Destination: Key West - Day of Freedom Day #3

I don’t wake up until after 9. The tequila snuck up on me and I’m a bit out of sorts. Not a lot, just enough to convince me that Senorita Margarita is not my friend. So I putter around until 11 when I head back downtown. Today is a full tourist day.

My breakfast server had suggested lunch at Sunset Key, a private island that is also a Westin Resort. A small ferry leaves the Westin Dock every half hour or so to make the eight minute crossing. I failed to make reservations so I don’t bother trying to go. My other lunch option was Louie’s Backyard at the other end of town, but I don’t have reservations there either. In the end I decide not to have lunch.

Instead I take the car to Ft Zachary Taylor State Park and wander through the old Civil War fort.

It’s a bit hard to get a handle on it. While the Walls and battlements are solid, there is little in the way of displays and information to tell you about why it’s there. 

Other than a small handout about the basic history of the beginning of the fort, and its subsequent service, there is no in depth story, no background on the cannon that just sit in revetments that aren’t even firing positions, or for that matter the day to day life of soldiers. 

An inexpensive attempt has been made to inform by putting up bulletin type boards with minor facts about medicine and disease in the American Civil War and such, but it seems out of place without any displays to show what the board is saying. Needless to say, I’m disappointed. However the views of the grassland beyond the forts walls are impressive. I couldn’t take pictures of one side because it’s an active military installation.

I move the car to Ft Zachary Taylor Beach Park and my spirits lift. I find myself smiling at small things, and for no real reason. It’s a fine beach with families picnicking, a small concession, and tables.

I have a large BARQ’S with ice to try and cool down. It’s humid again even though there is cloud cover. Drinks here are served without lids and straws. Bad for the animals.

I move the car towards town and park it back at the Westin lot. At least I’m prepared with cash this time. I walk over to the Little White House. In the front yard a guy makes a comment about my hat. He recognizes the logo, it’s the one of my current employer. It’s well known at home, but certainly not this far south. Turns out he’s Canadian Navy and his ship is berthed waiting to take part in joint international exercises. We chat for a while in the gift shop.

The little White House was Harry Truman’s vacation home while he was President. Over the intervening years other Presidents also have used it. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, but doesn't get any funds for upkeep or operations. It’s totally self-supporting. Which is strange since it’s still used as a meeting place and summit location by different government agencies. In fact you can’t take any pictures of the interior because it is still considered a Presidential Residence and the Secret Service insists on a no photo policy. At least that’s what my wonderfully knowledgeable tour guide David tells me.

The tour is about 45 minutes long and covers most of the house. The porch room is where Truman played poker with his “quorum” in the evenings. His wife Bess who disapproved of such things however, was satisfied when the Navy (who owned the property and was caretaker at the time) came up with a matching wooden table cover so she could sit and have tea with her lady friends without having to be reminded of the "other" card games.

The dining room, the bedrooms, the sitting room, have all been restored to their original condition. I say original because on the 80’s and 90’s the Navy shut down the operation and sold off the land to an investor. Long story short, a private group came up with the cash to buy the house and restore it. And they have a done a fabulous job.

I buy a few things from the gift shop and walk out to make the six block hike to the Hemmingway House. I’m learning some things about this environment. I stick to the shady side of the street on the walk over.

Hemmingway House is interesting to me from only one perspective. Historically Hemmingway only lived in the house for five years, but the legend of what he wrote while living in Key West is what makes the legend stronger. I am disappointed that once again there is very little in the way of signage to lend some information to what I see. Everywhere there are pictures of Hemmingway. Hand drawn, pencil sketches, paintings, magazine covers, and photographs. Most are unattributed as to artist or significance.

A bedroom is a bedroom, a bathroom is a bathroom, and the kitchen is the kitchen. Maybe I should have waited for the tour but frankly except for the lovely cats, and Hemmingway’s heavily caged writing room, it wasn’t worth $13. Even the gift shop is weak.

 

I walk over to Duval. After that Hemmingway disappointment I am in need of inspiration. It’s time for Captain Tony’s, where Hemmingway used to drink scotch and soda every afternoon, most of the afternoon. 

I’ll stick to beer, Captain Tony’s Ale to be precise. The place is fondly referred to as a dive.

Actually it seems a place where people forget who they are, or are supposed to be, and become something else entirely. Women’s bras, autographed no less, line the walls,

along with business cards. Save’s on paint I guess. Captain Tony’s is where Jimmy Buffett got his first break, playing for beer between the sets of other bands. Jimmy and Captain Tony stayed friends for years. One wall has huge blow-ups of news stories covering Captain Tony’s exploits including his stint as mayor. I stay for one beer. On my way out I take a couples picture of a couple really excited to be in Captain Tony’s.

I stroll over to a place called the Commodore’s Boat House, right below the Commodore Restaurant on the marina waterfront. 

It’s half price appys and draft until 6:30. I order Sam Adams draft, Conch Fritters, and beer battered shrimp. Now don’t start in on me about no vegetables! Conch (conk) Fritters are new to me. A conch is a sea snail, and the fritters are conch meat rolled into a small ball and fried. They are quite tasty, and the mustard dip enhances the flavour nicely. The beer battered shrimp are good. The beer, in the heat and humidity, is divine. I’m so busy stuffing my face I forget to take pictures of the food. The view was great though. The whole bill comes to $12.86.

I walk back along the waterfront boardwalk, volunteer to take a picture of a couple against the backdrop of the marina, and head over to pick up the car. I stop to take some of my own pictures of statues outside the Key West Art and Historical Society.

I get back to the hotel around 7. I want to do a final load of laundry before I leave tomorrow. While the laundry is drying I sit at the hotel bar to have a martini and chat with Mary, and read a book I bought called the Wit and Wisdom Of Harry Truman. Laundry done and two martinis later, I’m ready for bed.

Somehow the pink naked dancing statue doesn't disturb my sleep.

 

Destination: Key West - Day Of Freedom Day #2

My server at breakfast is from Quebec, and has been here over 10 years. We get to chatting about this and that, and he gives me some suggestions on where there is good food at good prices, and the kinds of places the locals go to hang out. The breakfast wrap is fabulous. I was halfway through it before I thought to take a picture.

Around 1030 I wander across the road to Smather’s Beach. I sit and read for a while, watch idiots on jet skis roaring along the beach front causing god knows how much sonic damage to the sea creatures. A biplane flies over, and a foursome in rented beach chairs ($10 each) sitting in front of me chat about all sorts of things in several different and distinctive American accents.

I sit there until just about noon, until an ant like thing bites my ankle hard enough to hurt. I take this as a sign it’s time to go. I pack up my beach chair, which I brought all the way from home, and my reading gear, and my towel and head back to the relative safety of my balcony. I grab a tall Land Shark can from the fridge. By my estimation it’s 5 o’clock in Athens, and retire to continue some relaxing reading in the sun.

At 2 I retire out of the sun to take care of some e-mail, and to shower off the greasy sunscreen before taking a long nap.

I drive back to town via the long way along Roosevelt Blvd, there’s so much construction that it’s hard to locate the right entrance. I want to find the liquor store at Walgreen's. I need supplies. After making a quick right turn across two lanes (I was expecting it to be on the left) I walk into the coolness of the liquor store. Humidity here is not consistent. One minute it’s tolerable, the next you’ve soaked through your entire wardrobe. I find the Land Sharks but in bottle only, and Magic Hat #9. I buy a 6 pack of each and go in search of the gin. I make a Holy Grail discovery in the gin aisle. Plymouth Gin!! Next to Boodles, which they stopped importing, Travis McGee’s favourite. I have to buy a bottle, even though at $30 for 750 ml it’s twice as much as the Bombay Sapphire gin I have been drinking. Of course it says a lot more that the cheaper gin I buy here is the $30/750ml gin at home. The regular beer is about 30% cheaper. I couldn’t say about the price of the Land Shark at $7.50 a six pack, because we can’t get that at home.

I wander over into the other side of Walgreen's to pick up some bottled water (both spring water and two large bottles of San Pellegrino), a beach towel of my own (forgot the regular one at home and had to borrow one from the hotel), and windshield washer fluid that’s only good down to the freezing mark, meaning I’ll need to use it pretty quick once I get home.

Know what’s hard to find here in convenience stores? Club Soda and Tonic water. Two drinking mix staples and they don’t stock it. That’s why the San Pellegrino.

I drop the supplies back at the hotel to cool in the fridge. I wander to the front desk to enquire about the shuttle to downtown. I want to have a couple of cocktails tonight and don’t want to drive. The clerk says the next one with room on it leaves at 7, and it’s only 5. I decide to drive and park at the Westin lot. Again  it's $4 an hour but it’s out of the sun and off the street.

I wander along Mallory Square and amble along Front Street in search of Alonzo’s Oyster Bar. It’s one of the places my breakfast server suggested. I find it along the dock, and with the humidity the way it is, I ask for an inside, air conditioned table by the window. I wimped out I know, but at least there’s a view.

I order a Key West Ale from my server who looks like he should be either building houses, masquerading as a house, or hauling large crates of seafood onto a boat. He’s a big lad. I search the menu and decide on lobster crab cakes. When they arrive there are two large cakes, some mashed potatoes, and some corn infused thing. The lobster crab cakes are nice and firm with a gently spiced cream sauce, and the corn something is fresh and cold. At first taste the mashed potatoes seem like instant, but they got better.

After dinner I take another walk down Duval Street. I take my time. I want to walk the full length of Duval and to try and catch the 7:15 sunset at the marker for the Southern Most Point in the Continental United States. I stop at the Margaritaville and spend some hard earned cash.

I make the marker after stopping to help a young couple who seem to be lost. I don’t know where they want to go either but I have a spare map that the hotel gave me when they were showing a couple of things. So I give it to them.

I make the marker on time but it's clouded over so the sunset is very weak. I try to take some pictures while working around a bunch of people taking pictures of one, and then the other of themselves. I volunteer to take some pictures of couples so they can be in the shot together. I like to do that for people, so I often ask no matter where I am. I even do it when I'm working. After all if you’re on your honeymoon, or anniversary trip, or your first trip together as a couple, wouldn’t you want to have a picture of the two of you to stare it in your future years? To show the kids, and the grand kids, or to drunkenly cry over when the future doesn’t quite make the grade you thought it would?

Once the tourist couples are out of the way I take a self-portrait to show I was really here (but not for publication), and snap a couple of pictures of this building. It's been here since 1917.

This little piece of brick and stucco was the terminus for the first underwater telephone and telegraph cable between Florida and Cuba. Most people who stand here only see the southern most marker buoy, but on a little plaque I get the history of this street corner.

I wander back up the street and see a lot of plaques and signs. Each one trying to outdo the other in claiming the Southernmost whatever.

What is not in doubt is that the Southern Most Café is the Southern Most Café.

And the office I really want to occupy when I'm done with my current job!

Frankly, I’m tired of walking so I treat myself to a pedicab ride back to the parking garage. The pusher is from Serbia and we chat about America, his experience, and how well he's done here.

The ride from one end of Duval to the other cost’s $27 for about 12 blocks. I think he’s doing quite well don’t you? However the ride was fun and saved me from walking.

I have problems getting the car out of the parking garage. The self-serve parking machines don’t recognise my credit cards, any of them, and I gave the last of my cash to the Pedi cab guy. I re-park the car and go to the front desk of the Westin Hotel. The fellow there apologises, says they have been having problems with the stripe readers. He gives me an overnight guest parking card to get out and refuses to take any money for the parking, though I tell him I don’t mind paying.

Back at the hotel I head for the poolside bar. I’ve decided that tonight is the night to try a Margarita for the first time. Yes, it’s true! I have never had a Margarita. Sad, really, and says a lot about my alcohol adventuresome side, but I don’t care much for fruity rum or tequila drinks. Or even rum or tequila for that matter. But I figure that tonight’s the night to try.

Mary, the bartender is an affable sort from Martha’s Vineyard. She makes my drink. After a few sips, I tell her I can understand why people would drink them but I’m not overly fond. She’s very understanding.

I get a great opportunity to chat with her and the night Host in the restaurant. I learn a lot about how people find reasons to live here, and why they choose to come. The night is warm, and I am very comfortable just sitting at the bar and chatting.

 

Back in my room I have a couple of beers as I watch a huge lightning storm out over the ocean. Three very active storm cells are visible. One right in front of me, one to the right or south, and one to my left, up north. One flashes and the other seems to answer. This goes on for a while. I am reminded of the “put and call” in Jazz structure where one instrument calls and another answers. I am also reminded of the song Duelling Banjos. The storms are magnificent to watch.

I fall into a dead sleep at 10.

Destination: Key West - Day of Freedom #1

I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth, I've just fallen into Key West. I took a few days off from blogging to just enjoy the simple act of being here. Living my best dream if you will, and not the usual one where I want to wake up screaming.

Hopefully over the next few days I can get you caught up.

The day after I arrived I did very little except have breakfast by the hotel pool, 

 

 do some laundry in the machines, find a small bit of wisdom that catches my eye in the hotel hallway,

and get caught up on the back blog of entries I had been putting off, and of course napping. You may have noticed a flurry of new entries with that first date on it.

 

In the late afternoon I'd had enough typing and wandered into town. Actually I drove. Parking isn’t cheap at $4 an hour on the meter but it’s no less pricey in local lots. Fortunately it’s the way, way off season so parking is easy to find, and the hotel is nicely situated about a mile and a half away. Perfect distance for the quiet I want here.

I wander down Duval, the main “action” street. It’s a place filled with cheap and expensive and tacky and cute bars, restaurants, gift shops, t-shirt emporiums, art galleries, and Cuban hand rolled cigar shops. Men buy foul smelling cigars from little brown men while their ladies look on with equal measures of disgust, boredom, amusement, and resignation.

About a quarter of the shops are closed or empty. Most of the closed ones say they will be back in October or November, once the tourist season starts. I stop at a Crazy Shirts store to look around. The two ladies running the store ask if I’ve been in a Crazy Shirt store before. I tell them I’ve been a Crazy Shirts customer since 1976. The conversation goes from there about “Where are you from?”, “What a long trip”, and well you get the idea how the conversation went. It’s good to be able to talk with people again. Isolationism on the road is one thing but it’s not my ongoing lifestyle of choice. I like talking to people, mostly.

I ask the ladies it they have a place they like to eat. They suggest Caroline’s just up a block or so, mid-block after the corner of Duval and Caroline. Caroline Street is notable to me because of an early Jimmy Buffett song called "A Woman Gong Crazy Down On Caroline Street". I wander up that way but on a side street I spot Capt. Tony’s Saloon. I’m tempted to go there, but I’m saving the famous and legendary Capt. Tony’s for the right moment. I don’t know when that right moment will be, but it’s not this moment.

Did I mention the roosters that strut around freely everywhere? I took this picture on a back street so the garbage wasn't on Duval. But the roosters are everywhere.

 

I get a small table in the middle of the restaurant. There are no beers on tap, and no local beer at all. The closest thing to local is from New York called Magic Hat #9. The server says it’s not quite a Pale Ale. I figure what the hell and order a bottle of that.

While I’m waiting for the beer I spy a t-shirt in the small market next door that has “DDAD” on it. It stands for “Dad’s Against Daughters Dating – Shoot The First One And The Word Will Spread”. I drink a toast to my friend and his family back home. He has two beautiful, wonderful daughters, and a talented wife, the three of whom are all courageously fighting different health problems. You’re here with me too guys!!

Dinner is blackened Cajun chicken pasta. Large chunks of marinated chicken breast, peppery and spicy creamy sauce with chunks of green peppers, over firm penne. It’s just spicy enough to raise a slight sweat sheen, and not a mad gulping of liquid to put the fire out. I like it a lot.

Foot traffic on Duval is increasing as it gets closer to more people’s dinnertime. The makeup of the crowd is mixed but skews to middle age, which stands to reason since its fall everywhere but here. Families are back home from the summer road trips, college kids are still trying to figure out where the dorm room is, and the late 20’s crowd is back in the office trying to convince each other how important and significant they are. They’ll be back in the spring when Duval Street begins to look like the wreck that is Bourbon Street.

Me? I’m beginning to lose track of which day of the week it is. I’ve been on the road for 13 days and without a reason to keep track of anything other than how close I am to the 22^nd of September, I couldn’t care if it’s Saturday or Tuesday, or any other day. 

I rescue the car from a street meter and head back to the hotel. I want to see the sunset from my quiet balcony, but I’m a bit too far east than west facing to get a good view. Towering Cumulonimbus clouds off to the southwest have a wonderful shading of reds and oranges. As it gets darker the clouds directly in front of me begin to show lightning activity. They are way too far off in the Gulf Stream to hear thunder or get rain, but the light show itself is very impressive and powerful and dramatic. The darker it gets the more stars begin to peek out, they are brilliant. I don’t often get to see such bright stars anymore unless I’m driving home through the mountains in the winter. We used to see a lot of stars from our sundeck as a kid, but light pollution and air pollution have long since put a stop to viewing anything other than bright planets and stars.

 I have a couple of Land Sharks as I watch the electrical show for another hour or so, and then call it a night.