Key Largo & Key West visit

Logger Head Trutle

This Friendship is sealed with a kiss

Can't go farther south

Lois has taken this ride to it's limit

Wyland painted this building with spray gun

02/28/09 We are back from a three day car trip to the Florida Keys with Lorenzo and Lois. First stop was Key Largo to meet up with Dave, Kathy, and Bill aboard Cats Cradle. The next day all of us set out for Key West, 95 miles to the southwest, to see the sights. There were , as always, plenty of souvenir shops and restaurants. At the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, we saw displays of gold bars, coins, jewelry and many other items recovered from the shipwrecked galleon "Atocha". We looked in the gift gallery, but did not buy once we saw prices for some of the gold coins and other things from the Atocha’s treasure. A long walk down Duval Street brought us to the southernmost point in the continental United States. There was a line of people waiting to have their pictures taken at the marker there and strangers exchanged cameras readily to do so. As we walked back toward the center of the city, we made stops at an ice cream store and then an art gallery featuring the work of Robert Wyland (wyland.com), known for large murals of marine life done on buildings. In the gallery there were prints of his work and his sculptures of marine animals, all impressive. There’s still lots to see on future visits to Key West.
On another day, we went to the "Theater of the Sea" in Islamorada, a small, well-kept facility featuring dolphins, sea lions, and tropical birds and fish. At the sea lion show, our friend Bill was among those chosen to get up close and receive a kiss from "Mimi", the sea lion. Lois J. teased him that he and Mimi looked alike, due to the facial hair on each of them.