Fair warning: this post is a short one. It mostly covers our drive back from Key West toward mainland Florida. Once we hit Miami, well, you’ve already read about our adventures there in a previous post. But even a “travel day” in the Keys refuses to be boring, because the road itself is one of the most spectacular drives in America. More on that in a minute.

A Slow Morning (We Earned It)

After the previous day’s 25,000-step sauna experience, we treated ourselves to a well-deserved late morning and returned to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. When you find a hotel breakfast that works, you don’t experiment. You are loyal. Also it was included for free, so there is that.

Ariela’s Maiden Kayak Voyage

Bathing suits on, we went straight to rent a kayak. And by “we” I mean Eitan and Ariela, because the kayak was a two-seater and someone had to stay on shore holding the towels and documenting the expedition (Sarah’s sacrifice will be remembered).

It was Ariela’s very first time in a kayak, and the first few minutes came with some healthy skepticism about this whole “floating on a plastic red banana” concept. But soon enough she relaxed, found her groove, and genuinely enjoyed the ride. A new paddler was born.

The Florida sun, however, had other plans. With zero shade on the water and heat that could soften metal, our nautical adventure was… brief. We paddled back to shore with the urgency of people who suddenly remembered that air conditioning exists.

Pool, Chess, and the Ariela Rulebook

We spent the next few hours doing the smartest possible activity in the Keys in summer: floating in the hotel pool. A quick shout-out here. We stayed at the Ocean’s Edge Resort, and we loved it. Highly recommend if you’re doing Key West with family.

We also played some chess, which started as chess and slowly evolved into an entirely different game once Ariela began implementing her own rules. I don’t fully understand the new rules, but I do know that under them, Ariela wins. Grandmasters, take note.

After a quick snack, we packed up and pointed the car north, which in the Keys means driving the legendary Overseas Highway: the 113-mile stretch of U.S. 1 that hops from island to island across 42 bridges, with turquoise water on both sides the entire way.

Bahia Honda State Park: The Beach the Keys Forgot to Not Have

Our first stop of the drive: Bahia Honda State Park, and wow. This park has pristine, postcard-perfect beaches, which is more remarkable than it sounds, because here’s a fun secret: the Florida Keys barely have any natural beaches. The offshore coral reef (the only living coral barrier reef in the continental U.S.) blocks the big waves that normally grind up sand and push it ashore. So most of the Keys’ coastline is mangrove and rock, and Bahia Honda is one of the rare glorious exceptions, consistently ranked among the best beaches in America.

The park is also home to the hauntingly beautiful old Bahia Honda Rail Bridge, a surviving chunk of Flagler’s railroad that now stands rusting dramatically over the channel like a movie set. You can see exactly where the highway used to run on top of it.

We spent a couple of blissful hours here building sand castles and relaxing in water so clear it looked Photoshopped, until our stomachs announced it was time to move on.

The Great Poke Betrayal

A few minutes further up the road, we made a stop at another recommended key lime pie spot, because our scientific pie survey of the Keys demanded one final data point. The pie: good. Solid entry. Respectable.

But then, hubris. We also ordered the poke.

After reading the menu and its ambitious list of approximately forty-seven sauces and toppings, we politely asked the waiter to leave some of the sauces off. He seemed personally insulted and firmly informed us that the dish had to be eaten the way it was designed. The chef’s vision. The integrity of the plate.

Now look, if a chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant tells me the dish must be experienced as designed, I bow my head and trust the process. Our mistake was extending that same faith to a middle-of-the-road Florida roadside restaurant. Reader, the vision was nasty. The design was flawed. We should have staged a sauce intervention when we had the chance. Let this be a lesson: trust the chef, but verify the chef.

The same way we praise good places, we shame the bad ones: This one was named S.S. Wreck & Galley Grill.

The Three-Hour Check-In

We finally arrived at our next hotel, ready to collapse. Except check-in was at 3:00 PM and our room wasn’t ready until 6:00 PM. Three hours. Not even a courtesy “I’m sorry” from the front desk. Just vibes and a vague gesture toward the lobby.

To be fair, the hotel grounds were lovely, so we made the best of it and wandered them while our luggage and our patience waited. But hospitality tip, free of charge: when you’re three hours late, the word “sorry” costs nothing.

Sunset, Friends, and a Very Florida Finale

When the room was finally ready, we did the fastest costume change in family history, because we had a dinner reservation with our friends.

The restaurant had a wonderful vibe, and we watched a gorgeous sunset melt into the ocean while swapping stories from the trip so far.

And then, because Florida is contractually obligated to do this, a massive thunderstorm rolled in. Florida’s summer storms are legendary. The state sees more thunderstorms than almost anywhere in the country, and they arrive with theatrical timing. But we were veterans by now: we’d spotted the clouds building and preemptively moved to a table under the roof before the sky opened. While others scattered, we sipped our drinks in smug, dry comfort. Adaptation is the soul of travel.

Dinner ended, goodbyes were said, and we headed back to the hotel for our final night in the Keys, a little sunburned, a little poke-traumatized, and completely exhausted by these islands.