Kiting at our own deserted island

Take a 30 minute boat ride due west out of Key West harbor and you have the place to yourself. You pass a handful of small mangrove islands on the way. As you come around Ballast Key, you see a tiny little speck of sand in the middle of flat, shallow, turquoise water. This speck of sand is a little sandbar that is perfect for pumping up, launching, and watching kites. Here I am at the tip of the island. Jesse is taking the photo from the center of the island:

Panoramic shot with Angela supporting Cam:

Jesse in ankle deep water cutting trough hot butter:

Here I am turning around at full speed:

Cam learned that flying the big kite is a bit different from the little trainers we use on land:

Cam and her support crew:

Full concierge service, getting the board on her feet so she could focus on the kite:

Up and going:

Great stance:

Starting to get on a plane:

Working the kite to get a bit more speed:

Now she is planing. With a huge smile on her face I am sure:

 Look how far she made it! She stopped just after this shot. At least 100 yards away:

She stopped, turned around, and came back to us:

She dropped the kite down and got plenty of power:

You can feel the speed here. A little out of control, but still having fun, I think. About 5 seconds later she crashed spectacularly:

A little sand shark in shallow water:

On our way home past Ballast Key, we saw this boat on the beach. It is a Cuban refugee boat. They made it! And it happened recently because Jesse said the boat wasn't there a week before. These things can fit over a dozen people. The boat is rigged with an old car engine that sits in the boat and drives a propeller. If you look close enough, you can see the words "USCG OK" on the side. That means the Coast Guard knows about the boat and there is no need to worry about lost people at sea.

A day after the kite lesson, Cambria had a few battle wounds:

A must-see destination in Homestead, FL

You must be joking, right? Homestead?! Yes, Homestead. The town most of us know only for the tragic total destruction it faced during Hurricane Andrew in 1992, is actually pretty interesting.

When we told Jesse we were getting on the road in Miami, he told us to make time to stop at RF Orchids in Homestead. Jesse is an orchid aficionado, and I could sense his enthusiasm, so we dutifully plugged in the coordinates and had made our way to this Orchid shop.

It is not really a shop. It is more like a botanical garden.

The owner lives on site and gives two free walking tours a day of the premises. He is a total character and makes the tour both really interesting and really funny. Most of the plants he shows you have some sort of quirky factoid or story behind them.

Here is the sign at the front gate:

Tour is starting and our guide (the owner, Robert Fuchs) is already bursting with enthusiasm:

At this point in the blog post you should know that I have no idea what the names of these plants are (except for a few) so bear with me:

This is not an orchid. Not sure what it is. He told us, but I forgot:

This is a vanilla vine growing on a palm tree. I learned a lot about vanilla. I didn't know 1) it was a vine 2) each little bulb produces only one seed per year 3) that seed lasts in the bulb only one day 4) that one day seed needs to be harvested by hand on that day 5) you then dry the seed and immerse it in alcohol to extract the vanilla flavor:

This is my favorite palm tree. It is called the "voodoo palm" and is from Haiti. They used the long spikes in their voodoo ceremonies. These spikes have some sort of venom inside so if you get pricked you go to sleep for a few hours:

Check this big mass of orchids growing up this group of palm trees. We are in between blooms, but it is still beautiful and it apparently "blows up" with color when they bloom:

Pretty cool palm species:

Another palm species we don't see a lot of:

This is the fish, turtle, and alligator pond:

He has HUGE catfish in there:

See the alligator in the sunniest spot of the pond catching some rays?

Beautiful bird:

Check how lush his yard is:

Some sort of fragrant white orchid:

Purple orchids:

Purple orchid close up:

Some nice ones:

Yellow orchid:

Pink orchids. I know I know, I am really disappointing our tour guide by only describing these orchids by their color but that is the best I can do a few days after the tour:

Pretty serious commercial operation:

After the hourlong tour, we were hungry. Fortunately there is a classic greasy spoon Mexican restaurant down the road in Florida City that hit the spot:

As we left Florida City, we saw lots of things to remind us we were in South Florida. This picture kind of days it all. An old dude parked in his heinous PT Cruiser selling his prized possessions in front of the trailer park. What is he selling? Oh, a couple of lawn mowers and a few walkers. You know, the kind of thing you typically see for sale on the side of the road:

We are now in Key West. Will update the blog soon. Jesse is keeping us busy and tired which is GREAT for us, not so good for the daily blog.

Romantic night at the end of a great trip to Europe

For our last night in Europe, we decided to dress up a bit, make reservations at a nice restaurant, and have a great time. We went to Adega Victor Horta and it exceeded our expectations. 

 It is a rustic, gourmet Portuguese restaurant with ambiance off the charts and the nicest waiter we had our whole trip.

They don't sell commercial  wine - they only sell their house wine. Here is how they store their house wine. This is our waiter going over to the house wine barrels and pulling some Touriga Nacional & Syrah blend for us. Delicious:

It was like eating in a cave:

The prep table was fun to watch:

Everything gets cooked in the wood fired oven, inside cast iron pots and pans. The wood they use adds a delicious, subtle flavor to the food:

Earlier in the day, we walked though the Alfama in search of a place to go watch live Fado music after dinner. Fado was invented in Lisbon ( Alfama being the epicenter) and Cam has been a big fan of Fado ever since she performed a modern dance piece set to Fado music. There is one part of Alfama where there are a ton of Fado bars. It looks like this:

We found this one and figured we would come here after dinner. It was an excellent choice:

Over a few glasses of port wine, we were brought to tears by the raw emotion and the quality of the music. This young girl, probably about 22, was really belting it out. A very mature, full throated sound that cuts right to the bone. I was a huge fan of the guitarist wearing sunglasses:

There were three sets, each with a different singer. This girls was also very good:

We finished with a male singer. He was excellent:

Cam here trying very hard to hold back the tears. Fado is essentially raw emotion that required no knowledge of Portugese lyrics. We were both floored by the beauty of the whole experience:

If you are in Lisbon, you must go watch Fado music!!!