Key West Day 1

We are in Key West this week for a family vacation.  It's my first time in the Keys and we are loving it.  Key West is not what I expected, however, but still fun.  I really expected beautiful beaches - and they are not here. 

This is our view from our condo balcony of Smathers Beach.  We couldn't wait to get out in the water; but after driving all day we waited until the next morning to go out.  The smell hit us first, then looked out in the water and saw nothing but sea grass and sea weed.  Everyone else was walking through it, though, about 200 yards off shore to the clear waters, so we followed.  Talk about nasty.  About halfway through the mushy grass, we hit some rocky (maybe coral?) ground that cut some of the kids feet.  The water was great once you waded through the gross.  The only problem was, we didn't want to go back in because it meant walking through the sea grass again.

We headed into the old town in the evening and it made up for the bad beach day.  Every night in Key West, people gather at Mallory Square for a sunset celebration.

There are vendors and street performers all over.  Below is Key West legend, Will Soto, who juggled fire and walked on a tight rope.  At one point, he was trying to get the crowd to his left riled up a bit, and asked us on the right to moon them.  My boys all grabbed at their waist bands and turned around and they got Will tickled, to which he told me, "Lady, I like your brood!"

Derek got picked out of the crowd to hand him his pins and take the flags.  Will told Derek he needed to run around the square yelling, "It's showtime!!!" while holding the rainbow flag and see what would happen.

We saw a sword swallower, according to him the oldest in the world.

We seen some of the most amazing boats out on the sea - this one was leaving the harbor for a sunset cruise.

My favorite part of the night was watching Jace, a 19 year old street performer who has been doing this for 6 years!  He was a very good juggler, all while on his unicycle.

We ended up a little ways off from the seawall and stuck watching a pretty bad performance - for some reason I felt bad leaving in the middle of his show - and missed the actual sunset.  Oh well, such is life.