After the long (but beautiful) drive down from Miami, we arrived in Key West and ate lunch at Moe's, a small Cajan place. Finally, after numerous phone calls to various hotels, we were lucky enough to secure what seemed to be the last of the extremely overpriced hotel rooms in Key West, and after playing games on my phone for the next three hours- I mean, a nap, we headed out to check out the cesspool of lewd humor that was Duval Street.
Duval Street was certainly a very interesting place. As we drove, the daily 6 o'clock thunderstorm began and we decided to take cover in the Bull and Thistle Bar, a bar that interestingly enough contained another "clothing optional" rooftop bar called The Adam and Eve, and some very nice live music.
By this time, the rain had decided to spare us and stopped just as suddenly as it started, leaving us to poke our heads out of our cover and continue exploring all that Duval Street had to offer. Our first stop was, of course, was to search for the most humorous lewd t-shirt that we could find, and, trust me, there were a lot of contenders. However, after my father's first post about keeping this site "clean," I am obliged to keep the winner of this contest forever a mystery.
After that little escapade, we continued down the street enjoying the scenery (aka bars), sights (aka crude t-shirts), and people (aka drunks), before we decided to walk down to Sunset Pier and watch the sunset, which was absolutely beautiful. On one side of the scene there was a picture perfect sunset, and on the other a raging thunderstorm. To me this was an extremely beautiful picture because of the contrast of the sunset and thunderstorm. My favorite picture of the Key West sunset was one in which, a bird flew by just as I took it, so it's silhouette was visible in front of the beautiful sunset and dark thunderclouds in the background.
Also, next to the pier my mom and I each bought a cute dress to wear over our swimsuits the next day. Mine was blue and much cooler than the one my mom got...
Charlie also got some fudge from the shop, which proved to be quite delicious- I mean it looked delicious. Because I totally did not steal any of it when he wasn't looking... Next topic please.
After dark, Duval Street's crazy side began to become more obvious as the bars and clubs exploded. Still, that didn't stop me stop me from snapping a picture of a (luckily) far off thunderstorm.
Oh, and I had to take a picture of this car, which was parked just outside sunset pier and too cool not to take a picture of.
Look! It's a boom box! Yay!
After that, we settled down at the local Margaritaville for a light dinner. We listened to some old Jimmy Buffet songs while trying to determine what the bizarre videos of drunk people being stupid that accompanied the songs had to do with the music, and after reaching no conclusion, settled down to listen to the live music- a man and a woman with guitars doing covers to various songs. My favorite was a cover of the song "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons, probably the most recent or "popular" song they did.
After we ended up getting kicked out for drunk behavior, we decided to go and steal top secret CIA plans, which led to a nationwide manhunt and numerous shootouts before we finally returned the plans and were rewarded a Nobel Prize for our awesomeness. Okay that didn't happen, but we did leave Margaritaville and continue wandering down the street.
I had my picture taken with a celebrity, as per the list of things I needed to do on the vacation provided to me by my friend, Charu.
I also saw Darth Vader playing a banjo, which was just... awesome.
So that was definitely my favorite part of vacation.
Anyways, after that everyone was pretty tired, but we forged on and enjoyed the scenery, consisting of raging nightclubs, candy stores with HUGE! boxes of nerds (perfect for Charlie), and closed furniture and glass work shops which my mom drooled over through the glass. Oh, and of course the obligatory lewd t-shirt shops. Obviously.
Finally, we decided it was time to get some sleep, and crashed at our hotel room, exhasted from our long drive and busy night.
Awesome post Joy! Your vivid prose really brings the experience to life and makes me feel like I am back on Duvall street amongst the filth and the dregs of humanity. Next time you should really try to describe the smell of the place as an exercise in creative writing.
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