Monday Jan. 27 – Sunday Feb. 2

0 miles

This past week was a fun and eventful one. To start the week some good friends, Mark and Anna Roth came down to visit from MI for a few days. While they were here we took them to a couple of our favorite restaurants and had several rides in our dinghy. During one ride in the dinghy we saw several manatees and with an underwater camera Mark had we got an awesome video of them. Tuesday we took a ride out to the Atlantic Ocean and stopped at Sombrero Beach and spend some time in the sun and water. According to Mark “a day in the sun is hard work”.

 

Mark & Anna

 

 Manatees

 

 Stingray

 

 Garfish

 

Wednesday morning we said goodbye to Mark and Anna, and hello to Mike, Elaine, Ed, and Pat.

The four of them are renting a house near us for a couple of months. Randy and Mike used to work (and I use that term loosely) together. They picked us up and we took a road trip to Big Pine Key. This Key is known for Key deer which is an endangered deer that lives only in the Florida Keys. It is a subspecies of the white-tailed deer and is the smallest North American deer. We hiked through a national park to what’s called the “Blue Hole”. This is an old quarry dug out for road bed material for local roads during the 1930’s and 40’s. It now contains fresh water collected from rainfall. Because freshwater is lighter then saltwater, it floats on top of the underlying saltwater, forming a lens which gives the area wildlife fresh water to drink.

Black Hole

 

 Anhinga

 

 Green Heron (trying to hide)

 

 Key Deer

 

 

 

 

From there it was time for lunch so we went to the No Name Pub. This pub is the oldest bar on Big Pine Key, was built in 1963 and has a long history. Originally a general store, the business expanded into an upstairs brothel in the late 1930’s. By the 1940’s, the brothel closed and a bait and tackle shop was added to the general store. The 1950’s brought a restaurant addition and the No Name Pub was born.

 

Ed (front), Randy, Pat, Mike, Sherri, Elaine

 

 

Inside No Name Pub, (estimate 150,000 one dollar bills)