KEY WEST #2

Monday - 11/3 - Our original plan was to drive to Key West today, back to Key Largo tonight, then hook up with Julio for lunch Tuesday while Mike made his service call north of Miami. Well, anyone who knows son Mike, knows that plans are made to be changed, as you find out later.

Once it was daylight, we could see how close our condo was to the Atlantic, maybe 75 yards away. In the boat basin below our veranda were four good size fishing boats. Behind each big condo complex were large parking lots FULL of big boats of every size and variety. This area is definitely a place where fisherpersons come. We had a cup of coffee on the beach and decided that we would change Tuesday's plan, since this was such an unusually beautiful location, to spend several hours on the beach Tuesday morning and meet Julio later in the day.

As we headed out for the 2+ hour drive to K.W., we realized we were going to arrive there fairly early and really didn't have a lot left to see, and Mike, surprise surprise, wasn't interested in Hemingway's house or 6-toed cats, since he owns FIVE cats himself. So, we looked on his GPS, which will identify points of interest in the area you are in, and found a park called Crane Point Park. When we arrived there I expected to find another tourist trap like Jungle Adventures, however, found nice grounds and a very nice Interpretive Center. Some years ago, a family named Crane bought this little peninsula of Florida Everglades, to protect it from being destroyed by developers. They built a house on it and put in trails throughout, leading to the point that juts into the Gulf of Mexico. It was about 3/4 mile to the end and we wondered if I and Mavis could handle it, and decided to go as far as we could go.

Everglade vegetation is amazingly varied, and all along the trail, they had the different trees and plants identified, which made it quite interesting. Lots of unique flowering bushes and areas under water. Part way in we came to the bird sanctuary, and as luck would have it, found an attendant feeding the birds. This whole facility is set up to handle injured birds, and, hopefully, return them to the wild after recovery. The very nice young lady said watch this, and opened a small door off the big cage, and dozens of cormorants streamed into their feeding trough. In the big cage were many pelicans, and they are quite large and voracious eaters. I'm guessing these birds have wingspans of 5-6 feet and one was floating in a tub of water, whacking its wings loudly against the water, which the attendant, Tracy, says is their way of bathing themselves. We were SO fortunate to get to see this feeding operations. Mike says he is definitely going to bring his whole family down to experience Crown Point and Crane Point.

We waddled down the trail to the end, where there was a little bridge over a small channel, where dozens of gulf fish milled around, wanting to be fed.

As we were returning to the Interpretive Center we ran into Tracy again and I asked her if there were any other "special" places to visit, that the regular Tourons probably never found out about. She said sure, you want go to the Blue Hole. I asked for directions and she said to come into her office and she would draw me a map. Mike & Mave continued on back. After she finished drawing me a map she said, you know, I don't have much to do today, I'll give you guys a "behind the scenes" tour. AwwRight! I ran, waddled, out on the trail and whistled and yelled, but they were out of sight. When I came back to tell her she said come on back anyway. She then showed me several different birds that were in different stages of injury recovery, inluding one tiny Nighthawk someone had found and eventually turned over to them. She said looks at this - it was about the size of a Robin and had a tiny beak about the size of a ball point pen. She wrapped it in a towel, forced open the beak and you wouldn't believe how big its mouth was. She says they fly at night with their big mouth open, catching small insects. She fed it half a dozen big larvae worms until it seemed full. She said they will have to hand feed it the rest of its life because it has never learned to catch insects in flight.

I can't remember the names of all the other birds - an Osprey, an white heron, a turkey vulture that had just come in and wasn't happy about being handled, an owl, a pigeon, etc. etc. MOST interesting and I was SO sorry the other two missed this unique opportunity. I asked Tracy if she was a vet and she said no, she had worked at the San Diego Zoo and when her "friend" had been transferred to this area, she was able to get this job. However, she said she couldn't handle the humid summer heat and was going back home to S.D. soon.

From here we meandered south towards K.W., going from one Key (Spanish? for Island) to another, and there are dozens of them, all connected with various length bridges. One bridge is seven miles long and Mike thought it was the longest bridge in the world? Anybody confirm that?. Key Largo has a rich and varied history, dating back to Indian days. As it continued to develop a relatively rich gentleman by the name of Flagler, co-developer of Standard Oil with a guy named Rockefeller, decided there needed to be a railroad to KW. The challenges were enormous, but in 1912 it finally opened and operated successfully until 1935. As I have mentioned in previous year's diaries, this whole area along the Gulf is famous for its "Big Hurricane" and in 1935 the Keys got their Big One. A train was leaving KW heading north when the word came to evacuate the keys, so the engineer backed the train back into KW, loaded up all the people he could carry, and while speeding north a huge storm surge knocked the train over, killing almost everyone. Over 700 people perished in this hurricane. They never rebuilt the railroad line and there are still some of the bridges standing, many of which are used as fishing piers.

Not much traffic heading into KW but when we got into the city proper, it was jammed with people. We inched our way to the center of town, just off the boardwalk, and parked in a lot about a block from the water. With Standard Time in effect, by the time we got parked, organized and walked to the boardwalk, it was already getting close to sunset time. There was a huge crowd, amazing as this was a Monday, so you can imagine what a weekend or holiday would be. Girl watching was incredible, dozens of vendors of all kinds and some kind of entertainer every few feet. Mike kept saying, "I gotta bring C and the kids down here!"

Guess what? No fog but no clouds either, so the sunset occurred with little excitement. Sunsets in Arizona are always colorful due to the dust and pollution in the air, but here, not a lot of color, except for the last couple inches when it dropped below a far-off cloud bank.

Time for Sloppy Joes so we wandered along the touron filled streets along zillions of specialty shops and taverns blaring live music. It reminded us of Bourbon Street in New Orleans, lots of fun. This S.J. tavern is where Ernest Hemingway hung out frequently, and the walls are covered with pictures of him with famous people and hunting buddies. He was quite a guy, no doubt. And, the Sloppy Joes were delicious of course.

Then came the long, leisurely drive back to Crown Point at Key Largo for brandy on the balcony, enjoying the perfect weather. One of the few cloudless days we have encountered. I can't express enough our appreciation for the fact Mike did all the driving. I'm at the point in my life where I am mentally prepared to be "taken care" of by my kids, physically and mentally.

Oh yes, I would be remiss in not telling this story on the son. As we drove into the large condo complex, of five buildings, a very tired of driving Mike pulled up and told us to go on up to the room as he had something or other to do. Two tired, happy Seniors waddled over to the elevator and pushed the button for floor three. Unfortunately, the keys do not have the room number stamped on them, but I remembered our four digit room numbered ended in "04" Waddled down the hallway to the room, put in the key and it wouldn't work! Then I noticed the room number was 4304. I was on the wrong floor. An increasingly grumpy wife waddled back to the elevator, thinking I had apparently pushed "4" in error, and went one floor higher, because I thought our room number started with a "5" for condo unit #5. Waddled down the long hallway to the 04 room, and it still said 04. Then it dawned on me, Mike had pulled into condo unit #4 instead of #5! Back to the elevator just as he came out, and Mavis was ready to kill him. That was a "gotcha!" sonny.

Tuesday - 11/4 - Oke, big time plans change - poor Julio - Our plan to sit on the beach a couple hours got scrubbed by a low-cloud, breezy morning, Ratz! Plus the fact Mike found that a retro-fit part had come in that required several hours of installation, so he suggested coming back down to Miami Thursday or Monday, and we could spend several hours with The Cuban while he worked. Good 'ole Julio, he is always agreeable to anything, so we scratched lunch plans and headed northward on the freeway that follows the coastline, and stopped briefly at a clinic that has a portable nuclear medicine unit, and installed a switch.

One thing Mike wanted to do on the way home was stop in Ft. Pierce and go through a local museum that has displays of shipwreck mementos. There have been hundreds of shipwrecks over the years around the Keys due to the numerous little islands and shoals, coupled with major storms, and plundering shipwrecks was a way of life for a good many people, so that sounded interesting. Whee, only five bucks for Seniors to enter. It turned out to be far more than just shipwreck stuff, but lots of information of the many Indian tribes and their way of life. Like Indians everywhere, they fought the white man running them off their land, and succumbed to the white men's diseases, some tribes being totally wiped out. The displays were very well presented and extensive.

The last item of interest was an original house owned by a local resident, nicely furnished with items from the early 1900's. An old lady docent showed us around the house, with three other young people present, and found many of the items I had used, or we had as antiques, or I remembered my folks using. At the very end, standing on the porch visiting with the tired lady, on her last tour of the day, she wanted to know where we were from, and when she found out we were from Washington, she exclaimed how beautiful it was there, continued to gush about it, and wondered why the heck we were in Florida. We told her we came to visit our Son and family, and she looked at him sternly and said something to the effect, you mean you came FROM the Northwest TO hot, humid Florida? On purpose? She couldn't believe it. He got us out of there quite quickly, muttering to himself.

Arrived in the Orlando area about rush hour and found there was more traffic around than I previously thought. What a great adventure, albeit a little long, for his trusty GPS unit told us we had driven over 750 miles! No wonder Mike was bushed, but seemed to thoroughly enjoy his time with Mommy and Daddy.