If you've never made the drive from Miami to Key West, it's beautiful. You drive through these small keys, connected by giant bridges which are surrounded by beautiful, blue ocean. The 3 1/2 hour drive takes place primarily on a two way highway. On our way down, we stumbled across the No Name Pub in No Name Key. I'd seen this bar while flipping through channels one time, so we stopped, grabbed a beer (yes, Cathie drank beer while in the keys) and stapled a dollar bill to the wall. The place is covered with them - ceiling and walls, over 90,000 - each with it's own message.
We made it to our hotel about 2:30 and they did a very nice job taking care of us. All of the hotels we stayed at were Hilton properties, of which I have Diamond status, and Hilton takes very good care of me. I'd called ahead to the managers of each of the hotels, explained to them that this was a trip celebrating our 15th anniversary, and they didn't disappoint.
In Key West, they gave us a huge multi-room suite with a giant balcony overlooking the pool and a bunch of comps as well. We hung out in the room for a while, took a nap and then headed out for an evening of fun downtown, Key West. If you've never been to Key West, it moves in a whole different time. Things are slow and people are nice. We grabbed dinner and then went from bar to bar, listening to the different performers and sat around people watching. I think our favorite place was Irish Kevin's. The singer at this bar had the extreme gift of sarcasm in song. Which Cathie and I both seem to appreciate. We spent 99% of our time in the bar laughing at not only the songs, but the way he could make the whole bar laugh by incorporating random people in the bar into his act. We sat there so long that Cathie didn't even realize she was drinking (and enjoying) Corona beer all night.
The next day, we hung around the pool and got another nap in. We both fried ourselves in the sun, not using sun-screen. I had my shades on and have nice batman eyes, while Cathie got some odd tanlines as well (super-hero lines, as she calls them). Later that evening, we headed into Mallory Square to watch people and the sunset, and it was awesome to see. We repeated our first night of bar-hopping, having another great time. Everyone was so friendly and in good spirits. It was amazing how few cops we saw in Key West around Duvall street - especially when compared to Beal Street in Memphis or Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
The next morning we headed out for the drive back North to Miami. Neither of us had ever been to Miami Beach, so it was fun to see it for the first time together. We stopped by the Miami Ink Tattoo parlor to see about getting Cathie on TV with a tattooed portrait of Jon on her butt. Ami wasn't around, so we decided to pass. As we drove down South Beach, we saw hundreds of wiener dogs everywhere. It turns out there was a wiener dog convention going on at the same time, so we called Jon as he has two wieners himself.
From there we went and checked in at our hotel on South Beach - The Bentley Hotel. Again, I had called ahead and the manager REALLY hooked us up on this with a penthouse suite that would have normally run about $1,000/night.
When I travel, I'll often get these nice rooms, but without Cathie there to share them with me, it really isn't all that exciting to be in a hotel room with two stories, 3 bathrooms and 2 bedrooms. It was nice to have Cathie there to experience it with me finally. We were greeted in our room by a bottle of champagne and some other nice amenities. The room had two 50" plasma screens, a huge bathroom with a glass shower and a nice toilet-shaped drinking fountain that Cathie kept calling a bidet.
The balcony wrapped the room, giving us an awesome view of Miami Beach and the South Beach strip. We hung out in the room for a long time, soaking it in, enjoying the view.
We walked through South Beach for a while, looking at the buildings, the hotels and restaurants. After we found a restaurant (that lured us in due to not only the menu, but also a free round of drinks), we parked ourselves there for a couple of hours eating and doing some great people watching. As you walk down Oceanside Drive there are hundreds of restaurants and most are attached to a hotel. The restaurants are extended out on to the sidewalks and tons of people are walking right through the restaurant table aisles to get by. You actually end up playing chicken with people as you're walking down the sidewalk and the person who loses ends up walking into a table full of people and their food. The restaurant staff would compete for customers by trying to sell you on their food and location while pushing menus in your face. After a while, they became annoying - like panhandlers or the porn-guys on the streets of Vegas. The people and the outfits were very creative, one of a kind outfits that were awesome to see. I decided my new look should be to grow my hair out, perm it, and wear a double-breasted blazer with no t-shirt underneath. Cathie decided that her new look should involve skirts that barely cover her underwear and/or are see-through.
The trip was fun, relaxing and luxurious. We never had anything we HAD to do, except get to our hotel in a given night and see a sunset in Key West. Otherwise - everything was up in the air. The best part of this trip was spending 24 hours a day, every day with Cathie. We created so many great memories, we laughed about so many things and talked about anything and everything. It's such an amazing thing to married to my soul-mate. No matter where I am or what I'm doing, I can't fully experience it without Cathie being there with me - she is that connected to my soul. I would find myself just staring at her sometimes, marveling at what a beautiful woman, great friend and fun person she is.
We left 75 degrees and sun to come back to 20 degrees and snow. It was great getting home and seeing the kids. We wouldn't have been able to pull this off without the help of my Dad, Will and Susan - all helping with the kids, Jon's looking up the address of Miami Ink and Dan and Kris's airport shuttle service. Thank you so much for all being so willing to help us out!
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