Past Travel: Key West, September 2023, Part Four

For more about this series, see Part One; Part Two; Part Three.

On Wednesday morning, I went back over to Cuban Coffee Queen for a light breakfast with one of the group (their Cuban frappe with caramel was wonderful). Plus I loved the lid they seal on the top so you can't spill your drink--at least, not easily. 
* Blended iced coffee with the shot of Cuban espresso added. ADD vanilla caramel or mocha

We hung out there for a little bit before my friend called us an Uber to take to Books & Books, where we were meeting up with some of the others who had breakfasted elsewhere. (It's not actually a long walk, but she had her own reasons for joining me in the minimizing-walking plan for dealing with the heat.) 

Books & Books is a really nice bookstore that is actually co-founded by Judy Bloom (if I have to tell you who that is, you won't be impressed, so just take my word for it, it's cool). 

I didn't get either of these, but it's a fun choice to make, eh? 

I would pick relax, if I had to choose. You?

This one looked good, though I didn't buy it. I should check the library for it.

I very much enjoyed browsing around, and did get a few things, book and accessory alike (they have cards, magnets, bookmarks, all that kind of thing). 

Several of us went on a little wander after, including into a fun shop called Coco's Monkey, where they had some pieces that reminded me of the bar in Hank's from the day before!

Very cool. They had other fun things, too. Nicely snarky.

We went separate ways at the corner, and I headed back to the hotel, stopping in at Tervis on the way to get a tumbler to remind me of the trip. Though I ended up getting one that wasn't Key West-specific, just that appealed to me (manatees!).

Back at the hotel, I had a sandwich by the pool and hung out for a bit, but was back in my room before it started pouring, fortunately, and even more fortunately, it stopped before our evening plans. For our last night there, we were going to dinner at Latitudes, a very fancy restaurant at Sunset Key, which is a private island* just across the water from the hotel: you could see it in a lot of my previous sunset photos. You have to have a reservation to even get on the water taxi and ride over; I think this reservation was the first thing the group agreed we wanted to do.
*You can stay there, that is, but it isn't open to the public.

Riding over:

Just a cormorant drying its wings out. Or an anhinga, I can't actually tell them apart, but they're both black birds whose feathers need to be dried out that way.

View from the dock. Glad to see that blue sky coming!

We were seated inside, but there was a very pretty patio area as well.

Food photos, anyone?

I'm a steak fan, though I don't usually ever pay this price!

We walked around a little bit after dinner. It's really ridiculously beautiful.

Ibis! Poking around for bugs for dinner.

It seems like a really peaceful place to stay. 

The sun was heading down as it got to be time to get the water taxi back, though we got a bunch of photos from the dock before getting the tail end of it on the boat. It's all sunset from here, if you want to scroll past quickly (or just skip the 50+ photos), and we'll finish the trip next time.