Key West - Day 4 - Wed, 3/14/2012

We checked out of the Courtyard at 8:00 and valet brought van around at 8:15. We drove across causeway, 395 and picked up 95 S until it ended on Hwy 1. We took 836 to 821 South turnpike towards Florida City. While on 821 a Coral Gables police car pulled up beside us and rolled down his window and asked what part of Rutherford County we lived in. He was from Murfreesboro and went to MTSU - small world. We drove through South Miami (where Gwen made her infamous statement "Stuff is everywhere"). We drove onto Florida City on Highway 1 and headed south towards Key Largo. 

There was a major accident at Mile Marker (MM) 99 in Key Largo so we stopped and had breakfast at Doc's Diner.  Doc's is famous for Doc's Feast that includes eggs, grits, gravy, biscuits, french toast, pancakes, sausage, bacon and ham for 4-5 people.  Of course we ordered that.

Traffic cleared up so we headed south on Hwy 1 (also known as Overseas Highway) towards Key West.  We drove through Islamorada, Marathon (location of 7-mile bridge), Big Pine key and then arrived in Key West.

We checked into our hotel and drove up Duval Street (Duval runs north and south from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico) over to the furthermost southernmost point in the US (157 miles from Miami and 90 miles from Cuba).  The line to take the photo in front of the buoy was not too long - about 15 minutes.

We went to dinner at 5:30 and then headed down to Mallory Square to watch the sunset with 10,000 other people.  We were lucky enough to find a parking place - just needed enough change to feed the parking meter that gave you 4 minutes for every dime you feed it.  Pooling all of our change we came up with enough to last 2 hours.
Sunset was beautiful - it is a big deal to watch the sunset - there are singers, unicycles, fire acts, bushman (who jumps in front of people to scare them), jugglers and acts of all kinds. Afterwards, we walked back up Duval Street (kind of like Bourbon Street in New Orleans), bought a couple of souvenirs and then headed home.  By the way the pic at Capt Tony's - people were trying to throw coins in the fish's mouth.