Road Trip! Circumnavigating Key West

Welcome to Key West - Gorgeous views everywhere you look!

The 2nd week of March, we headed out for Birthday Week (it's a thing) with a couple of good friends and an SUV full of toys.
While it was warming up in Savannah, it was nothing compared to the gorgeous water and weather we found down south.

Always fun to have friends on vacation!

We rented bikes for the week and spent most days getting from place to place on the bikes.  It's a great way to see the island up close.

(Un?)Fortunately I was on a trip with 3 serious cyclists.  Mark easily puts in 100 miles per week, for "fun."  And our friends are both Iron Man crazy people athletes.  I like to color and read.

This was our go-to for coffee most mornings - Cuban Coffee Queen - Key West, FL

We knew we wanted to go on a tour of the island - there's a loop you can do that circles all of Key West.  We decided to do it on Tuesday, you know, after coffee and breakfast - and after we made sure it was as hot as possible...  About 11am we headed out on our cruisers and started the loop.

It was all fun and games in the beginning.  We stopped at beautiful spots and took pictures.  We checked out the Key West Aids Memorial.

Can you see the Portuguese Man of War?  Right there in the center...

We spotted more giant Portuguese Man of War's.  (I swear, they taunt me with their beautiful blue-ness - but I've played with one before, and they are not nice) We relaxed and enjoyed the day.

Then we peddled on.  And on.

Occasionally I would ask Stacie if we were getting close.  And she (in endurance cyclist fashion) would say "Yeah!  It's just up here!"  Or another favorite - "We're almost there!"

Let's just say that my non-cyclist self was done - at about 3/4 of the way around the island...  In hindsight, I should've stopped for a frozen adult beverage - because I was just way over-heated.  And that was, in fact, our first stop after the ride! Fat Tuesday's was our pick for frozen grain alcohol goodness.  And let's just say that wasn't our only visit there that week.

We all survived the loop on the rental bikes.  I'm glad I did the ride, but would definitely start earlier in the day if/when I do it again.  It's March and we're just not acclimated to the 85f/30c temps yet!

Here's a very detailed and accurate recreation of our route...