Sunday, June 29, 2014

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