Divas Traveling Wild

  Just to recap this is part 2 of the trip report for my 50th bday road trip to the Florida Keys in 2021, covering days 4 through 6.  The travel party of Divas on this trip consisted of my daughter (26), my best friend and myself (The Original Diva or OD). Back to the trip! Day 4 – “XXXX Blockers”-- Key West/Nine One Five/801 Bourbon Bar: Whew you made it to Day 4. This day ends in complete and total infamy! Trust. It was a lazy day. The not-so-wee-bairn (in my best Scottish accent, think Shrek here) walked to Starbucks to bring us back some coffee and breakfast as the coffee at the hotel was, you guessed it – just ok but it was expensive. I know, I know. Starbucks was not really any cheaper, but it made me feel better and I was creeping ever closer to half a century mark so leave me alone. My memory of the daytime activities is foggy (hey I’m old!). I think we got drinks from the pool bar that were very subpar to the ones we were making in the room and of course more expensiv...

I had been planning for a couple years for a grand Paris and Amsterdam extravaganza for my Fabulous 50 th  birthday but thanks to COVID, I decided to play it safe and stay stateside. This led me to recently checking off an item on my travel bucket list - The Florida Keys. The travel party of Divas included the usual suspects: my daughter (26), my best friend (age not disclosed, but she is OLDER than me, shhhh) and myself. The BFF was flying down from Jersey direct into Key West a day after we got there, and el kiddo and I originally planned to take the Key West Express Ferry  out of Ft Myers. The drive from our house to Key West is just over 7 hours. The drive to the ferry is 2.5 hours and the ferry ride is about 3.5 hours. The ferry boarding starts at 7am, and with a 2.5-hour drive from our home to the ferry, we were going to stay over the night before. The return ferry did not leave Key West until 6pm so we would not get back to our home until after midnight. But then I dug ...

photo by El Meson de Pepe The Divas recently stayed at the beautiful Ocean Key Resort in Key West Florida for 7 days, 6 nights to celebrate my milestone birthday. On the trip with me were my daughter(26) and my best friend (age withheld to protect the not-so-innocent).     Our hotel in Key West was right on Mallory Square so for a late lunch one day, we cut across the square to check out  El Meson de Pepe , a Cuban spot.  Once again, it was just fine. That  seemed to be the t rend of this trip, most of the food was ok, did its job to nutrify our bodies and line our tummies against the alcohol but not a lot of yumminess and joy to be had. As a group of self-proclaimed foodies (even though I have a ton of allergies), this was just a blah foodie trip for us. Nothing was bad per se, but only a couple of things stood out, including one of the best meals of my life but more on that in another blog post.  We got a round of caipirinhas (a Brazil...