Well, the fun had to come to an end sometime, but I wasn’t willing to give up the sun just yet. I headed back to the U.S. last week to lead a tour of Florida and the Keys. Historically, I’ve taken my winters off, but over the last couple of years, my boss has offered some tours too appealing to pass up. Last year it was San Diego and Puerto Vallarta; this year, it was Yellowstone and Florida.

I couldn’t bring myself to face the snow, so I let the Yellowstone tour go. However, a trip to the Keys—my first since I was 20 years old—was simply too hard to pass up.

Beating Jet Lag

I flew into Portland only 48 hours before I had to leave for Florida. In a way, jet lag wasn’t a problem; I just got up whenever I woke up. My first morning had me up at 2:00 a.m., and the second at 4:00 a.m.. That turned out perfectly as 4:00 a.m. in Portland is 7:00 a.m. in Florida! By the time I touched down in the Sunshine State, my internal clock had already reset itself.

Island Life and Unexpected Locals

We arrived in Miami and spent the night before heading south. While picking up water for the motor coach at a grocery store just a couple blocks from the hotel, I was startled to see several chickens just wandering the sidewalk. For a moment, I wondered if I’d actually left Asia! Apparently some free range chickens come from Miami! It turns out the true explanation for the wandering chickens is that our hotel was fairly close to Little Havana, and these were just escapees looking to immigrate to America.

We headed to the Keys on the Overseas Highway, but it took us three hours just to reach the first Key. There had been an accident on the highway—which is unfortunately common—and since Highway 1 is the only vein from the Everglades to Key West, there was no way around it. We were excited to reach our lunch stop, and the attached restroom, and collapsed into the rhythm of island life. It was made easy by more roaming chickens and even a few iguanas.

Key West Explorations

We spent the next three nights at the Ocean’s Edge Resort in Key West. It’s the kind of place where you could easily spend the entire trip without leaving the property, but we made sure to get out for several excursions.

On our first night, we visited Mallory Square famous for its Nightly Sunset Celebration. Legend has it the tradition started sometime in the 1960s when playwright Tennessee Williams strolled to the water’s edge one night to watch the sunset. He was so impressed with the sun’s performance that as it dipped below the horizon, and the evening curtain was drawn, he responded with applause. Thus began the daily celebration that transforms Mallory Square into a “multicultural circus” every night of the year!

Other activities included visiting the Truman Little White House, Hemingway’s house with its six-toed cats, the Shipwreck Museum, the lighthouse, and the southernmost point of the contiguous United States. I found this to be a fallacy; clearly, a chain of islands is not contiguous!

The Great Key Lime Debate

Based on feedback from the last time this tour was run, we gave people a lot of extra time on their own to explore Key West. I decided to head to Sloppy Joe’s—not so much for the Hemingway connection, but because I’m a fan of the sandwich and wanted to see the “original” location. This is the watering hole where Hemingway spent his afternoons drinking “Papa Dobles” (double daiquiris with no sugar). While I steered clear of Margaritaville (I’ve never been a big Jimmy Buffett fan), I did make a pilgrimage to Blue Heaven to try what they claimed was the best Key lime pie in Key West.

What I learned is that everyone in Key West claims to have the best pie. In my opinion, the winner was One Duval. Instead of the standard foamy meringue, their topping tasted more like marshmallow, and the filling was the creamiest I’ve ever had. Many places try to distract you with a mountain of topping, but One Duval focused flavor of the pie itself.

The Great Boat Rescue

We had one eventful evening involving our sunset cruise. After the bus dropped us off, I went to check the group in, only to experience a tour director’s worst nightmare: our reservation was actually for the day before. In my rush after returning from Asia, I had overlooked the incorrect date on the ticket while doing my confirmations.

The staff was incredibly helpful, calling every boat and restaurant in the area, but everything was booked. Just as I was about to tell the group we’d be roaming like chickens looking for a meal, a woman approached me and asked if we were looking for a sunset cruise. She contacted a boat operator and told me she had a catamaran that could take us out. I was a bit skeptical since I know catamarans aren’t always spacious, but I was surprised when she told me it could hold up to 150 people.

She showed me a couple of pictures and assured me that it would not be full even with our 20 people. I accepted her offer, paid the bill, and told my boss we were off on a cruise. I’ll leave it up to him to work out the details of the missed trip—one of the reasons I don’t want to run my own business! The views were fantastic and it was a really nice, intimate experience.

Heading North: Tarpons and Alligators

Having done pretty much everything there was to do in Key West, we headed back north toward Key Largo. We stopped at a place called at Robbie’s, and I wish we’d planned longer than a restroom break! It’s a classic island standby where you can eat, drink, or feed the massive tarpon. We even spotted a manatee. We stayed long enough to grab a coffee and milkshakes, then continued up to our hotel in Key Largo. We had one more day to spend in the Keys, although it wasn’t quite what we planned.

A glass-bottom boat tour at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park was canceled due to 25 mph winds, so we settled for a group photo in front of the nearby African Queen, the actual boat used in the movie of the same name. It was fun to visualize Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn arguing over his drinking in that very same boat. I shared with my Oregon West folks that the boat had even spent a short time plying the waters of the Willamette river in the 1970s before retiring to Florida.

For the second time on the tour, a boat trip was thwarted, so we pivoted to the Dolphin Research Center. Instead of looking into the water for marine life, it came to us in the form of acrobatics performed by the dolphins. We eventually got our boat fix at the Everglades Alligator Farm, watching feedings and wranglings before taking a 20-minute airboat tour through the “River of Grass.”, as the Everglades are known.

A Miami Farewell

In less than an hour we went from swamp to city. The Hampton downtown offered free drink tickets at a bar overlooking the Arts District in the Brickell neighborhood so we got a little lubricated before walking to our farewell dinner at a place called Dolores, But You Can Call Me Lolita, a peculiar reference to the 1962 movie by Stanley Kubrick. On our last day, we soaked in the Art Deco architecture of Miami Beach—though, true to form, I lasted about five minutes in the museum before heading out to see the beach made famous by Miami Vice.

One tropical paradise down, one to go! While I’m currently shivering like a wet cat in rainy Portland, the backpack is already open again. This weekend, I’m trading the Atlantic for the Pacific as I head to Puerto Vallarta.

I know what you’re thinking—wasn’t there just a “Shelter in Place” order and a string of vehicle fires down there last week? Well, according to friends on the ground, the headlines were a bit sensationalized. Despite the rumors, Costco was not burned to the ground (though a car in the parking lot did see some action). Even the local Oxxos were given a “clear out” warning from the cartel before things got heated. I’ve been telling people to think of it like the Portland “riots”: what you see on the news is usually more dramatic than what’s happening on the street. The news even managed to keep me glued to the TV for a few days; something I don’t normally do.

Well, the smoke has cleared, the curfews are lifted, and if there’s one thing I know as a seasoned traveler, it’s how to find the silver lining. I’m heading down to see how the resilient Vallarta spirit is bouncing back. Stay tuned for tacos, sunsets, and a firsthand look at life after the “adventure”—hopefully with a little less adrenaline!