dropped him off at the Palm Beach International Airport.

Here's my DS's cool story about the NFL draft: As I mentioned, he is a huge NFL fan and absolutely lives for the draft. He spends hours doing mock drafts and watched or listened to the entire draft while we were in the keys. His flight had a layover in BWI and there was a huge flight delay (once again). As he was waiting for hours at the gate, he overheard a young guy say he was just drafted in the NFL and was flying to Boston. My DS went over to ask which team and it turns out he was drafted as a kicker for the Patriots (our favorite team). Just so cool that my DS got to meet someone that he just heard get drafted. The guy had never been to Boston so my DS gave him some pointers on places to go while he's in the area. It certainly made his flight delay memorable and worthwhile!

(Edit to add: The name of the Patriot's kicker he met is Chad Ryland).

Up next: Finally back to nice hotels and good meals.

 

[GSDGlitter]

Here's my DS's cool story about the NFL draft: As I mentioned, he is a huge NFL fan and absolutely lives for the draft. He spends hours doing mock drafts and watched or listened to the entire draft while we were in the keys. His flight had a layover in BWI and there was a huge flight delay (once again). As he was waiting for hours at the gate, he overheard a young guy say he was just drafted in the NFL and was flying to Boston. My DS went over to ask which team and it turns out he was drafted as a kicker for the Patriots (our favorite team). Just so cool that my DS got to meet someone that he just heard get drafted. The guy had never been to Boston so my DS gave him some pointers on places to go while he's in the area. It certainly made his flight delay memorable and worthwhile!

We had a similar experience during a flight delay at the Orlando airport. My husband was sitting next to this very athletic and muscular large young man wearing a sweatshirt from a nearby high school and he commented that our son played football against that school. This young man shared that he was a first round pick by the Giants and was headed to NY after a fishing trip with his dad. Even though he was drafted by a rival team, we'd still cheer for him and it was fun to follow his pretty successful NFL career. It would have been extra fun had he been drafted by my husband's favorite team (Cowboys) or our son's favorite (Eagles)!

 

[mickey916]

We had a similar experience during a flight delay at the Orlando airport. My husband was sitting next to this very athletic and muscular large young man wearing a sweatshirt from a nearby high school and he commented that our son played football against that school. This young man shared that he was a first round pick by the Giants and was headed to NY after a fishing trip with his dad. Even though he was drafted by a rival team, we'd still cheer for him and it was fun to follow his pretty successful NFL career. It would have been extra fun had he been drafted by my husband's favorite team (Cowboys) or our son's favorite (Eagles)!

We can’t wait to see this young man play for the Patriots. So cool to root for someone a family member has met!

 

[mickey916]

April 29 - Dinner for Two and a Nice Hotel Room
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After dropping DS off at the airport, we checked into the Fairfield Inn, Pembroke Pines for one night before venturing on to the Gulf coast.



This hotel was very new, very clean, and very comfortable. It was nice to be out of the rundown motel in Marathon. There were many dining options nearby. We first thought we might like to go the Cheesecake Factory but there was a very long wait. So, we opted for a place that was highly rated in Trip Advisor, the Village Tavern, a small chain restaurant. There was a half hour wait so we got our steps in by walking around the complex of shops and restaurants.

We decided to share the Thai Chicken Nachos as an appetizer.

These were out of this world delicious. The peanut sauce really made this special.

We also were brought fresh rolls for the table.


These were really good as well, crunchy on the outside, warm and tender on the inside.

We were quite full after the chicken nachos and bread so we decided to share a Cobb salad. Our server had the kitchen split it for us which made it much easier to share. This is my half.


This too was absolutely delicious. Service too was outstanding!

After so many bad to mediocre meals in the keys with our DS (who is a foodie), we actually felt bad that he missed this one. We enjoyed this meal so much that we looked up their other locations. They have eight locations, four of which are in North Carolina. Spoiler alert: we checked out the one in Charlotte on our drive back home.

Next up: One night in Bonita Springs

 

[mickey916]

April 30 - Driving to Bonita Springs
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We started the morning eating the leftover french toast and tater tots from Mangrove Mikes (with some added scrambled eggs from the hotel buffet). We opted to drive the Everglades loop again on our way to Bonita Springs. It was cool and overcast and we didn't see nearly as many alligators as we did just a few days before. But we did see a few.





As we drove we decided to drive through Marco Island. Such beautiful homes there! We stopped for a picnic lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and coconut patties in a local park.

We checked into the Fairfield Inn & Suites Bonita Springs and then decided to go for another drive to find a place to walk. As we drove around we were shocked at the lingering effects of Hurricane Ian. In our opinion, the news up here in New England just didn't convey the level of damage that the Gulf Coast experienced. We were shocked to see so much debris still in piles seven months later.




This was really eye-opening and scary. We had hoped to walk around Lover's Key but it was still closed due to storm damage. Someone mentioned to us that they were using it as an area to collect debris.

We ended up getting our steps in a park in downtown Bonita Springs. For dinner we decided to pick up a pepperoni and sweet pepper pizza with a tossed salad from Leone's pizza and take it back to the room to watch game 7 of the NHL playoffs. I forgot to take a picture but the pizza and salad were both very good. Sadly (and shockingly) the Bruins lost to the Panthers, but the pizza was good!

Overall we weren't crazy about the Bonita Springs area. We were satisfied with just spending one night there.

Up next..making our way up to Riverview on the outskirts of Tampa and joining my parents for a few days.

 

[mickey916]

A Little Background Before We Continue​

If you indulge me I'd like to pause and give a little background/context to the upcoming days on this trip. I started to plan this trip in January 2023. Initially we planned to leave after Easter, drive down the east coast down to the keys then up the west coast up to the panhandle then home in time for Mother's Day. I had planned the route and booked refundable hotels along the path.

In March my brother called and asked where we would be in our travels in early May. I told him we'd be in Tampa May 1-3 then heading up to Destin in the panhandle. He mentioned that his daughter was graduating on May 4 from Ringling College in Sarasota and wondered if we'd like to attend her graduation. We were happy to be invited to celebrate her hard work so I revamped the schedule, added a night in Sarasota for May 3 and skipped our plans for the panhandle. We decided instead to take a route back through Orlando and I booked May 4-7 at the Towneplace Suites Flamingo Crossing. I must admit even though we had visited Orlando three times in 2022, I was happy to be able to spend a few days there instead of the panhandle.

My parents who are both 80 also planned on driving down to Sarasota for my niece's graduation, leaving Massachusetts on April 28. Unlike me, my parents are not planners. They like to drive and see where they'll end up on no set schedule. On April 29th they called and asked me where we were staying on May 1-3. They thought they would be in the Tampa area by that point so they'd stay in the same hotel. We were booked at the Springhill Suites Tampa Brandon so I told them to book there. However, since my parents would now be staying there, I decided to take another look at the reviews. Quite a few reviews mentioned strange odors and worn out accommodations. I didn't want my parents to have a bad stay so I switched our reservations to the Fairfield Inn & Suites Riverview, a new hotel, according to the reviews. I let my mom know and she switched hers as well. This proved to be a fateful decision for us...oh if we only had stayed where we were originally booked...you'll have to read on to find out why.

 

[mickey916]

Back to the Tale - May 1​

We ate breakfast at the Fairfield Inn & Suites Bonita Springs and checked out. Since we're Boston sports fans we decided to go find JetBlue stadium so we made the drive there. Not much was going on but we at least saw the outside of the stadium.

We drove to Cape Coral and met a friend of my DH's for coffee who recently retired to Florida and then headed off to the Six Mile Cypress Slough in Fort Myers. This is a fantastic wildlife preserve with a boardwalk to walk through all the wildlife.

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We spent quite a bit of time walking around the whole preserve. What a wonderful place to see Florida's wildlife. We will definitely stop by here again on a future trip. We had a quick picnic lunch of leftover pizza in the parking lot.



This is the pizza I forgot to take a picture of the night before. It was still good even cold.

We then headed for the Thomas Edison and Henry Ford Winter Estates and paid for a tour of the properties. We didn't take pictures but we very much enjoyed this informative tour. After walking around the properties for a bit and enjoying the indoor museum, we decided it was time for a snack. We went to Daddy Dees for ice cream.

I ordered a scoop of German Chocolate Cake and a scoop of Pecan Praline.

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This was pretty good. Nothing special.

My DH ordered a scoop of caramel turtle and a scoop of triple chocolate.​

He thought the same as I did...nice flavor but pretty basic ice cream. Also the owner didn't seem at all thrilled that we were there. Definitely got a weird vibe from him, not sure why.

We then made the drive up to the Fairfield Inn & Suites Riverview. My parents had already arrived and had dinner. They told us they went to Panera Bread as there were really no healthy/non-fast food options in the area. We took a quick look around and decided to just pick up some salads from Publix. I got a Greek salad.



My DH got a roasted turkey pecan salad.



We both enjoyed our salads very much. They were fresh and delicious and hit the spot.

After we ate, we planned to visit my parents for a bit in their room but first I needed to put on some laundry. We found the laundry room and there were two washing machines. I put a load of all red clothes in one and all the rest in the other. I put quarters in the red load, selected cold wash (or thought I did) and started the load. Then, I attempted to put quarters in the other washer and it kept just shooting the quarters back out at me. I went to the front desk to inquire what was going on. The front desk person told me "that means the coin receptacle is full." I asked if she could empty it and she said, "no, you'll have to use the other one." I thought that was odd but we had no choice but to wait for the reds to finish to do the other load.

The red load finished and as I was taking them out they were steaming hot. I thought to myself, hmmm I thought I picked cold but maybe in all the confusion I didn't select it right. I put the red clothes in the dryer, selected low heat and put in my quarters. I then put my other load in the washer, this time making sure I selected cold wash.

I visited with my parents and then returned to the laundry room to discover that my second load was also steaming hot. Evidently the temperature selector for the washer didn't work and all my clothes were yet again washed in hot water. I took the reds out of the dryer and evidently the temperature selector didn't work there either as they were really hot...definitely not dried on low. At this point I had a huge wet load of clothes and not much choice but to put them in the dryer, select "low" and hope it worked. It did not. Those clothes came out hot to the touch as well.

We now have managed to shrink all of our clothes...luckily they still fit but my husband's tees were now much shorter than they used to be and my skorts were fairly snug.

All I kept thinking was...we weren't even supposed to be in this hotel....and it gets worse....

Up next...enjoying Tampa and a great dinner with the folks

 

[mickey916]

May 2 - Exploring Tampa​

We started the day with meeting my parents for breakfast in the hotel lobby. Our plans were to go our own ways and then meet up for dinner later. My DH attended many annual conferences in Tampa each April with work and he was eager to show me around the city. He and I drove to Tampa and then walked the Riverwalk for a while. We then decided to take the free trolley down to Ybor City and walk around there as well. At lunchtime, we sat outside at the Acropolis Greek Taverna in Ybor City. We wanted to save room for dinner so we chose to share a Chicken Olympia sandwich (Sliced chicken breast, spinach, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes and feta cheese with pesto and garlic dill aioli served on ciabatta bread) with a side of Greek fries.


This was excellent! The chicken was tender and juicy on a nice roll and the sundried tomatoes, olives, artichokes, pesto and feta cheese gave it a delicious flavor. I would highly recommend this restaurant on this one sandwich alone! The service was also excellent here.

After lunch we took the trolley back to the Riverwalk and continued walking around there for the afternoon. We then drove to Ybor City and toured the Ybor Visitor Center as we waited for our dinner reservations. The visitor center was quite interesting with a lot of information about the cigar making industry.

We met up with my parents for dinner at the original Columbia Restaurant. My DH has eaten here several times on his business trips. He introduced me to the Columbia restaurants last December when we ate at the one in Celebration but he was eager to have us all eat at the original restaurant in Ybor City.

We started with the Original "1905" salad which is mixed table side.
I know this looks like just a simple salad but it is so flavorful! We just love this salad.

For entrees, we all ordered something different.

I ordered the Chicken Salteado: "boneless pieces of chicken, onions, green peppers, fresh garlic, mushrooms, diced potatoes, chorizo and splashed with a hearty red wine. Served with yellow rice."

I enjoyed this a lot and found it to be very flavorful. However the shrimp and scallop special I ordered last December in Celebration was a better dish.

My DH ordered his usual La Completa Cubana: "Cuban feast of roast pork a la Cubana, boliche criollo, Empanada de Picallo, platanos, yuca, black beans and yellow rice."

He loves this meal so much he never wants to order anything else. He wasn't disappointed this time either!

My dad ordered Roast Pork "a la Cubana": "Generous slices of pork loin with a delicious garlic marinade. Served like back home in Cuba with black beans, white rice, yuca and platanos".

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My dad seemed to enjoy this as he finished off everything except the beans.

My mom doesn't have much of an appetite lately so she ordered the Empanadas de Picadillo off the tapas menu.



She loved these and cleaned her plate!

We also received a basket of hot Cuban bread and butter which we devoured before I took a picture. Absolutely delicious bread!

For dessert, we decided to settle the "do we like key lime pie?" debate once and for all (again) by ordering a slice for me and my DH to share. (My parents were too full for dessert).



This was really delicious. Okay, it's now finally settled, we love key lime pie!

Another fabulous meal at the Columbia Restaurant. This is definitely on the top of our favorite restaurants anywhere list.

After dinner we headed back to the Fairfield Inn & Suites, Riverview for one last night and it was a doozy!

Up next...why we really regretted changing our reservation to this hotel...

 

[mickey916]

The Morning of May 3​

Here's where things went awry. At 5:00 AM I am awakened by a knock on the door. I wake up DH and say "someone's knocking on our door!" Half asleep, he tells me "No that's just a neighbor's door." The knock comes again and I decide to get up to investigate. I look out the peephole and there is a man in what looks like an EMT uniform standing outside our door. My heart sank, all I could think was that something happened to one of my parents who were down on the first floor of the hotel. I opened the door and the man asked "Are you Mickey916?" (haha, he used my real name though). "Yes," I replied. He then asked "Do you own a red Subaru Outback?" "Okay, I think, whew, not my parents" but then my next thought is "did our car get stolen?" He proceeds to tell me that in the early morning hours 11 vehicles were broken into, including ours, and that he needed me to go see what, if anything, was stolen. I was so relieved that it wasn't my parents getting injured or a stolen vehicle that I was just like, "okay, let me change out of my PJs and we'll be down."

The ironic thing is that when we had returned after dinner our usual parking spot was not available so we ended up parking further back in the lot where there was a row of Fish & Wildlife trucks, apparently there for some sort of convention. According to the sheriff, someone, or a group or someones, broke into all of the Fish & Wildlife trucks, stealing tasers and gunbelts. I had a Rubbermaid tub in the back of car with towels, paper products, laundry supplies, etc. The perpetrators smashed our passenger side back window and flipped open the top of the tub to see what was inside, still looking for weapons. Finding nothing of interest, they didn't look any further. So, thankfully, nothing was stolen but we now had to deal with a smashed window and lots of broken glass. Also we were informed that they would like to dust for fingerprints so we would need to stick around for a while (and later deal with that black powder all over everything).

I headed back inside and spoke to the front desk, asking if we could have a late check out, as I didn't know how long our car was going to need to be there for processing. I was also hoping to find someone to come out and fix the window right away. The front desk person wasn't all that enthused about giving us a late check out and had to ask the manager. Really????? My DH is a Gold Elite Bonvoy Member who is entitled to a late check out AND our car was just vandalized in their parking lot...I understand they put up signs everywhere about not being responsible for damage but you'd think they could at least offer us a late check out. We weren't asking for any compensation or blaming the hotel but it really put them out to let us stay a little longer to sort things out....they finally said we could stay until 1:30.

I then contacted GEICO about getting the window fixed. We were still going to be on the road for another 9 days so we couldn't be riding around with no back window. GEICO informed me that the next available appointment at any Safelite facility in Florida was May 10....an entire week away. I asked GEICO if there was anyone else I could use. They suggested Glass America. I gave them a call and they said they would send a technician out the next morning to wherever we would be staying. We were spending the next night in Sarasota for the graduation so we arranged to have the technician meet us at the Courtyard Sarasota on May 4th.

Eventually our car was released by the sheriff's office and we went to Home Depot to buy plastic wrap and duct tape to cover the window for the day and then checked out of the Fairfield Inn & Suites Riverview, never to return there ever again. Really wish we hadn't changed from the Springhill Suites Tampa Brandon in hindsight...

Up next...putting this behind us and enjoying our trip.