Today was so relaxxxxxxxxing.  We started at a fabulous breakfast cafe.  These places are  brilliant.  They look so uninspiring from the car but get inside, sample the food and soak up the atmosphere and they are just the thing.

Brought to you this morning, from the Stuffed Pig cafe, on the A1A in Marathon, FL, USA is this breakfast menu.

James went for the Aligator tails, which we all tried.  It was quite chewy but no more so than a Calamari.  Initially the flavour was pleasant but it did leave quite a strong after taste which I disliked.  James liked it though.  I really did not like the “gravy” which is on the biscuit as it was too floury.

My breakfast was awesome.  One of the best pancakes I have ever had – pumpkin and pecan.  It was light, fluffy and delicious.  I would walk a long way for such a pancake.  Eaten with butter, maple syrup, 2 scrambled eggs and a slice of thick ham.  It was WOW!  Yummy.

We sat outside under a “Tiki” structure.  There are lots of these open sided structures with a roof made of palm leaves, called variously Tiki Lodges, Tiki Bars etc.

That was a good start to the day.

The carob tree was in bloom – such lovely bright flowers.

In the supermarket we saw some Key Limes which are much smaller than a standard sized lime – I put one next to the bag for comparison.

We had such a lazy day today, relaxing by the pool.  We tend to sit in the same spot, between the swimming lagoon and the dolphin lagoon.  We sit next to the 2 Tiki shelters you can see in the distance.  It is so wondrous to be sitting there and then look up and there are the dolphins.

Next to the resort is a boat channel so we see lots of gorgeous boats sailing in and out of the nearby marina.

It was windy here on the ocean side though so later on in the day we moved to sit beside the main swimming pool.

We discovered a spa pool which was incredibly warm and very pleasant to sit in.  I can’t believe we hadn’t noticed it before.

I was rather regretting sampling a red filled Oreo to see if it tasted as good as the white ones (it did) as one inevitably led to many more :-(.

So to make amends I joined Lara in the gymn.  I hate going to the gymn and would rather walk outside but I wanted to make sure I did a reasonable work out so we went together. I did feel rather aged and decrepit as she managed to jog 5 miles while I counted down the seconds until I could stop.  It was so boring but I felt better afterwards.  Mainly relieved it was over!

We have been using Trip Advisor to help select places to eat breakfast and dinner.  Tonight we went to Ma’s Fish Camp in Islamorada.

As with many other places we have been to here, portions are huge.  The four of us shared two starters:  Buffalo wings, which were served NY style with fresh celery and blue cheese dressing

and conch fritters.  I am not a fan of conch but the buffalo wings were good.

I had a Cobb Salad which was huge.

Lots of Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, crispy bacon, chicken, blue cheese and an egg.  I had mine with a blue cheese dressing which was excellent.

We had 3 desserts between us.  Harvey’s strawberry shortcake was big enough to have split 4 ways.

I had the hummingbird cake.  The waitress assured us it didn’t contain hummingbirds.  The locals call this cake “trash” cake as it has everything thrown in – pecans, bananas, pineapple, dates, golden raisins and cranberries.  It was similar to a carrot cake.

We all ate way too much tonight.  So we started the day and ended the day as stuffed pigs and piglets.  Tomorrow we must all eat less and exercise more (apart from Lara who is very disciplined and doesn’t over eat and she keeps up her exercise programme).