Enjoying the Florida Keys One Festival at a Time

Our first sunset

After 12 days and 3,003 nautical miles we disembark at the Miami cruise terminal, find our mini-van, load our luggage, and leisurely drive south for 69 miles on the Overseas Highway to the unincorporated city of Tavernier on Key Largo in Florida’s upper keys. This is where we will spend the month of January in a gulfside condo. After two u-turns and a cursing session with the GPS, we find our complex and condo. Initially, we are slightly disappointed with the unit’s location. From the pictures on the website we thought we were going to be staring at the water, but we find our unit couldn’t be any further away and not be on the highway. And it’s immediately obvious that we are going to have to deal with a lot of highway noise (there is always traffic on the Overseas). Oh, well, el comprador tenga cuidado, as they say 90 miles further south. On the plus side

Things are blooming in the Keys

we find that our unit has been handsomely remodeled over the summer. We get settled in, have happy hour, and cook some dinner.

Outboard mailbox!

Over the next few days we get more settled in and fall into our normal daily routine. Our daily walks allow us to explore different areas and neighborhoods, and in just a few days we are crazy in love with Tavernier. We have passed through the Keys several times on our way for a few days in Key West, and formed certain impressions about the different islands. The lower keys such as Big Pine Key have an RV-park and snowbird flavor to them and Key West is touristy. Marathon in the middle impresses as a sprawling series of trailer parks stretching along the Overseas for a considerable distance, punctuated by smaller less developed islands on either end. The upper keys are dominated by Key Largo and Islamorada with quaint little Tavernier in between. The town has a well documented history and we found many heritage buildings and homes. Except for the unrelenting Overseas traffic, the only way in and the only way out, Tavernier would be our ideal winter retreat. But it's close enough in all other respects. However, we weren’t too impressed with the weather. Rain, wind, colder-than-normal temperatures, and cloudy skies, in any combination, limited our fishing, sunbathing, and happy-hour sunset viewing most of the time. On lousy weather days we explored Key Largo and

Gettin' the Celtic on

Islamorada by car and made shopping trips up to Homestead and Florida City.

She knows what's under there!

Police also wore kilts

Parading the tartans

You knew there would be sheep!

Luckily the weather was good on our first weekend for a trip to a Celtic Festival at the Marathon Community Park. We arrived to a full primary parking lot, but as we were being rerouted to a secondary lot, a space opened very near the entrance. The festival featured live Celtic bands, Irish and Scottish dancing, Highland athletics and games, sheepdog herding, and Celtic food and merchandise vendors. We entered and started perusing the merchandise vendors while listening to a band, The Screaming Orphans, play their set.

Scottish Parrothead

A redheaded man in a kilt and Scottish Glengarry cap approached Capt. Larry and held his forearm next to his and cried, “You’ve got the right skin to be here, how many skin cancers have you had? I’ve had over twenty!” We exchanged information about dermatologists and skin cancer treatments for a few minutes, then moved on to view the offerings from the remaining vendors.

Bagpipers open the festival

We made our way to a Celtic food vendor to get some lunch.The haggis looked mighty tasty, but the fish and chips looked even tastier. We got a large order to split, a couple of beers, and found a shaded spot at a food court tent.

And sheep, of course!

As we ate our lunch and listened to the next band, Rathkeltair, a fairly renowned Celtic band so we were told, and watched some pretty hefty young women participate in a Highland weight throw on a field just behind our tent. It seemed though, that their efforts were more of an exhibit than a competition and their hearts didn’t really seem to be into it (it was getting pretty warm by now). We finished our lunch but kept our shaded spot by making continuous beer purchases and acting like we were still feasting. The band finished its set and the opening ceremonies began, led by the Miami-based Police Pipe and Drum Corps of Florida. The color guard, bagpipers, and a parade of the tartan flags of various Scottish clans provided a colorfully vibrant start to the ceremonies. After the opening, we listened to Celtic bands Albannach, Marcielle Wallis and Friends, finishing with West of Galway (we’ve been to Galway on Ireland’s western coast and there’s nothing west of it except the North Atlantic Ocean and the New World!). We left the festival, sorry for not being able to stick around for the haggis hurling competition, and had an easy ride back to the condo.

Working on the perspective

Lobster bisque

Capt. Lar's lobster

During the next week, Jane spent most of her time working on a painting project (Capt. Larry was a huge help identifying the picture’s vanishing points), while Capt. Larry tried to stay warm. Our daily walks, drives to nearby communities, and another run to Homestead took up most of our time. Come Friday we loaded up the mini-van and drove 90 miles down to Key West.  Our

Bananas foster

daughter, Milana, and partner Tracey, were flying intoKey West for a weekend vacation and to meet us to go to the Key West Seafood Festival. We had made reservations for two nights at a hotel so we could enjoy a little of Key West again, and also not have to worry about a long drive after we’ve been drinking at the festival. We met up with the girls at their condo on the Key West Bight for a few drinks before dinner. In the marina outside their condo, we spotted a first-time looper flying the white American Great Loop Cruising Association (AGLCA) burgee. After touring their complex, we all headed over to the very fine A&B Lobster House restaurant for dinner. Of course, as the courses rolled out Jane provided the blog with lots of dinner images. We finished our great dinner with a table-split of bananas foster dessert and headed back

Key West Seafood Festival

to our hotel. The next morning we exercised by walking along North Roosevelt Road and the Salt Pond Keys and returning to our room to clean up. We cleaned up, and drove to the seafood festival grounds. Once again we just missed our parking lot. We

Elementary steel drum band

were the third car from the gate when they announced the lot was full, and we were redirected to an alternate lot. As we were negotiating the narrow streets, luck struck again. A mini-compact pulled out not 50 feet from the festival’s entrance. With Jane directing, we squeezed the mini-van into

Too much seafood!

the space. It was tight when a young dude came out and offered to pull his car in front of us ahead to give us a little more room to negotiate an exit. We entered the festival and began viewing the vendor offerings. There were some live bands, and after we had made a round we pitched our fold-up chairs and listened to the music. A short time later Milana and

Plating the fettuccine

Tracey appeared and we staked out an area and made food and beer runs for a couple of hours. We decided it was time to head back to our hotel before things started getting out of hand. Saying goodbye, we left and crashed for the evening. The next morning, as a major storm descended on the island, we checked out and headed back to our Tavernier condo, the girls a couple of hours behind us.

Capt. Larry's creation

They were going to spend a couple of nights with us. After they arrived and got settled in, Capt. Larry cooked dinner – garlic buttered shrimp fettuccine. Yummmmm! We exercised together the next morning, drove them to a farmers and flea market, and showed them some Tavernier residential areas, before taking them out to a very popular Key Largo seafood restaurant.

Jane's creation

They left the next morning to drive to Ft. Lauderdale to catch a flight home. It was a really nice get together for all of us.

Anyone care for a lobster???