Key West - Day 6

Thanks to everyone for sticking with me through 6 days of our trip.  On our last day we got up early, ate breakfast and then headed out to Key Largo.  We had booked the 4.5 hour snorkel tour at John Pennenkamp Coral Reef State Park for early afternoon.  We got there in plenty of time, so we signed in early.  Good thing we did too - they were packed.  I highly recommend making reservations in advance for any of the activities you want to do here - everything was filling up quickly and we were there by 11:00 am.   Fortunately they are highly organized and used to dealing with crowds, so the process moved along quickly.

Once we were checked in we grabbed some lunch at the snack bar - they don't have a huge selection and we ended up with some sub sandwiches.  I suggest you stop and grab a meal before you get here if you'd like something more substantial.

After that we walked over to the aquarium.  We both enjoyed that and it's free!

The next few photo's are a really good example of the color and types of fish we saw on the reefs the entire trip.....

After the aquarium we grabbed some ice cream and headed over to the boat.  We went to 3 locations and each was slightly different.  The cost of the 4.5 hour tour is $ 38.95 and I thought it was well worth it.

Our favorite stop on this snorkel trip was getting to see the Christ of the Deep statue.   Unfortunately, by the time we got there, there were also 2 other boat loads of people there and it was a feeding frenzy as everyone was headed over to the statue at the same time.  Tradition is to swim down and touch the hands of Christ.

(credit - google images)

Chablis headed over, swam right down and touched it...

I tried 3 times but between the buoyancy vest, the current and the multitude of swimmers, I just couldn't swim hard enough to reach it.  I was exhausted and had to head back to the boat.  I'm not used to not being able to do something, so that was a real reality check for me.  I was so disappointed and frustrated with myself, but at least I got to see it.  The only advice I would give to the snorkel tours would be to somehow scatter their arrival so that so many people weren't trying to get to it at the same time.

Despite that, it was a fun afternoon.  If you do the 4.5 hour tour I advise to bring plenty of water and some snacks.  They supply a water bucket but we went through it really quickly and after 4 hours we were starving and we hadn't remembered to bring a snack with us.

After we returned to shore we headed over to our hotel -  The Hampton Inn.  This was by far our best hotel of the trip.  When we were checking in they had a tray of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies sitting on the counter - I'm ashamed to admit that I scarfed down 3 of them while we were checking in!  The room was very clean and they had a really nice beach on the gulf side that we didn't have enough time to use.  Since we were so hungry we took fast showers and headed down to The Fish House for dinner.  We had a great dinner.  We started off with the Smoked Fish Dip appetizer - OMG - it was excellent!  They gave us so much that I could have easily made a meal out of just the dip.  This is what what left after we already ate half of it....

I had the stuffed shrimp...

Chablis ordered the Fried Grouper...   Both were very tasty and they were large portions.  Another winning meal!

 Afterward dinner we went across the street and grabbed a geocache Castle in Key Largo.   It took me about 5 minutes to find it and believe me, I was working fast because the mosquitoes were out in droves.

Our full afternoon on the sea left us exhausted and ready for bed, so we made it an early evening.  Our room was a ground floor room and Chablis noticed that a laundry room and gym were conveniently located in the building next door.  When I woke up at 7 am the next morning I took all our clothes and bathing suits over and threw them in the washers.  While they washed and dried I did a few miles on the treadmill.  Let me tell you, it was nice to go home with clean laundry and not have to worry about it when we got home.  Hampton Inn gets 2 thumbs up for a winning hotel!

I want to leave you with a few last photos from Key West that I didn't get to include on my Key West posts.  One night when we were walking down Duval we ran into Harley and his pet parrot - Bones.  We had a lot of fun taking photos and talking to Harley....

Bones liked to give kisses....

I think these pictures perfectly sum up our Key West trip - crazy and a lot of fun.  We packed a ton of activities into 6 days.  I know it was probably a little whirl wind for some people, but Chablis and I enjoyed it and we got to do everything we really wanted to do, except for the catamaran ride that got rained out.

So long Key West - we had an awesome time!!

Starved Rock State Park

One of my absolute favorite places to hike in the state of Illinois is Starved Rock State Park.  Starved Rock is the #1 attraction in the state and is located about an hour SW of Chicago.  They have 13 miles of trails to explore but their claim to fame is the sandstone canyons - they are gorgeous any time of the year.

Starved Rock has a really interesting history, which I am sharing here courtesy of Wikipedia....

Before European contact, the area was home to Native Americans, particularly the Kaskaskia who lived in the Grand Village of the Illinois across the river. Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette were the first Europeans recorded as exploring the region, and by 1683, the French had established Fort St. Louis on a large sandstone butte overlooking the river, they called Le Rocher (the Rock). Later after the French had moved on, according to a local legend, a group of Native Americans of the Illinois Confederation (also called Illiniwek or Illini) pursued by the Ottawa and Potawatomi fled to the butte in the late 18th century. The Ottawa and Potawatomi besieged the butte until all of the Illiniwek had starved, and the butte became known as "Starved Rock". The area around The Rock was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

We saw a lot of wild turkey as we were driving through the park....

This is the view from the bridge between the parking lot and the Lodge....

The Lodge is huge and houses a restaurant, meeting rooms, lodging rooms and a gift shop....

There also happens to be a geocache hidden there, which we quickly found before we hit the trails.  First things first, right??

One of the nice things about the canyons is that you can walk into them and climb all over them, which is half the fun.  This time of year the canyons are fairly dry, but in the spring when the snow starts melting, the waterfalls are beautiful and the canyon bottoms fill with water.

This time we went on a Friday in November and it was a good choice, because we had the trails practically to ourselves.  During the summer and on the weekends it gets very crowded.

The trails are a wonderful combination of dirt, paved road, rock or boardwalks.....

Here we are at the top of Starved Rock, over looking the river.  We missed the peak fall colors by about a week, but the trees still put on a pretty good show....

The far point across the bay was Lovers Leap and Eagle's Cliff and that was our next destination...

Louie wasn't leaping off of any cliffs for me.....

The boards walks here are extensive and very nicely built.  It was a great place to sit and enjoy the view.  Plus, it was a beautiful day and the temperatures were just right for hiking...

Wildcat Canyon was my favorite.  When you walk into the canyons the temperature really takes a dip.

To get a feel for the size of the canyons, look closely and you can see Chablis in the center of the photo....

Once we left Wildcat Canyon we had a massive series of stairs to climb.  This is the view from half way up them....

By this time Louie was really happy to see the Return sign.  I think that last set of stairs did him in!

 By then we were pretty darn hungry so we high tailed it to town and grabbed some burgers for lunch...

If you're looking for a great place to hike in Illinois, you need to visit Starved Rock.  It's a gem of a place.  Plus, any time of year is beautiful.  I've been there many times and during all the seasons, and each is special for its own reason.  

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