US-1 North

Michael was super ambitious and got up early this morning to attempt to watch the sunrise. Me? Not so much. I'm not a morning person to begin with, and my other issue is that once I'm up, I have a really hard time going back to sleep. Plus, vacations are for sleeping in! :)

Unfortunately, he didn't see much of a sunrise because of the cloudy weather. But he still snapped a few cool photos in the early morning light.

He said he stayed out for about 20 minutes before coming back to bed.

When we got up for the day, we had to get packed up so we could check out. Our time at Southernmost on the Beach had come to an end. While I showered, Michael took a cab to the airport to pick up our rental car (just an economy car this time--a lovely, smoky-smelling Hyundai Accent). Once everything was packed, we loaded up the car, checked out at the front desk, and prepared to leave Key West. But we had to make one last stop for a photo opportunity.

The "Southernmost Point of the U.S." was located literally a block away from our hotel. We actually walked down to it a few times, but there were always hoards of people around and it was annoying to try to get up to the landmark and take photos. However, we knew we wouldn't leave Key West without getting some pics, so we had to do it. Thankfully, it wasn't TOO crazy at that hour, so we only had to stand in a short line before we got up for our turn. The person behind us offered to take our photo together, and here is the result:

90 miles to Cuba!

Mission accomplished, we walked back to the hotel, got into our car, and begrudgingly left Key West.

At Beer School on Tuesday, one of Michael's fellow students told him that on our way back up north, we simply HAD to stop at No Name Pub for pizza. Coincidentally, we reached the No Name right around noon, which was perfect because I was STARVING.

It's exactly what you'd expect it to be... a cute little pub. The thing I found most interesting/impressive was that every square inch of the walls and ceilings were covered with $1 bills. All of them are signed, drawn on, scribbled with messages and dates, etc. People proudly leave their dollar bills as a sign that they were once there at the No Name Pub. I knew there were thousands of them, but when I went to the bathroom, I saw a framed newspaper article with an interview with the owner. He claims that there are between 65,000 and 75,000 $1 bills stapled to the walls and ceiling. WHOA. Anyway, it's pretty cool looking, and quite the sight to see.

We ordered a pizza and garlic sticks and chowed down. Seriously, it was a lot of food and it was delicious. I'm still full, frankly.

The power flickered off and we had issues getting our bill as a result. (Seriously, No Name? You couldn't have just done the math for us?) We had to wait a good 15-20 minutes just for the freaking bill! Annoying, as we just wanted to get back on the road.

Eventually, everything worked out and we were on our way, heading closer and closer to Miami Beach.

After hitting some traffic in Miami, we arrived at our hotel in Miami Beach between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. We checked in and got settled, then decided to take a walk down to South Beach to check it out. We walked around for quite a while, but still weren't able to work up much of an appetite after our big lunch at No Name. Instead, we decided to sit outside on a lovely patio at a fancy-looking cafe and order a couple of desserts (and a cocktail for Michael). The weather was really breezy, but it was still beautiful to sit out on the street and take in our surroundings.

Once we had been significantly stuffed with sugar, we made the long walk back to our hotel, and now we're calling it a night. The weather wasn't very nice today--warm, but overcast all day. Tomorrow, it is supposed to rain. :( We're not sure what we're going to do with ourselves, as we had been planning to spend our time out by the pool or on the beach! That's not the way we want to end our vacation...