Vacation Mode On

We are on vacation! While financially the wrong time due to the house moving and all, the perfect time physically as we are exhausted of all the moving :) We had planned this trip before buying the house, or we wouldn't have gone now but we are thoroughly enjoying the break and are vacationing on a tight budget, will blog about that on our return.

Just like last year, we flew into Miami. But this year our flight was at 6am (on Friday) so at the end of the trip we had skipped two nights of sleep and we are only now starting to get over our horrible jetlag. The day after our arrival, Saturday, we planned to go to the Key's right away but not before visiting some thrift shops as we have been missing those the entire year :)

On our way out of the Motel we noticed a cute Church, I honestly felt too tired and hungry to look but Mum insisted. Turned out a fascinating place. Our Lady of Sorrows is a Catholic church, established only 30 years ago by a priest who used to work for Panair so he traveled a lot and bought statues at all his travels.

The church felt like a museum, but mass was about to start so we only took a few photos and left.

 My photos aren't doing the place justice, it was a special place.

So after quite some thrift shops and hours of driving we arrived at Marathon which is in the middle of the Keys, Key Largo is the first and Key West is the last Key.

Although we stayed here on our last trip too we only had two nights then and we hadn't gone to Sombrero beach which turned out to be very close to where we are staying.

We found some beach treasures, and relaxed, it really does feel like a vacation even while our sleep rhythm is still horrible.

About the only selfie I'll take this vacation :)

Lots of Iguanas at the Motel's property. Although they look like dragons they run away when you try to approach.

I find them intriguing and beautiful.

Beside interesting creatures, you can also come across interesting people, like this lady who clearly loves this season.

We drove to Keywest and visited different places than last time.

The beaches are still our favorite place to visit.

And after the super Christmas Bicycle we also saw this artwork of a car.

It had real shells, all kind of plastic figurines, I think it was a Honda once upon a time :)

We've already been here 3 days, time flies when you are having a good time! I'll blog again soon with different places as we are leaving the Keys tomorrow.

The Keys of Florida

After Everglades City we went to Homestead on the first of January and stayed there for 2 nights. This was to get closer to the Keys.

On the third of January we went to Marathon, which is about half way to Key West, and this is where our cute Motel was.

White Ibis. The garden was like a tropical island, wait a minute, we were on a tropical island!! :)

They are huge!! We saw several iguanas. These are green iguanas, although they are only green when juvenile.

And their babies.

A beautiful dainty heron.

All these mages are from the garden of our motel, which was about the cheapest we could find in the keys but was wonderful.

We did go all the way down to Key West, which is the most South-East point of the US and only 90 miles from Cuba.

The weather in December is like Summer for most places in the world. In Summer though it becomes hellish hot and Hurricane risk is high.

Key West turned out adorable, fun fact, there were hundreds of chicken on the street. They are wild and free :) Somehow we forgot to take a picture, but they were wandering everywhere. I did read that some locals are not happy with them as their wake up call can be day or night.

We had not many expectations of Key West as often touristic places are disappointing but it was lovely. Just a very long drive to the mainland. Because of that, gas was the highest priced here of all the places we went.

Bamtam tree.

We had a wonderful time here, and even managed to thrift here :)

You are a real Christmas fan when your ornaments are larger than your car and almost as big as your home :)

Black vultures, a native bird of Florida

The manly polished islands did have some old bridges/ roads that were not in use anymore and were just rusting there. I'm guessing that the poles in the water are home for lots of seaweed, barnacles etc and might be more harmful to remove them.

I found this picture above look like a 1970's postal card :)

I love the amount of nature despite the number of people.

At one part of the road, there was a sign saying 'endangered key deer' and we had to drive very slow. I was so happy to actually see two of them! The Key deer (Odocoileus virginianus clavium) is an endangered deer that lives only in the Florida Keys. It is a subspecies of the white-tailed deer. It is the smallest North American deer.

I also went diving! The most amazing dive of my life.

Unfortunately, I had no underwater camera but I saw 3 sharks, amazing corals, fish it was like swimming in an aquarium. Here is a video from Youtube from the place I dove.

On our way there we had to pass cute little canals, which was basically the back gardens of some homes.

Once at the open ocean we saw 4 dolphins, unfortunately, my phone was not good enough to take decent pictures of them. On the 5th we went to Miami and spent our last 3 days there, one last blogpost about that coming soon!