History Lessons

Key West is not a big island. It's 1 1/2 miles wide and about 4 1/2 miles long. It used to be smaller. Until about 1940, the island was 1.5 X 2.5 sq miles. They expanded it when they dredged to allow better passage to the Panama Canal. We have easily walked every inch of the original island. Today's wanderings took us purposely down narrow residential streets and laneways to give us a chance to see more of the 'real' Key West.

Not all of today was quiet and calm. I thought it would be a great idea to pay the tourist bucks and do the tour on the Conch train (conk with a k, not conch with a ch). The company was very disorganized, and what should have been an easy thing (buy your ticket, get on board), was more of an ordeal. But once we were (FINALLY) aboard, we learned some new stuff about the island. Like:
• that great restaurant called Kelly's from our first night is owned by Kelly McGillis of Top Gun fame
• I knew that Ponce de Leon discovered Florida when he was looking for the fountain of youth (there are jokes in there somewhere). What I didn't know is that he didn't hit the mainland, which is what I thought - he actually hit a smaller key off Key West
• Robert Frost the poet spent time down here
• Jimmy Buffet's original Margaritaville bar is here - he financed it here too
• The last big hurricane to hit Key West was in the late 1800s. A nun built a grotto to ask God for protection from hurricanes thereafter, and you know what - Key West hasn't been hit by a major hurricane since
• the only fresh water on the island was collected rain water until the navy built a pipeline in the 1940s
• in the mid 1970s, once the military closed the base, the island went essentially bankrupt. Properties on Duval street could be bought for $1 on the condition that the property was refurbished in time for bicentennial celebrations in 1976

Today's eating wasn't noteworthy, except for the tiramisu at dinner which was honestly the best we've tasted since Alla Rampa in Rome. The beach was just as nice today as it was yesterday, though we were there in the late afternoon, so it was busier (and more the temperature of bath water).

Tomorrow is our last day in Key West before we return to the mainland. On the list of things to do is a tour of Fort Zachary Taylor, lunch back at Blue Heaven, key lime pie on a stick (they treat it like ice cream and dunk it in dark chocolate before freezing it), a Hurricane at Speakeasy rum bar. Dinner for our last night is still under negotiation, but it needs to be in one of the lovely outdoor terrace gardens that are everywhere, and it should include Key West pinks, which are the loveliest, sweetest shrimp you've ever tasted.