Key West: Take Two

Oh boy what a weekend!  Can you believe it’s been almost a year since I was last in Key West?  Remember the Jet Skiing?  Or the Pub Crawl?  Or the Dessert Crawl?  Such good memories, and I definitely made new ones this time too!

Saturday’s departure was delayed a bit as the fun we had the night before at home had left a few people a bit tired and with some headaches, if you get what I mean.  I in the meantime, took the advantage of a beautiful and cool morning and set out for a run. I did my normal 5.6 mile block run in a respectable time, with a few 1/2 mile high effort intervals in there.  I’m going to be incorporating some speed work training into my running soon in hopes of breaking my TWO HOUR 1/2 Marathon PR…Hopefully at the newly introduced SAN DIEGO ROCK N’ ROLL 1/2 MARATHON IN JUNE!!! I haven’t signed up for it yet as I’m not sure what’s going to be going on with my work life (moving? in another state? jobless? homeless? You get the picture).

Anyhow, I hurried home to shower and fuel up my “screaming for food” body!  Enter my new favorite oats combo: Apple Cinnamon Fresh Strawberry Peanut Butter Oats.

  

Divine!

We finally headed out and hit the road for a nice 3+ hr drive down to Key West!  I’m way stingy when it come to eating on the road so I always opt to bring my own food.  While everyone else stopped for pizza I brought a pear and a wrap.

My wrap included:

• red leaf lettuce
• tomato
• hummus
• leftover roasted cauliflower
• leftover roasted broccolini and asparagus

I think I got over heated sitting out in the sun during lunch so I passed out for a while in the car and woke up to my packed yogurt mess of a snack:

I pre-combined some Fage 0% with a peach and strawberries, then added on of my blackberry muffins on top for some added substance.  I loved it when I came upon the surprise chocolate chips from the muffins.

We hit Big Pine and went on a search for some Key Deer, which I had totally misinterpreted from last year!  The one I saw last time was only about the side of a larger terrier, but these were nothing of the sort!  So much bigger!  I thought they were supposed to be tiny!?

This one was a little shy, but not enough to show some booty…

Look at the baby!

Look at all of them!  There were five in this group and a single one we saw a few minutes before.  I <3 wildlife.

He thought we was the man.  Obviously not since all the women left. Hah!

We finally arrived in Key West around 4 and headed straight to the Holiday Inn where we booked out hotel.  Such a pretty pool (that I never took advantage of dangit).

We prettied up and set out for a night out on Duval Street.

We were all starving but couldn’t head off to our restaurant before sampling some tasty treats from the Key West Line Shoppe.  We had a little sample of the Key Lime Fudge which was super rich but the lime flavor wasn’t too overwhelming.  I really liked it, but probably wouldn’t have been able to eat anymore.

After everyone had their share of desserts we finally headed off to The Cafe for dinner.  I went here last year when I was in Key West and was glad to find we only had to wait about a 1/2 hr for a table…and the menu wasn’t outrageously expensive.  We avoided most of the other restaurants because of their high prices (don’t hate, we’re not high rollers…we are' paid diddly squat to do the jobs we love!)

Last time I had the Artichoke Sandwich which I really enjoyed, but this time I wanted something with more heart and substance.  It looked like their Signature Veggie Burger was pretty popular, so I decided to try that.  I also subbed out my marinated beans for some sweet potato fries.

I think the Sweet Potato Fries beat out the burger in this meal.  They serve the burger on a toasted piece of french bread with lettuce, tomato and sprouts and the fries with a curry lime sauce, but I opted to use ketchup on both.  I devoured the fries as fast as I could and then ate the burger without the bread because seriously, it looked like a normal pounder burger you’d get at a restaurant.  The burger itself was just ok, it was lacking a bit of flavor and I think the legumes (presumably used to hold the burger together) made it a bit dry. You can bet there was a lot of ketchup squirted all over this!

We headed out and hit up a few of the bars to scoop out the night life and have interesting conversations with random people.  The entire place was actually very crowded because, oops, we forgot it was the start of Spring Break.

After a bit of managing my friends to make sure they were staying out of trouble I practically sprinted down the street to get my dessert: FROZEN CUSTARD!!!

I knew this was the closest I would get to frozen yogurt so it was a must have.  I didn’t try it last time I was down, so I was really excited to try my own cup!  I decided on the Peanut Butter and Chocolate Swirl and let me just say…I was in heaven.  This stuff is even better than regular frozen yogurt from my favorite places like Rocky’s Fro-yo in San Diego!  You can bet that when I got to the bottom, I was wishing it would miraculously fill itself.

We ran around the rest of the night trying to find some places to dance and meeting some new people, and as had anticipated getting home at a semi-decent hour…that didn’t happen.  Lets just say it’s been a very long time since I’ve been out that late at night in the morning.  It got a bit hectic at the end as we lost people who didn’t have their cell phones or money and I was really worried how they were going to get back to the hotel (we took a taxi over there). 

We all eventually ended back together safe and sound and passed out.  I tossed and turned after on a few hours of sleep but I was so exhausted I finally fell back asleep.  I woke up around 9am and laid there for a while until others started moving.  I brought my running gear in the off chance I would be able to get a jog in and dang, the weather was perfect for it!  It was cool (probably in the high 60’s) with the sun shining and a strong slight breeze to make me work harder!

I opted to run without a shirt along the bay front to keep from creating too many sweaty clothes and work on my horrible tan lines and enjoyed every step of it: 4.5 miles done!

I showered up and was hangry by the time I got to eat since it was almost…noon?  No shame, it was long night.  I brought along some oats, a banana and some pb, so I made that up quick and crammed it into my stomach!

We headed out a bit afterwards back to Duval Street where they were on a mission to try some hot sauces so we stopped at Peppers of Key West.  I snacked on a juicy organic pear before heading inside to browse.

Peppers!

Everyone tasted some of the sauces, but I decided not to as I’d had them last year and wasn’t too fond of many of them (I have a very bland tongue, so sue me!)

Although, I did happen to snag a sample of their new Spicy Peanut Butter!  It was really good!  I would have bought a jar had it not cost over EIGHT DOLLARS to purchase.  Yack.

Most of the crew was on a mission to get some fresh Key Lime Pie so we decided on Kermit’s to get them a piece.

After staring at some Key Lime Wine for a while one of the workers offered me a sample…this stuff could be dangerous!  It was like Key Lime Juice with a bit of a kick…and I bet I could gulp an entire bottle; it was that good.

 

Enjoying their pie!

We set out for our last walk on Duval St. to get to the the Southern Most Point, but not before more FROZEN CUSTARD!

Twice in a weekend?  Whatever, I was practically treating it as my lunch since I had breakfast so late!  This time I decided to go with the Peanut Butter and Vanilla (seriously, one of these needs to be in Miami, NOW!)…and I forgot to ask for it in a cup and not on a cone.  Not a fan of cones, but I can assure you I ate it anyhow.

After many blocks of walking we finally packed up in the cars and headed back home.  I slept for a while and then had a snack: Blackberry Muffin and Banana.

Pretty sunset…

If there is one thing I don’t like about vacations and such it’s that I totally lack in the vegetable department.  It was all I was craving by the time I got home.  I started off with some toast spread with Laughing Cow Light and Publix Brand Roasted Red Pepper Hummus…

And ended with the biggest salad on the planet.

• Red Leaf Lettuce
• Green Leaf Lettuce
• Carrots
• Tomatoes
• Bell Peppers
• Leftover Cauliflower
• Leftover Asparagus and Broccolini
• Chickpeas

Talk about a filler!

I’ll have a Side Note feature tomorrow for you about the aspects of Social Pressure, so look out for it!  I’ve got a long day of field work too, so hopefully I won’t be too exhausted to post it!

Good night!  And great job to all the ladies who ran the Disney Princess Half Marathon this weekend!!!