the queen travels: The Keys

We drove down to Marathon, one of the main keys. After checking hotel room prices, we decided to stay four days and drive back and forth to Key West or other places we’d like to go. We found the perfect motel, the White Sands. It was a small place but quaint and colorful. The large rooms are painted in ocean paradise bright colors, the covers on the bed were colored with palm trees, coral and orange colors. It had white wicker furniture, a new bathroom and was clean all around. It was on the beach where there was a little dock for a photographer’s dream … sunrises and sunsets. The only issue was that we could only get in there for two nights. Wah!!!

Our wonderfully decorated tropical room.

This one makes me think of the stones they use for curling.

Must have been a couple dozen birds on top of this building. Ibis, egrets, pelicans.

Love their ruffled tail feathers.

These two played hide and seek. The back one would go behind and I'd only see one eye, then come out and show me two.

From there we visited the Laura Quinn Wild Bird Sanctuary and then Theater of the Sea where we watched parrot, dolphin and sea lion shows. I’d been there before, but it’s always fun to watch animal presentations. Mainly we’ve been photographing birds, and I do believe I’m finally getting better at it. Of course, there are also a lot of iguanas, including one that came out to watch the parrot show and was being watched, I think, more than the parrots were.

This one was calm and collected the entire time the show was going on. Loved the color.

This one opened macadamia nuts and was constantly moving around.

The iguana was quite noticeable during the parrot show.

Dolphins always have a place in my blog.

They're little happy faces all the time.

Sea lions always seem happy, too. This was a female, quite a bit smaller than the male, and very athletic.

Here I go ... trainer for a day. I'm so excited.

Wednesday (March 5) was my day to be a Trainer for a Day at the Dolphin Research Center. It was a great day … learning signals and practicing on the dolphins, having a dolphin paint a tee shirt with me (Merina), swimming with the dolphins, following the trainer and finding out how they keep track of all of them.

We were playing with them and their toys and this one decided to splash me instead. What fun it was.

Merina and me. She painted my tee shirt. I held it level over the pond and she used a paint brush to dab and paint.

Learning commands, and this one put the dolphin up on the platform with me.

There are 25 dolphins at DRC. The oldest is Molly, estimated to be 52 years of age, and the two youngest, both females, are 3-1/2 months. Many of them have been born there and others have come in injured and been rehabilitated, others have come from other zoos or places that could no longer keep them.

A dolphin kiss is always a special kiss.

And so is being drug around the lagoon. What a great time. They just seem so sweet.

One of the neat facts is that the Flipper movie dolphins were from here. The original female used as Flipper wasn’t athletic enough so she had three or four stunt doubles who did all her flips and tricks.

During the day the dolphins in the front lagoon have colored dots or stripes painted on them. They don’t last all day when they’re playing around, but they are to mark them so the researchers can watch their behaviors with one another, who they spend time with, how they react to certain other behaviors.

The color chart for the day.

One of them has sunscreen put on his head several times a day because he hangs out in one area and his head is out of the water a lot. The dolphins and sea lions here are well cared for, and it’s apparent that those who work here love it.

Dolphins rock!!! (All of the dolphin photos are courtesy of the Dolphin Research Center.)

The DRC went through several owners, including one who wanted to make it like a SeaWorld or something. It didn’t work and was given to a couple who had been working there. They worked hard to make it what it is today. He was a Viet Nam vet with PTSD, and in working with the dolphins he was able to control his “episodes” so that they didn’t control him. There is a waterfall and garden that is dedicated to all veterans because of that.

It's a nice touch to have the little garden and waterfall. (Just wanted you to know, Hobbs, that not everyone has forgotten although this man was a part of your war.)

We were having a splash fight. I did not win.

Practicing commands. Always get their attention first. Or try.

It was a great day for me, and Jaz went and did her own thing, meandering around and spending time taking photos.

On Thursday we packed up from our pretty little motel and headed south to Key West. We didn’t get far before we found lots of places to look at, stop to take photos, and even Key Deer near Big Pine. It’s estimated the population came back from about 50 to 800 now. Jaz and I saw three of them, does.

A beautiful sunrise greeted us this morning.

We can't help stopping to take photos of everything. The bridges make wonderful subjects.

Female Key Deer can weigh between 45 and 65 pounds. Bucks can weigh 55 to 80 pounds. They stand between 24 and 34 inches at the shoulder. They are an endangered deer that only lives in the Florida Keys. No one really knows the history of where they came from although it’s believed that they migrated to the keys from the mainland thousands of years ago across a long land bridge.

A pair of Key deer. We were so lucky to see them.

This pretty little girl let me take her photo from the car. She came up to the car looking for a handout although people are not supposed to feed them. We know they do because some folks told us they'd done it. Idiots.

We finally made it to Key West. What a crowd. Two cruise ships were in for the day and the 0 mile marker had a line a block long, lined up to take photos with the marker. We didn’t bother waiting in line. We just shot from the side of the street.

Mile 0 ... and that's all I have to say about that.

We climbed the Key West light house. We were told if it started to storm to come down. The storm waited until we got down, then it started to pour and it included lightning and thunder. The lady at the gift shop gave us plastic bags and we put our cameras in them. Then we headed back to the car, about three blocks away. At least it was a warm rain.