Stormy days in Florida - Hurricane Season 2022 is here

 June 1st is the start of Hurricane Season in Florida and so I shouldn't have been surprized when a tropical storm made it's way to Key West on 3rd of June.

Amy was catching a flight to Ireland from Miami on the 4th of June. However, as a precaution she caught the bus to Miami on the 3rd - this turned out to be a good thing with the bus getting cancelled on the 4th which would have meant a missed flight. She got up to Miami yesterday afternoon and checked in to an airport hotel close to the airport and hunkered down and waited out the time til check in today.

And down in Key West, my mother and I, along with Amy's cat Buddy hunkered down and drank wine and waited out the storm. It was a little sureal having to sand bag the doors in preparation for the rain and wind but luckily it turned out that they were not needed.

This morning the end of the storm passed through with heavy rain til about 11am with it gradually clearing up by the afternoon and the sun coming out then.  

With the change in weather I plan to go fishing tomorrow.  I'll see if I the Salty Goat are going out and will go out on this half day boat trip.

Here's a few pics of what we got up to before the storm, with Amy and I taking a visit to Effusion Gallery on Duval Street to see the PIGSY art on view.

Hello Key West!

Finally made it to Key West after setting off from Dublin at 7.30am on Friday morning. Our travel woes started with me seeing a bus pass just as I got to the stop.  I then had a long wait for another bus (the longest I've ever waited) and then there was a lot of traffic so the bus was VERY slow getting to the airport.

Queues were long in the airport and it took over three hours to do bag drop, security, US security and then US customs & immigration in Dublin airport. 

Then when we got to our gate we discovered our flight was delayed due to the late arrival of the inbound plane. Beyond this our flight to Newark was diverted to Boston with hours to wait for a new crew to take us back to Newark and then on to KW with this flight time being pushed out and out which unfortunately meant we overnighted in the airport. On about the third flight change we could then see that we would miss our KW connection if we stayed on this flight so we then got rerouted to Washington with a different connection to Kew West, eventually arriving to KW at 4pm on Sat which is 9pm Irish time. So you can do the maths and see how long it took us to arrive to get to Florida - spoiler alert it's well over 30 hours.

So....when we arrived we were fairly tired but we perked up when we met Amy in the airport who sorted getting our luggage and loaded it up in her car and took us to her house in minutes. From there we went straight out to Thai Island for sushi and wine and then off to bed when we got back. I was in bed by 8pm and slept through til 5pm - the jet lag / sleep deficit had definitely got me.

As I was up early I went to my favourite coffee spot and got myself my longed for coffee from Cuban Coffee Queen.

It was super to cycle down Duval Street (thanks for the bike Amy!) and I even stopped and saw PIGSY art on view in Effusion Art Gallery!

After unpacking and getting acclimatised we spent the afternoon on Duval Street in Coach and Banana Republic.  Stormy weather came in so we abandoned plans to do happy hour in Alonzos and instead ran in the rain to Lost & Found which is next to the Green Parrot. After great food we headed home on the bikes with the rain having stopped.

And then yesterday, I cycled to new town with mam and Amy driving.  Mam and I had a browse in TJ Maxx but I had to stop myself buying clothes that could only be worn in Florida!! The heat does that do you!

And then after an afternoon of sunning myself by Amy's pool, it was off to Alonzo's for gorgeous food including oysters!

I'm still getting over the jet lag so again it was another early night to bed for me - asleep by 9pm and now awake at 6am, drinking coffee and writing this blog!

Keep an eye out for more blogs over the next few days where I will update on what I am getting up to on my Florida holiday.