Travel Blog: Florida Keys
On Sunday, April 30th, I woke up at 8:12 a.m. with two overwhelming thoughts: HOLY ***, I am married! and HOLY **** I am ready to sit on a beach and talk to absolutely no one for at least like, 15 minutes. Lucky for me, Teddy had a meticulously planned honeymoon that would allow for precisely that, and we’d be there within a mere few hours. After breakfast on the porch of our lakeside cottage, we hastily threw our bags together and made our way from the North Georgia mountains to the airport in record time. So hastily, in fact, I had a panic attack in our Uber when I was convinced that I left my ID two hours north in the mountains (sorry Teddy, xoxo). Fortunately, I was wrong, and a few hours later we touched down at the Fort Lauderdale airport, popped the top in our convertible, and began the scenic hour and half ride south to Key Largo, the first stop on our honeymoon in the Keys.
There were two main highlights from our time spent in Key Largo: watching the sunset from a floating dock at our resort, and our trip to the everglades. On Monday morning, Teddy and I drove 45 minutes north to a nondescript gas station outside the town of Homestead. We met a man who then led us deeper into the Florida Everglades to an airboat. Once boarded on our airboat, we glided through the calm waters of the tributaries, over countless Lilly pads, through endless stretches of Sawgrass, and right alongside barely perceptible alligators.
On Tuesday, we left Key Largo for Islamorada, about half an hour south and deeper into the Keys. Before checking in to our resort, we decided to explore the area a bit, and found ourselves killing time at the Florida Keys Brewing Company for a while, a brightly-painted local haunt tucked in between shops and art galleries. I downed an IPA while Teddy did some research on the area and realized that we were a stone's throw from the Moorings Village, an area frequented on the show Bloodline, a Netflix favorite of ours that was a huge factor in our decision to honeymoon in the Keys. After spending an hour or so exploring the Moorings grounds and hoping for a Coach Taylor sighting, we realized we had killed enough time to be able to head to our resort. We then crossed the street and checked into the Cheeca Lodge, our new home-away-from-home, where I was greeted with a cold flute of champagne and the strong desire to never return to reality again. After walking the impeccable grounds of the Cheeca, we took a sunset cruise and ventured back to the Moorings Village for dinner overlooking the water at Morada Bay. Still no Coach Taylor sighting, but the ceviche was dynamite so all was not lost.
By Wednesday morning, Teddy was pushing to do something a bit more adventurous than my usual poolside read / pool dip / fruity cocktail rotation, so we opted for a kayaking excursion through the Mangrove tunnels, an intricate web of canopied waterways that felt more Amazonian that Floridian. Before launching, we were handed a map by an aloof, surfer-type in his early twenties that was clearly nursing a pretty gnarly hangover. We glanced over the crinkled, laminated map with a few crayon drawings of alligators and birds, with one section marked DANGER in all caps, and decided that we got the gist, how hard could this be? Once out in the water, we opted to head through the more tightly canopied mangrove tunnels and for the next hour or so, Teddy and I slowly paddled our way through the low-hanging trees, occasionally stopping to listen to the birds and peer into the water, hoping to catch a glimpse of a manatee. We finally emerged from the tunnels into an open waterway, and were immediately greeted by about four boats plowing through the channel at an alarming speed. I watched three out of four of the boaters turn and look at us, shake their heads, and then gesture wildly to get out of the way before I turned to Teddy and shouted at him that we were MOST DEFINITELY in the DANGER zone and that we should probably paddle our way back to the dock. My arms have never been so sore.
Thursday marked another ADVENTURE day - a surprise to no one! Teddy and I begrudgingly woke up at 5 a.m. to head south to Key West to board the boat for our trip to the Dry Tortugas. I have a vague recollection of watching the sun rise over the water on our way down FL-1, but the memory is hazy and I have to give credit to my husband for safely navigating that pre-dawn portion of our trip.
We boarded the Yankee Freedom at 7 a.m. under the supervision of an extremely overcaffienated tour guide, and arrived to the Dry Tortugas about an hour and half later. Arriving to the Dry Tortugas is a bit of a surreal experience, because one minute you're peering out over nothing but blue open water and the next, you're looking at an island that holds the remains of Fort Jefferson, a substantial fortress built in the 1800's. The fort is surrounded by pristine turquoise waters with a vast expanse of coral reef. Teddy and I were one of the few couples that opted to explore the Dry Tortugas via snorkeling (I guess the tour guide's warning of the 14-foot crocodile that resides in the moats of the fort was a deterrent for most, IDK), which proved to be a stellar decision. We spent the morning swimming amidst a sea of brightly colored fish and coral. And no, we didn't spot the 14-foot croc.
After the Dry Tortugas we decided to take advantage of being in Key West and took a pedal taxi to dinner at Firefly. Afterwards we meandered around the Truman Annex and past the Little White House before making our way back to Islamorada. Ah, home sweet Cheeca Lodge.
Fortunately for me, the remainder of the trip consisted of scheduled relaxation time. Carefully, meticulously planned, poolside margs with a side of chick lit.
