As they say there is no peace for the wicked – so we completely ignored Karen’s need for sleep and headed to the furthest most point of the Florida Keys – Key West. The day did not seem to promising when we set out – at least as far as the weather was concerned – but by the time we had reached our destination the sun was out and we were basking in the sunlight. We initially decided to park down by the main marina area. This was a fun place to walk around with plenty of gift shops and eating places. We walked along the jetties where trips were offered on tall ships out into the Gulf of Mexico, of particular interest to us were the sunset trips with dinner (these were pretty pricey). For the more adventurous you could hire a boat and go out deep sea fishing for tarpon, marlin and other big game fish. We settled for a bar serving alcohol, good food and live music. Jack and Emily entertained themselves by looking for fish in the harbour – particularly the 4 foot long tarpon quite happily swimming amongst the moored boats. The grown-up Hoblets were more content to watch people (one of our favourite hobbies) and the large boats manoeuvring around in the tight confines of the busy marina. After this brief moment of peace we continued our walk around and found a small museum on the dockside that presented the history of the turtle fishing industry. In fact the building was operated as fishery for turtles, which were slaughtered in their thousands for their flesh, primarily to make turtle soup. Fortunately nowadays these animals are protected.
From the port we decided to explore the old town a bit more a search out a beach. As this was Sunday afternoon things were somewhat busy in the tourist driven centre of town and we were soon caught up in the traffic – which is somewhat accentuated by the large number of tourist buses and trolleys porting tourists from one point to another. To our great joy we discovered Marker 0 – signifying the starting point of US Route 1 on its long and tortuous 2000 mile journey north to Maine. We stepped out for a the photo opportunity and then headed for the beach. This was not a planned trip so we had no swimming costumes or towels or anything. Nonetheless Jack and Emily wanted to swim so they stripped down to their underwear – unfortunately we had histrionics from Emily who is self-conscious of her body now and did not want to be “topless” and then she scratched Jack’s back so the beach experience was bought to an abrupt end.
We now moved down to the most southerly point in the contiguous United States for another photo. Down here you find the southernmost hotel, southernmost café, the southernmost house and the southernmost southernmost house. From here we proceeded to walk into to town to peruse the many shops selling basically crap for consumption by tourists. We picked up several mementos of our trip and was about to leave when we bumped into a couple of wonderful ladies who told us about the daily ritual at Mallory Square where hundreds of people gather to watch the sun go down everyday. So off we 
went. Mallory Square is down by the port area and offers an unobstructed view of Gulf of Mexico and the sun setting. To help us pass the time there are several street entertainers and we spend sometime watching a juggling act – who to Emily’s delight have two dogs who help in the act. Then it is time to sit down and watch the sun go down – and we were not disappointed as the large flaming sun slips down over the horizon. At the end everyone cheers and claps – not quite sure who they are applauding but I suppose God will appreciate the recognition.By this stage we are quite hungry. We go back to the car and drive to a restaurant in our “Road Food” book. We walk up the main street where we spot a rather plain looking house displaying a large sign “Adult Entertainment”. The evidence of the entertainment is outside in the form of two “ladies”, one of whom is on the large side of portly wearing a spandex skirt ten sizes too small and barely covering her nether region. Jack quite innocently pipes up and says “I know what part of the entertainment she is – the comedy act”. This has us all in raptures – we have to explain to Jack why we find this so funny. Of course he now tries to explain it was a planned joke all along. Unfortunately we don’t fancy the restaurant when we find it so we park up and find a place to eat on the main street. This is interesting as it allows us to view the street life of Key West which is very colourful to say the least (reminds us somewhat of our trip to Provincetown in Cape Cod). Finally it is time to travel the 50 miles back to Marathon – unfortunately en route there is a car accident – which when there is only one road means there is invariably a wait. Eventually we role into a campsite and fall into bed after a long but extremely good day.
No comments:
Post a Comment