Key West Trip - Day One

Saturday May 17, 2008

We left New Orleans about 3:30 AM Saturday morning and drove straight through to Miami Beach. Cary and Andrea stayed with her cousin Tanya in Surfside (which is just north of Miami Beach), while the rest of us stayed at the Holiday Inn. We had an ocean view room on the 8th floor.

After we got settled in we walked down the boardwalk about 28 blocks to T-Mex, a Mexican hole-in-the-wall place that was featured on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show a couple of years ago. Cary and Andrea met us there shortly after we arrived. T-Mex's claim to fame? Very reasonably priced Mexican food, a good selection of Mexican beers, and the Stupid sauce. Adam and I had the Stupid sauce, everyone else wussed out. Sunday morning Adam wished he had put some TP in the freezer overnight. Me? I just wanted more Stupid sauce.

After dinner we walked about a block to the home of Miami Ink, a tattoo parlor that is featured in a show of the same name on The Learning Channel. Janis has been talking about getting a tattoo for years, and tonight - with her family in tow - was the night. The question was, what to get and where to put it?

After combing through their books, nothing was jumping out at any of us. So we called our local New Orleans tattoo goddess, Juli Green, who offered one bit of advice: make sure it has something to do with New Orleans.

Using a necklace Andrea was wearing, the tattoo artist came up with the following design:

A little while later, she had a beautiful Fleur di lis inside a heart on her leg:

While Janis got her Tattoo and Andrea took pictures, Cary, Adam, Jarret, and I went to "The Deuce." Mac's Club Deuce. Reportedly one of only two true, original dive bars in Miami Beach, and with a name that starts with "Mac's" how could we not go there? $8 shots of Maker's Mark and $5 Miller Genuine Drafts, Bull Riding in Hi-Def on the TV and one pool table, strangely situated at an angle under the pool table light. Adam won most of the games of course.

With the Stupid sauce coursing through our veins, and all of us quite literally stupid from lack of sleep, it was time to call it a night. But in the process, several goals were achieved: I had the Stupid sauce, went to The Deuce, and Janis finally got her tattoo.

See more pictures in my Key West web gallery.