Whew! I needed that!

Note: I started this blog post a couple of weeks ago when we first got home from our trip and the timing has just not seemed right to brag and gush about our fabulous, long awaited vacation. I was hoping that the world would get back to normal by now but well … not so much. So I’ve decided to post this anyway and hope that people can at least live vicariously through it while we all sit in quarantine. My sincere best wishes to everyone through these difficult days. ~ Mz Suzanne

So Oh My God – BF and I had a really relaxing 11 day trip away that we managed to sneak in under the wire before the world went totally nuts. Not only was it really long overdue but it covered my desire for adventure as well as our mutual need for some R & R.

We started with two nights in Miami which somehow accidentally found us in the same exact room of the same hotel we booked on our first trip to the area in Dec 2012. Very cool bit of deja vu! Of course we walked the boardwalk, people watched, laid on the beach a bit, dipped our toes in the surf … then had a fabulously expensive dinner and the biggest Mohito I ever saw!

The next morning we took a VIP tour of “Everglades Holiday Park” that was made famous by The Gator Boys. It was a very interesting and fun tour that included an airboat ride into the everglades, an alligator show with Gabby. a live animal meet and greet with Olivia that allowed me to hold several cool critters: an alligator, ball python, chocolate skunk and even a scorpion! It was definitely a blast, but sadly I cannot whole heartily recommend the place because I discovered that the owner of the place totally reneged on his agreement to pay Paul Bedard of the Gator Boys, a lousy 3% of the business that he put on the map, and decided to simply screw him over. So – Not – Cool! I won’t say where I heard this since I wouldn’t want to risk their job but it sure seemed like a reliable source and if this is true please do feel free to visit the Everglades but go anywhere BUT this place – because cheaters shouldn’t prosper. ‘Nuff said.

Anyway – back to fab vacay – for Valentine’s day my sweetheart took me on the 4 day “Sail Across the Sun” cruise from Miami to the Bahamas. The cruise is sponsored by the band “Train” – {Hey Soul Sister, Marry Me, Drops of Jupiter, etc.) and it was their 6th time doing this. The entertainment included not only Train as musical entertainment but also the amazing Matt Nathanson (whom I adore!) and a lot of other bands and even George Lopez the comedian ( who came out and sang “She shook me all night long” with Matt). This was like one of the best cruises I’ve ever been on! I got to see so many live concerts all over the ship and even was able to do another meet and greet with Matt before “social distancing” entered the vocabulary! Yay!! (I am even willing to overlook his insanely tacky British invasion short shorts that he wore for the 80’s cover set – but barely)

The ship stopped at Nassau Bahamas where Brett and I got to do some shopping in downtown Nassau and then shuttled over to Atlantis to explore the aquariums and enjoy a gorgeous sunny beach. Our second port was Great Stirrup Cay which is one of NCL’s private islands where we got to explore and go on a long kayak excursion. We also got to do some snorkeling which I was a bit less impressed with sadly. It seems that a lot of the construction in the area had resulted in a great deal of silty cover over all the underwater vegetation and to be honest – it seemed like a lot of it was dying. (sad face) I am truly hoping I am wrong and that the area will recover quickly but from what we could see while snorkeling – the tourist boom on that little island has not been kind to the environment. 🙁

Once we arrived back in Miami, my sweetheart and I rented a car and drove the Overseas Highway all the way down to Key West making a few stops on the way to enjoy a couple of places. Our first stop was Robbie’s in Islamorada that is pretty famous for the “feeding the tarpon”. Well… I am always game for feeding creatures – even ones I am not necessarily supposed to. (Ask the stray cats, raccoons, skunks, possum and bears that drop by my yard – lol). Anyway so I bought a bucket of fish and paid our $2.50 per person dock entrance fee and before I got 6 feet out a pelican snatched a fish right out of the bucket that I was clearly not holding defensively enough! I got mugged by a pelican! So I pulled my bucket closer to me and headed over to the spot where people were lying down on the dock and reaching their arms straight out towards the giant jaws of these HUGE tarpon. Their mouths actually looked large enough to swallow your whole hand quite easily. So, I umm decided instead to toss a fish or two from the distance into the “pool” basically to discover that it looked more like a piranha feeding frenzy!

But I still had quite a bit of fish and some very attentive pelicans vying for my attention so what’s a Domme to do? I was a bit surprised when one of the feisty fellows decided to try to take a nip out of me and you may even be able to hear me scold him briefly before tossing the last fish to anyone other than that bad boy bird. <lol> Robbie’s is definitely an experience though and I very much enjoyed our time there. The food was great and there were lots of little places to browse and shop.

We made a couple other little stops along the way including a nature center and another to see a gigantic crustacean, but we eventually worked our way down to our home away from home for the next 4 days. A cute little rental property barely 2 blocks from Hemingway house, maybe 3 from Duval street so close enough to walk to just about everything.

I REALLY love visiting Hemingway house because it is one of the few places I can say honestly makes me feel like an amateur when it comes to cats. <grin> They have 59 cats that live there! Of course they also have a huge staff and a full time vet – while I only have me and Brett to take care of my clowder of fur babies. But it was definitely time for me to get a kitty fix at that point in our trip. I mean I had gone a full week without petting even one cat at that point! <shock face> So yes I wandered the grounds with my sweetheart for quite some time, petting, photographing and identifying that cats that live at Hemingway House. There’s an app with pics of all the cats on it you know, so of course I had to download and play with that.

This trip we hiked the 88 steps to the top of the Key West Lighthouse and I got a miniature for my lighthouse collection. What an amazing view from up there! We of course went to Southernmost Point for a photo op and even visited the beautiful garden with it’s amazing orchids and so much more.

This time out we also did the Ghost and Cemeteries tour which was fun and interesting. Lots of entertaining ghost stories, Robert the doll is creepy AF! But don’t tell him I said so. And remember, if you take the tour, YOU ARE DOOMED! Inside joke, do the tour. 😉

But no trip to Key West would be complete with out seeing the Dominique the Catman of Key West and his flying household cat circus do their meowvelous sunset purr-formance! His act is very unique and his cats are remarkable.

So yes, it was a wonderful whirlwind vacation from start to finish and I loved having an opportunity to thaw out down south but it was also truly nice to get back home to my own bed and my furry family. Just in time for the world to go on lock down. Things are definitely a bit crazy out there right now so please be safe and take care or yourselves, your loved ones and your neighbors.