Key West 2

Throughout the city, the ubiquitous chickens are protected.
Cubans brought them over for their hobby of "cock fighting"
but the friendly US government outlawed it and gave the
chickens a protected status.  Now you can't even kick them
out from under your feet or off the dining tables.

We hadn’t spent all of our hard-earned children’s inheritance yet, so we went back down to Key West a couple more times.  We did the usual tourist stuff, along with some not-so-usual stuff.

We ate our obligatory conch fritters, and actually liked it.  We also had a fantastic conch & shrimp ceviche at the local brewhouse (Sue said their beers were not very good).  We bought our conch shell at Mallory Square, and it had already been cut at the end, so it was ready for me to “blow” the shell (it was quite easy, since you need to vibrate your lips like blowing a trumpet).

A huge number of boaters anchor outside Key West Bight,
some for days or weeks, some for years.  At the docks, the
dinghy dock is always full, especially at happy hour each day.

Inside Key West Bight, too many boats to count

Something to celebrate at Mallory Square.  You can see some
of the boats which go out every evening just to see the big ball
of fire sink into the water

Had to have this picture of a Yankee tourist!

Sue has been impressed with all the coconut palm trees (rather than date palms) throughout the Keys, so she bought a painted coconut which has been approved by the post office to be mailed as is.  We sent it to our granddaughter in New Orleans, since she has gone to the Zulu parade during Mardi Gras to catch a couple coconuts to give to us.  Now we’re even.

Don't know whether this is 5 or 6 toes.  When
Hemingway lived here, he had more than 70 cats on
the grounds.

We went to the house where Ernest Hemingway lived for a while & saw that his cats still inhabit the grounds.  The weird thing about the cats (other than there’s 50+ of them) is that more than half of them have 6 toes on each foot.  That’s what in-breeding does for you!  Hemingway was a prolific writer (and a prolific drinker) who wrote 30-some books, most of which were turned into major motion pictures.

Paying our respects at the Grotto

We made sure that we visited the Lourdes Grotto, which was built in 1922 by a single Catholic nun out of coral rock.  After Key West was devastated by a hurricane, she built the Grotto to ward off any future hurricanes.  We lit a candle & made a BIG donation in the box.

We visited Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West
(I'll bet your history book didn't talk about this fort!), built about
the same time as Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas

At one of the gun placements, a cannon takes aim at a
silly iguana sitting in the window.

Breaking bread in Key West with our boating friends

And, wouldn’t you know it, we again met up with Don & Shirley, our friends from Myrtle Beach, who had finished enjoying their couple days at Dry Tortugas, and brought their boat to another marina in Marathon.  They’ll stay in Marathon a few more weeks, so I’m sure we’ll see them again.

We extended our stay in Marathon by another week, since the price is so good, there’s more we want to see & do here, and mainly, a tropical storm is brewing in the Bahamas this weekend.

The epitome of decadence:  a slice of
frozen Key Lime pie dipped in chocolate