We got up early this morning and headed down to Islamorada for a dive. It was a successful trip, seeing moray eels, nurse sharks, and some lionfish.
Then off for the drive to Key West. It’s amazing how much concrete had to be brought in to build the 98 miles of bridge and highway between Key Largo and Key West. The project management must have been mind boggling. And along the way there are many sections of the old Flagler Railroad bridge that had been abandoned as well. Driving along, I wondered what these low-lying keys look like during tropical storms and hurricanes.
In Key West, we visited Zachary Taylor state park. At first look, the fort was a little disappointing. But then we read some of the markers. This fort was the perfect deterrent. It’s cannons could spit cannon balls 17 miles into the ocean. This was a Union-run fort staffed as deep into the Confederacy territory as geographically possible. And after the Civil War, the cannons were repurposed and used for the World Wars. The fort was very successful as a deterrent, with never a battle waged against it.
We visited the iconic southernmost point in continental US. and spent a couple hours exploring Key West.
There’s a beautiful tropical Basilica in Key West. It was started by a group of Catholic Sisters and is neotropically themed.
There’s yellow stained glass, large open doors the full length of the chapel which let a nice cooling breeze blow through, and also several lizards run through the chapel while we were there. The Basilica is in perfect harmony with the setting.
Later we came across the Hemingway house, but there were just 45 minutes til it closed. Since neither of us were big Hemingway fans we decided that 45 minutes might be sufficient. And it was. We learned a lot about him we didn’t know, and the house was beautiful. I suppose a fan might spend double that time there.
Descendants of Hemingway’s polydactyl cats are still on the property, and still polydactyl. He had a swimming pool dug into the island that was filled from beneath by salt water under the island. He lead an interesting life, with experiences in world war 1 and a constant search for adventure thereafter, much of which was supported by his wife’s benefactor. Later, he and his wife both managed to get on ships landing at Normandy on D-Day.
I was about to say more, but Hemingway said this. He was a skilled writer indeed if he got that message typed on that corona.
We visited a food truck for dinner, and started the long lazy drive back. But we were in no hurry.
All along the highway there are police cars parked as if staging speed traps. But no one is inside them. There wasn’t much need, as no one really speeds. The highway is small and really can’t go faster than the slowest car. And with all the octogenarians, that’s safely 5 mph under the speed limit. Or maybe as fast as a golf cart will go.
On to day 5…