Thawing Out: A Week In South Florida

I recently returned from a week in South Florida. I had booked this trip for my wife and I a few months ago for 2 reasons. The first was that I am trying to visit every county in the United States, and Monroe County Florida was my final county in Florida. The second reason was that I thought it would be great to escape the cold and snow of Ohio in the middle of February. That only half-worked – it was 10 degrees with a foot of snow in Ohio, but temperatures in Florida were unseasonably cold as well, with highs “only” in the 60s and low 70s.

While 60 and 70 degree temperatures were great compared to the freezing cold of Ohio, it was not exactly the “pool and beach” vacation that I was hoping for. Still, we had a great time and I thought I’d share a brief trip report

Snorkeling in Biscayne National Park

We stayed our first 2 nights at the Best Western Gateway to the Keys. One of the activities that we had planned was snorkeling in Biscayne National Park.

That was a lot of fun – they took us to a submerged shipwreck (The Mandalay) that had a ton of fish and other marine wildlife swimming around it. We even saw a shark and an eel. The ride back to the boat was not as fun, as it was relatively cool and cloudy and since we were wet from snorkeling it made it quite cold.

The Everglades

We also revisited our 2013 Florida Trip by visiting the Robert is Here fruit stand and Everglades National Park, including the Anhinga Trail that we had visited back in 2013.

Staying in the Middle Keys

It had always been on my bucket list to drive a convertible from Miami to Key West, and so we decided to splurge on renting one for this trip. It was $401 for the week to rent a convertible. I intentionally did not look at how much it would have been to just rent a “standard” car (because I didn’t want to know), but I bet it wasn’t that much of an upcharge.

The car they gave us was a Ford Mustang, which was a lot of fun to drive.

After visiting Biscayne and the Everglades, we stayed 4 nights at the Fairfield Inn and Suites Marathon Florida Keys in the Middle Keys. We went to Sombrero Beach, where we hung out for a few hours.

We also went to church on vacation, which is something that I enjoy doing.

Key West

We had originally planned to stay in Key West itself, but in the end decided to stay in Marathon and just make a day trip to Key West, which I think was a good decision. But one day we put the top down on the convertible again and drove down to the very end of US Highway 1.

We walked down Duval Street, visited Truman’s “Little White House” and of course, visited the “Southernmost” point of the Continental United States. (“Southernmost point that is publicly accessible and in a good spot for the tourists to take pictures”)

Another fun trip was to the Key West Cemetery, where there are several quirky epitaphs, including this one (“I told you I was sick”)

The Bottom Line – Key West and South Florida Trip Report

While it wasn’t quite as warm as I was hoping for, it still made for a great contrast to the cold and snow of Ohio. We intentionally tried to not cram our trip with different activities (which was a change for us). So it made for a pretty relaxing trip.

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