Key West Diary 8

Diane and Ron Collier, friends from Owensboro, Kentucky are always looking out for me and my happiness. 

So, when they saw the post of the Southern Most Marker without us in the picture, here is what Ron did with Photo Shop.

Once I saw the picture above, I wrote back, "LOL!!!!! How Great!!!

Now, can he make me tall and thin and young and blonde???

See Ron's artistry below. He is my hero!

Key West Dairy 7

Sunday, the 25th of January, we had planned on working on the boat again, cleaning and polishing it inside and out. BUT, since we found out yesterday that the marina is letting us stay through February 16 and probably the 28th, we decided to have another play day!

So we headed to downtown for Key West's annual craft and artist show. Hundreds of booths lined up along Caroline and Whitehead street displayed some beautiful and creative artwork.

I never pass up a beautiful and interesting  Banyan tree.

We thought we were in New Orleans when we saw and heard the band strike up and start marching down Duvall street. Here comes the funeral parade, complete with people throwing Mardi Gras type beads. We didn't know the man who died, but we joined in the March and celebration him anyway!

The crowd grew larger the further down Duvall street it progressed.

This is the lead element with the tuba and the trumpets.

After a little lunch we decided to take in a movie at one of the two movie theaters in Key West, the Tropic theater. This is a tiny theater that had four screens but only about fifty seats per screen. It is "quaint" but nice and the movie SELMA was outstanding.

The very life like statue of Marilyn Monroe outside the theater entrance.

Back on the sundeck as the day ends reading the WSJ and enjoying another gorgeous sunset in paradise. It does not get any better than this.

Key West Dairy 6

KAnother day of sight seeing. The southern most point in the United States. We are 90 miles from Cuba and 150 miles from Miami. Tourists line up for two blocks to have their picture taken next to the marker, so the two people in the picture are just unknown tourists. We didn't want to wait in line!

.....the ever present roosters!

Famous Duvall Street. This is the main drag in Key West.

The end of U. S. Route 1, Mile Marker 0. Supposedly the most photographed and stolen sign in Key West. Route 1 runs the entire length of the U. S. East coast, ending at the Main/Canada border some 2700 miles away.

President Harry Truman's "Little White House" in Key West. 

Originally located on the Navy's submarine base, President Truman spent a total of 178 days, over eleven visits, to Key West during his presidency. He loved the weather, the people and the ability to get away from Washington.

Originally a duplex, the house was converted to a single family home to accommodate the Base Commanders 11 children. Once the sub base closed and President Truman was looking for a place to escape Washington, the 8,000+ square foot house was converted into the Southern Whitehouse.

The house and gardens are very simple and comfortable but still beautiful and seem to fit President Truman extremely well. He would go on to visit Key West many more times after leaving the White House but he never stayed here again after he was no longer President. He did not think it was right for the American taxpayer to pick up his tab for his vacations once out of office. He would stay with friends on the island.

We were told this was the place to have the best Key Lime Pie in Key West. Sara liked the pie at this place the best.

I liked the Key Lime Pie at Blue Heaven Restaurant the best!

One tourist that has obviously had too much Key Lime Pie on this day! He is just sleeping it off.

The afternoon/evening of January 16, we signed up for the annual "old house tour" of five old Key West homes that had been built between the 1880's and 1920. Though they all had been remodeled and renovated over the years they still maintained their charm and style.

One of the main things that all five homes exhibited was a wide use of outdoor living space, from large, wide front porches to large decks and "outside" rooms. Many even had small swimming pools in their back or side yard.

Though no photographs were permitted inside it was a great opportunity to see how people made very creative use of small spaces.

Just one of the many beautiful, exotic flowers in one of the gardens of the old houses.

Key West Diary 5

One of our sight seeing trips to downtown Key West was to visit the Butterfly Conservatory. We have visited places like this but, this one is by far the best. They not only have several hundred types of butterflys but an assortment of exotic birds as well. It was just a neat experience!

Pictured below are the resident Flamingos. They are pampered and well fed. Their diet is rich in the ingredient that keeps their plummage the bright red/pink you see here.

My scientific names for the many beautiful butterflies.........

......the black white blue butterfly.....

....the black orange butterfly......

........the brown and white butterfly.....,

.......the black and yellow butterfly......

.....,butterflies on a friut plate......

........the orange butterfly..........

...the black orange and white butterfly...

...the black and white striped butterfly....

...the black white and yellow butterfly....

.....the brown circle butterfly.......

......the black white orange butterfly.....

......the brown circle butterfly perched on Sara's head. When this butterfly opens his wings, they are a brilliant irridiscent blue, but I couldn't get him to cooperate....

......one of the exotic finches living in the conservatory....

........butterfly on a wall......

Inside the conservatory.

After a hard day at the conservatory, a little natural coconut milk goes a long way to perk a guy up!

Next stop was to visit Earnest Hemingway's House. He lived here for nine years. He wrote more than 50% of the novels that he would write during his lifetime, here.

His house is one of the largest houses in Key West and was originally built in the 1890's for a ship captain. It also sits on one of the highest points of land in Key West, 18 feet above sea level.

In the garden, the watering trough laying on the ground is actually one of the men's urinals taken from Hemingway's favorite bars, Sloppy Joe's. He thought it would make a great watering spot for his beloved cats. His second of four wives didn't think much of the idea and had a huge olive jar imported from Spain and the edges of the urinal decorated with tile from Cuba to disguise what it really was.

His second wife also had the swimming pool dug on the property, while Earnest was away on one of his fishing trips. The entire property was purchased for $8,000. But, the cost to have the pool dug was $20,000, because under just a foot of soil was nothing but hard rock and coral that had to be dug out with sledge hammers and spikes.

Hemingway joked with his drinking buddies "that damn pool cost me my last penny", so his wife had a penny embedded in the wet concrete to prove it!

Today the pool is still the largest pool in Key West.

One of the famous six toed cats. When Hemingway was living here in the 1930's, there were 52 cats living on the property. They maintain that number today and the cats are free to roam the property.

Hemingway's writing studio is in a separate building in the back yard of his property. 

They have left it exactly as it was when he lived and wrote here, with his original desk and Royal typewriter.

During this same day, we visited the Hemingway exhibit at the Historical Art and History Museum. This is a bronze statue of Hemingway all decked out in his fishing attire.

A model of Hemingway's favorite boat, the PILAR. He had it custom built in New York and shipped to Key West. The boat now resides at the Hemingway museum in Cuba.

Sloppy Joe's bar was Hemingway's favorite drinking establishment. Now it is just a noisy, crowded tourist hangout.