We drove down to Key West and stayed at the old Hilton, now the Westin, down by Mallery Square. We got a great deal thanks to Diane Schmidt, Maria’s old boss at the Casa Marina (Now GM of all the Starwood properties in KW). It was definitely great to be back in Key West after 8 years. It’s nice to know what there is to do and how to get around. We took Alex on the Conch Tour Train so he would learn some things about the city where he was born. Thanks Kevin for the free tickets! We ate dinner at Margaritaville Cafe and Kyushu Japanese Restaurant. For lunch, we had Cuban Mix sandwiches “All The Way” at Sandy’s Cafe and Paradise Cafe. For breakfast we ate at Croissants De France, the restaurant one morning and take-out pastries the next…Yum! We watched a sunset on a partly cloudy evening and I participated in the activities with the street performers. Maria & I made it to a bunch of bars looking for good entertainment, but couldn’t find any… not even at Hogs Breath. Rick’s upstairs was still closed from hurricane damage, but we made it up there for 5 minutes to lookout over Duval St and Sloppy Joes Bar. We also made it to the top of the La Concha for a night time view of the city, as well as the next day with Alex. The Casa Marina was just opening again after 2 years from hurricane damage and we heard the Reach was permanently closed. We didn’t particularly like the renovations at the Casa. We looked for “big fish” in the water at the pier house, but the lights were out, maybe because they were doing some renovations above the restaurant. We did have some conch chowder there, but it was bad! Major gastrointestinal discomfort… Yuck! We went to the Red Barn Theatre to see if we could see a play, but we missed the show by a day. We walked up and down Duval 10+ times and managed to stop for some Sorbet at Flamingo Crossing (I like the cuban coffee ice cream and grapefruit sorbet). Although they don’t have as nice as stores on Duval Street as they used to 25 years ago, we picked up some nice placemats at Fast Buck Freddies. We drove by Jimmy Buffett’s old house and our old rental house on Riviera canal. We showed Alex the condos at 1800 Atlantic and Key West by the Sea, as well as his first house in Sugarloaf. We drove by lots of homes with Christmas lights… somewhere around 10th street… but they didn’t seem quite as big and bright as they used to. Overall, a lot was the same and yet a lot has changed. Hard to believe they can still keep building so much on such a small island. Oh and the old county offices, on stock island, where I worked were demolished…gone…nothing but grass (kind of like that old drive-in theatre)! Noticed the Conchs got a new high school, Benihana closed, and the old Key Wester was replaced with a time-share.