Southern Most

 From Miami to Key West

Villa Vizcaya

The Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, previously known as Villa Vizcaya, is the former villa and estate of businessman James Deering, of the Deering McCormick-International Harvester fortune. The estate’s location on Biscayne Bay in the present-day Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami provides endless 180 degree ocean views.

We enjoyed touring the home and extensive gardens containing a mixture of old and new (for its time) furnishings and architectural features. Deering combined the look and technologies of Europe into his Florida estate and gardens. You can almost forget you are in Florida and start to feel you are in a villa on the Mediterranean!

As you can see in the picture above lots of people come here to have portraits done. I usually don’t include people I don’t know in a picture but thought the couples having their pictures taken added to the picture, giving scale and personality to the picture.

Overseas Highway to Key West

Most of this road trip takes place on Route 1, aka the Overseas Highway. It’s named that because it features 42 bridges, including the famous Seven-Mile Bridge in which you drive across 7 miles of open ocean!

Betsy the Lobster is around 40 feet long and has been watching over the  Rain Barrel Artisan Village in Islamorada for four decades now. She’s the second-most photographed point of interest in the Florida Keys, behind only the Southernmost Point in Key West.

Robbie’s 

This is the ultimate roadside attraction on the US 1. Tourists stop and pay for fish to feed to the tarpons! While feeding the group of tarpon that hang around the dock is exciting you don’t have to buy fish to enjoy the action! 

Watching the people scream when the tarpon take their fish, or the pelicans swoop in to take fish from their buckets and hands is quite a show as well!

Key West

Hemingway House is a popular attraction in Key West. At one time the home to the famed author, the house gives a glimpse into his life and the opulence of Key West. 

If you enjoy cats this is a place to see!

Hemingway had a great love for animals and had up to 60+ cats, many of them Polydactyl. This means they had an extra digit on each paw. 

🐾 The 60+ descendants of Hemingway’s cats now living on the grounds are of great interest to all those touring the home.

Southern Most  …

When you arrive at the most southern point of Key West you will see almost every sign claiming southern most status…southern most resort, southern most margaritas, southern most out house, etc. People line up to take selfies with a bouy that marks the southern most point of the US.

Mallory Square

Every evening Mallory Square is the gathering place for street entertainment and watching the sunset! It is quite the happening place to be!

From Key West we took the long drive back North to Fort Lauderdale.

While it is 170 miles it took about six hours due to slow speed limits, traffic and accidents.

We are getting ready to board our cruise ship that will take us home via the Panama Canal and port along Central America and Mexico.

We are praying for smooth seas, and an amazing adventure on the sea!

⚓️🛳️❤️

Lori and Steve