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Our first (and only) full day in Key West started out slowly … which was fine since we were on vacation after all. Despite our success with taking the dog around the city yesterday, we decided it was too hot and too much for our elderly pooch to handle again. Rather than leave him alone in the hotel room (he tends to bark when left alone), we drove him over to Pampered Pet (in New Town) for day care boarding. That freed us up to bike around Old Town during the day doing all the touristy stuff that wasn’t necessarily pet friendly.

We started with brunch at La Crêperie where my daughter tried a galette (savory crepe) and I had a sweet crepe with pineapple, coconut, and honey.

After eating, we biked north on Whitehead towards Mallory Square and went through the Audubon House and Gardens. My daughter had been reading about John James Audubon in school and was thrilled to see all of the “Birds of America” drawings all over the house.

Back on our bikes (I swear we were the only people there with our own bikes (instead of rentals) and wearing helmets), we went back south down Whitehead all the way to Southernmost Point. The monument is one of the most photographed places in Key West and by the time we arrived mid-afternoon the line to stand next to it was looong! It was pretty hot out, so we decided to take our family photo with the monument in the background rather than wait to be right next to it.

Around the corner on Duval we stopped at the Butterfly and Nature Conservatory which was pretty cool … butterflies everywhere. We also stopped briefly at the (crowded) Southernmost Beach at the end of Duval just to be able to say we went to the beach while we were there (even though this just entailed getting our feet wet and playing frisbee for a few minutes).

Biking back towards our hotel we made two more tourist stops: the Hemmingway House and the Lighthouse. Ernest Hemmingway‘s estate is pretty impressive and is still the single largest residential property on Key West and also sports the first in-ground pool. My daughter (who wants to be a writer) was particularly impressed with the upstairs studio and loved the six-toed cats (she got to pet Duke Ellington (all the cats are named after famous people)). The best 360-degree view to be had of Key West we found up 88 spiral steps at the top of the lighthouse. There was a great breeze up there too, which helped cool us off before we got back on the bikes and pedaled back to our hotel.

After picking up the dog from boarding, we cleaned and freshened up before walking to dinner at Santiago’s Bodega where we sat outside (again, with the dog) and enjoyed the tapas. Then we walked down Whitehead again back to Mallory Square for the sunset celebration. Our poor pup was exhausted by now so we took a pedicab back to our hotel where we played cards again in the outdoor common area and enjoyed some more drinks. My daughter took an evening dip in the pool while we started packing. Hard to believe it’s time to drive home tomorrow already …