Rounding the last corner on my NFANA Tour

Key West, FL

I started my day today in Key West, walking along the Historic Habour Walk. It’s a really busy harbour where you can book cruises, or rent jet skies, or go fishing, or do pretty much anything on the water. All along the board walk there are seafood restaurants with great views overlooking the harbour and of course shops enticing you in.

Then I did one of the compulsory activities on the island, I took a Conch Train Tour. It travels throughout the historic section of Key West and the driver did a great job of both informing and entertaining us. Pretty cheesy, but fun.

The keys were first discovered by Ponce de Leon who as you might remember was looking for the fountain of youth. They’ve had their ups and downs as various industries came and went. Sponge harvesting was doing well until a wicked red tide came along and killed off all the sponge. “Wrecking” which involved pursuing wrecked ships, first saving the passengers and then salvaging the cargo and pooling the proceeds, was going strong for a while, but then they installed a light house so no more ship wrecks. Cigar making was big for a while, but then unions and other problems caused the cigar manufacturing to be re-located to the Tampa area. And of course, Tourism. In 1935 they decided on a beautification project and just as it was completed, on Labour Day in 1935 a hurricane wiped out all the bridges and destroyed all that they’d beautified. In 1980 new bridges were built, and in the 1990’s cruise ships started stopping on their routes and now tourism is thriving. Try finding parking after about 10 in the morning in the historic section.

The island has all sorts of architecture; Victorian,Barroque, French Colonial, Moroccan, classic Key with verandas for cooling, some with the same layout as we saw in New Orleans, where the breeze was captured by the rooms all opening onto each other from front to back, etc.

After the Conch Tour, I headed to the “Little White House”. A former naval commander’s residence was offered to President Truman for his use in 1948 so that he could revitalize himself a year into a surprise Presidency when as VP he took over when President Roosevelt died. He liked Key West so much he returned often and the Navy had it renovated for his specific use. (His wife Bess didn’t like the Keys and rarely visited). Other presidents have used it since as well: Taft, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter (2007 NY Party), and the Clintons. It was used by Colin Powell when he led a delegation trying to forge a peace settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Duval Street runs a mile from the north to south of the island from the “bayside” to the “ocean side” and it is chock a block full of restaurants and shops. I stopped for lunch at one of the most lively ones called Caroline’s and had an excellent Club Sandwich. I did some shopping along the way.

At the southern end of Duval there is a marker where the southern most point of the continental US is located. It’s only 90 miles to Cuba from there, which is closer to Key West than Miami. There was actually a line up of people waiting to have their picture taken and it was chaos. Fisticuffs almost broke out when someone broke into the line. On my way back north, I stopped a the Hemingway House.

Ernest Hemingway lived in this house in Key West for only 9 years but in that time, he wrote approx. 70% of his literary work there. It is such a beautiful property you can imagine why he was so inspired. Hemingway bought the house, built in 1851 made of rock from the property, in 1931 for $ 8,000. While he was away in 1934 his wife surprised him by having the swimming pool built. It cost $20,000. When told of the cost, Hemingway reached into his pocket and took out a penny and handed it to his wife and said, “you might as well have every last penny of my money”. The 1934 penny is stuck in the top of the concrete deck around the pool.

One of the other stories our guide told us is that Hemingway was in Sloppy Joe’s one day and noted they were doing a renovation and throwing out the urinals. He took one home and installed it as a drinking fountain for the abundant cats on the property. His wife was so aghast that she put tile and an olive jug around it to try and conceal it, negating the thriftiness of getting the urinal free.

Given it’s ideal location, one of the other popular activities in Key West is watching the sun go down. Hundreds gather starting an hour before sunset to be entertained by buskers while they wait for the sun to go down and watch for that elusive green flash. It was quite the social event getting to know ones neighbours while waiting for the event.

It was a great couple of days and I’m looking forward to a few more before I start my northward trek.