Friday, July 22, 2011

Key West, Day 6


We heard from the guest book at our condo that Fort Zachary Taylor had the nicest beach on Key West, so we headed there on day 6.  We got in for FREE because July is Florida State Park month.  If you find a ranger and read to them, which we had the kids do at Bahia Honda State Park, they give you a return pass to any Florida State Park, which Fort Zachary Taylor is!

It was a lot of fun running through the old Civil War fort, which saw action in WWI and WWII also.  I didn't realize it when we left the condo, but my girls didn't wear shoes this day.  That ground in the Florida sun was HOT.  Derek being the good dad that he is carried them all over the roof of the fort, even up stairs.






The kids had a lot of fun playing on the cannons.  This particular one in the photos above and below is a Parrot Rifle; it shot a 300 lb bullet shaped shells.




The latrine and some of my kids using it.  Not really.



The beach was much nicer at Fort Zachary Taylor.  There wasn't as much seaweed, but it is a man made beach covered with rocks.  I thought they'd be smoother than they were, but it hurt to walk out and get to the water.  At least, it hurt Derek and me, but I guess that's because we weigh more.  You can see the rocks through the water in the photo below.



There was a cruise ship docked and we got to see it go out to sea while swimming.  My youngest was so excited thinking it was Zach and Cody's ship. 

The water here was much deeper than the other areas we went to, which was nice to cool off.  There was a rock formation about a hundred feet off shore that we swam to.  There were all kind of fish swimming around and you didn't even need snorkeling gear to see them with the water as clear as it was.

This was some of the kids favorite beach.  Although Derek and I weren't fan of the rocks, the kids loved exploring and climbing on them.

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