2024-12-27 Crystal Cruise and Florida: January 09 – Hop-on Hop-Off Tour and Butterflies

One thing we have noticed here is that in many places we see tons of stickers affixed to buildings or items. Didn’t get too many photos but here are two. There were a lot of others.

In the morning, we bought a two-day pass for the hop-on hop-off tour of the island. We took a tour all the way around the island to the end of the route.

From there we decided to walk back to Sloppy Joes for lunch.

Hopping place with a big crowd. We were fortunate to find a table in the far back.

Ernest Hemingway had been a regular here so there was a huge display of Hemingway look-alikes.

The name of the original owner was Sloppy Joe. The restaurant serves sloppy joe sandwiches (which actually originated in Sioux City Iowa). Three of us had the sandwiches. Mary thought they were tasty but a bit skimpy on the filling.

And they had Key Lime Pie so it was another tasting. OK, not the best.

Then it was back on the Hop-On where we stayed on until the Southern Most Point in the US. Got there and stood in line to get our picture taken in front of the large buoy.

The original “Southern Most Point” kept getting stolen so they replaced us with this instead.

Then we walked over to the nearby Butterfly Conservancy where we took a walk through the huge green house. Saw tons of butterflies.

The only ones we recognized were the green and black malachite butterflies

and the Blue Morpho that we had seen in Costa Rica with its wings of brown and cream on the underside and brilliant blue on top.

They also had a lot of beautiful birds. Most were very vibrantly colored.

Guinea Turaco

Black Faced Dacnis

Java Rice Finch

Saffron Finch

And a Saffron Finch and a Orange Legged Honey Creeper

Fischers Lovebird

Gouldian Finch

This unknown bird

And lots of birds eating at a feeder.

They also had two flamingos, Rhett and Scarlet.

Some flowers at the butterfly house...

and a turtle.

And we saw a lot more chickens during our walks.

After dinner we went to the nearby Kermit’s Key Lime Pie Shop for another pie tasting. They had a large shop with all manner of Key Lime-flavored products.