GRACE UNCENSORED

more photos of greenery and sunshine…

we did have plenty of sunshine and WARM TEMPERATURES here yesterday, but things are still pretty darn brown.

this is kevin on our first day of vacation, enjoying the local cigar he bought at the cigar shop in key largo.

the next morning we started heading south, and came to this fabulous giant lobster.

it was in front of this souvenir shop which had a bunch of “artist”-type little shops inside it, but some of the bigger ones were just regular tourist places.  the complex was very cool, though – huge, with outdoor walkways in between the stores and lots of trees and flowers.  in one shop was a (pretty big) puppy sleeping under a table.  the owner said she was trying to train the puppy to sleep a lot during the day when it was at the store.  this didn’t seem like such a great thing for a puppy to do, sleeping all day, but the puppy woke up and was very happy to see me and i figured that it least it’s going to get lots of attention from customers plus it gets to be right their with its mom.

we kept traveling down the road and it seemed like things got fancier the farther we drove.  we stopped at this incredible place that i’d read about; it’s a huge sporting-goods store plus they have a bar upstairs as well as a big porch off the bar where you could sit if it wasn’t cold and very very windy.

it’s called the  WORLD WIDE SPORTSMAN, and here’s a picture i took of it but if you click the link you will see many very good pictures.   it’s a cavernous place with beautiful old details, like this brass elevator with stained glass inside.

here’s dad standing in front of the big boat they had inside the store – it’s not a replica of ernest hemingway’s boat, it’s a boat that’s almost identical to it that he rode on and decided he liked, so he had the pilar, his boat, made.  it was neat that you could climb up inside it.

and here’s what it looks like inside -

here’s another view of the boat and the store.   there was just SO MUCH fishing stuff, plus all kinds of other gift things plus lots of clothes…lots and lots of things.  like i said, if you click that link you’ll see many dazzling photos but i realize that clicking a link is sometimes too much for some people.  but it’s worth it, i promise.

here’s a small portion of the enormous fish tank.

i peeked out between the plastic sheeting they had up over the open-air windows around the upstairs bar to take this photo.   it was just so dazzling out there.

on their website are some good photos of the fancy bar.  we sat in there and had some conch chowder, or at least i had the conch chowder.  i kept having it whenever i could wherever i went because when will i ever get the conch chowder again?  it was very different every place i had it.  at this place it was a red chowder, and very tasty.  kevin had tuna salad, but it wasn’t like canned tuna salad, it was made with fresh tuna and it was delicious.

we could have all had cocktails, but since it was just barely noon we didn’t.

we kept driving, and got as far as Long Key.  we’d only gone about 26 miles from our b&b – if we’d wanted to go all the way to Key Largo that would have been about 93 miles, and would have taken at least a couple of hours.  we didn’t have any desire to go to Key Largo – in the guidebook it described it as the one place in the keys that was like a crowded city, and i had no desire to go to a crowded city, even if it was really just a little town.

we stopped at a little beach called anne’s beach, and it’s not even listed on google maps, but i did find the exact location on the map.  it was a beautiful little place, and we finally found a parking spot in the tiny little lot and took a walk down to the water.  there aren’t a lot of beaches in the keys, and there were plenty of people out sunning themselves.

we took a walk along a little walkway and a bird was standing quietly in the underbrush, doing a good job of blending in.

a man and his whippet were having a great time throwing a frisbee around, and i wanted to get a picture of the dog in action, but instead here’s a shot of the man in his plumber-crack stance.

it was such a beautiful drive, and i highly recommend it.

ok then,

thursday grace.