the Key West Vacation

- just what I needed -

my friends had made this trip before 

and kindly let me tag along on this one

we took the Key West Express from Fort Myers Beach

which is about 80 miles south of us

it was a great easy 3 hour trip

except for getting up in the dark to make the boat

it was great to have someone else do all the planning

and she did a fabulous job!

they only make one early trip a day and one coming back at night

most people go for the day

we weren't coming back for 3 days

staying on an island in the middle of nowhere

and what a beautiful island it was

I loved the hotel the minute I saw it

it had been a brothel and was over 100 years old

I had the corner room upstairs - it was perfect

I loved sitting out there at night

 the view 

around back was a lovely shaded pool

which was well used as Florida in the summer is hot

 the red ginger growing next to the pool

and these sweet epiphytes

first thing to do is walk to a restaurant on Duval Street

 it is considered off season - still some tourists

very few were from Florida

and the picture taking started

the ceiling at the restaurant

later that night we walked to the western side of town to watch the sunset

we saw the famous Key West roosters

they and their families were all over town

everywhere - wild chickens

back when Cuba was closer than the US

 cock fighting was in it's heyday on the island

 in 1860 it was the largest and richest city in Florida

mainly from salvaging ships that constantly wrecked on the reefs that surround it

I loved the old architecture - almost every house or building was old

and had charm and class

something lacking in buildings today

 here are just a few examples

 oh the potential of this one is most attractive

 adorable can be small

 like this one?  think a mill and a half - no parking

this is an old postcard - the house is still there

we saw it on the way to the gardens

the main difference is that it is surrounded by other houses now

then it towers over the landscape - now it is dwarfed

we talked to one person who had grown up there

the biggest change he said was that when he was growing up

there were plenty of empty lots

now - no empty lots

but they kept the old houses - I love that

 the trees were old too

huge trees that shaded the streets

the royal poincianas were in bloom all over town

 this is a frangipani - it has a wonderful smell

this is the largest and oldest one I have ever seen

up past the second story and thick as a tree

they are very fragrant and each color has a different scent

 there was an occasional fixer-upper

(don't get excited - we can't even afford that in Key West)

 this is the sculpture garden - the first and largest showing

the men of the town saving the life of a little boy

(he is on his back) from a sinking ship

next to it were the heads of all the important people in Key West

this is Truman, he had a winter vacation house there

(because he could)

the town had many venues for watching the sunset - 

we actually passed on watching (we live on the Gulf of Mexico)

and went and had a beer and some conch fritters

(don't say conch - say conk)

Day 2 was a visit to the botanical gardens

 where we of course saw an amazing variety of tropical plants

 I don't know the names of most of them

I just like looking at them

 it is hard to see but there is a little green lizard on that branch

they are native to Florida and I have only seen one other one

in 5 years

they are being driven out by the invasive species.....

imagine that

 the setting was very beautiful

on the Atlantic side of the island

a peace park inside the gardens - very nice

great play on the word "key"

Day 3 was the best

the day we took a seaplane to the Dry Tortugas

about 60 miles west of Key West

 it was a small sea plane that held 8 people

 plus the pilot and first mate

that's the pilot with my friends

 I was surprised that these shots

from the plane

 actually came out

 these are the Marquesas islands

about one third of the way out

 it would be so fun to have a boat and pull up on the beach 

and have your own deserted island

 these are the Dry Tortugas

tortugas for all the turtles that use these islands to nest

but the early sailors added the word - dry

no water means don't bother stopping here

 we brought our own - water that is

most of the island is a fort

(what a surprise)

the reef was all along the walls and easily accessible from the beach

the wall actually separates  the moat from the sea

 it was hard to get a good photo of just how

wonderfully turquoise and clear the water was

(this was taken from the plane)

alas I do not have any underwater photos

there was quite a bit of coral, big purple fans,

waving anemones, kinds I had never seen before

yellow fish, blue and yellow fish, parrot fish, some big fish

black spiny urchins, and lots of conch, huge conch shells

I saw one come way out of it's shell

before it saw me and snapped back - it was bright purple

there was a fish so small and so transparent 

that it looked like just the dot of it's eye

so it looked like 100 little dots floating together

until you got up real close and saw they were actually 

very very tiny fish

flying low on the way back I saw several sea turtles 

at least 2 different species of them

a few rays 

and one long black shark

we came on to Key West and headed for the airport at the far end

but we flew over it and made a huge circle of Key West

I was thinking he was giving us a tourist tour of the island

then we made another pass and still did not land

we new something was wrong - big circle and one more pass

he was trying to get the landing gear to come down and lock

this time he tried manually - pumping hard - sweat pouring off his face

nope not working

so he calmly said he was looking for water to land on

which considering that we were in a sea plane and every where you looked

was water, we weren't too concerned either

he finally decided to land in the marina at the far end of town

and he pulled up to the dock better than some people pull up their boats

(these guys fly in Alaska too - they are good)

no visit to Key West would be complete without a visit to the

Hemingway House

I opted not to take the tour, as it was just 2 blocks from our hotel

I liked to walk by at night when no one was around and stare in the front gate

imaging life then

I was reading a book called "Papa" about Mr. Hemingway's Key West years

while I was there

it was a lovely house on a huge block of land

this is an old photo

Hemingway had a 6 foot brick wall - built in his day to keep the tourists out

only the front gate was open grill work and one could look inside

that is where I stood in the dark and dreamed

and I know now that my writing will be better with having done that - right?

the boat ride home was calm

and the sunset on a wonderful few days

ps

 we did not get our photo taken at the "southern most point of the US"

as you can see the line was rather long, we were rather hot

and this photo taken from the cab - was as close as we got

(again nmp)

thank you and good night

xxoo