Florida or Bust (Day 6) Monday March 11th

We are up and rolling pretty early.  Daylight savings time has really kicked in, so it seems really early....Just sayin....  We grab a quick McDonald's breakfast....well, wasn't quite that quick, cause they were pretty slow, but anyway, you get the idea.

We take a couple of turnpikes, so Diana & I have money in our pockets to pay.  The first one we only go about 3 miles and and it cost us $3.00....The next one, from Orlando to Miami cost us $32.00.  Wow, is all I could say.  LOL  I have to think it was worth it.  :)

Miami

We will make it to our condo today.  We have reservations at the Lime Tree Bay Resorts, in Layton Florida.
Experiencing Hwy 1 through Miami was quite interesting.  I don't know exactly what I thought Miami would look like, but it wasn't what I saw.  Don't get me wrong, there is an area that the cruise ships are docked, and there are multi million dollar homes on the other side, and they were very nice.  The water was pristine...so blue....but you get down in the heart of the city, and oh my...and horns...people honk their horns at anything that moves.  I swear I have never heard so many tooting of horns in my life.  If they don't move, honk....and honk again.

We stop for gas at this little station, and start talking about eating.  I see a deli sign right next to this station.  So we pull over there and try it out.  Casola's Pizzeria & Sub Shop to be exact.  I am glad I am a quick study, as I saw a piece of pizza a person picked up, and it was the size of most medium pizza's. I had to try it, and sure enough, it was huge.  The food was good, and really felt we were in Little Italy. Who knows exactly where we were, and what we were doing there, but we are definitely outsiders...
Time to get on the bikes and get to the Keys.

We drive for quite a while before we see the Key Largo signs.  We make our way through Coral Gables, and and Homestead.  As we make our way to Key Largo, the scenery begins to change a bit.  Of course silly, we are on a small piece of land, we are on an island.  Traffic is pretty thick, and we pass bikes that are going to other direction.  We see lots of marsh land.












 Would love to say we saw an alligator, but I can't!!!  The wall that separate the 2 lanes of road is painted the same as the ocean.  Love the color.  Such a beautiful aqua blue.

This new app we are using on the phones let you take a picture and it will show your location and what the temperature is.  Diana posted this one and it cracked me up.  I ask her if she put the "enter the gates of hell" on it, and she said No, it was on the app already.   :)

I had no idea there were so many little "keys".  Each Key is a little township, with it's own set of people making their living, be it fishing or making it from the tourist.  Very interesting for this land locked Okie, I have to admit.

View from our patio on second floor 

The town of Layton is about in the middle of this string of Keys.  We find our condo, and get settled in.  The condo is really nice, and we have parking for the bikes on the ground floor.  Time to unpack and get to living this island life.  We hang around until sunset so we can get a few pictures of it.  It was a beautiful sunset.  :)

Our home away from home 

Its time to eat, and we have to go back about 6 miles to find a restaurant.  I pulled up a place, and guess what, it isn't open on Mondays.  There is another restaurant about  4 or 5 miles down the road.  We find it...get a table and eat.  It has really been a long an exhausting day.   The food was really good, and we sat outside and had the sea breeze at our backs.  That sea breeze was a bit cold, but we survived.  We take the now 10-12 mile ride back to the condo.  Would have been nice to have had food, but on a bike it is a little harder to do this.  Not knowing the area doesn't help either. Stick a fork in me, cause I am done.  Time to get some shut eye.  Goodnight world.  For tomorrow we head to Key West.