Advertisement
Published: January 16th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Key Cop
This man was swimming in an area (at the end of Key
West) that clearly stated it wasn't allowed, and when the policewoman was telling him to get out, he pretended like he couldn't hear her. He was such an idiot, and kept arguing that he didn't understand why he couldn't swim (the signs didn't say anything about understanding) and was she sure he had to get out? I seriously thought she was going to take out her gun and shoot him! Of course by this time there's quite a crowd standing there watching him "not understand"! (Florida Bible Christian School)
Bob and I drove to Key West Saturday, to sights that were spectacular. It’s only 175 miles from here, but it’s a long, breathtakingly beautiful drive. The islands are connected by bridges, of course, but some of them are only wide enough for the bridge itself, and a strip of land on either side. Everywhere you look are these tiny islands…I’m looking out into the ocean, and there are islands! I can’t explain how strange it looked! It was like someone had drawn them in the ocean where they didn’t belong! (The Florida Keys are made up of 1700 tiny islands, made up of coral, although in some cases they’re made of sand…but not these key! They separate the Gulf from the Atlantic Ocean.) Some keys are practically touching, in fact sometimes we drove on a bridge that covered a swampy area, and looking back we’d see that we’d crossed three or four keys. The longest bridge was the Seven Mile Bridge, a pylon bridge. Many of the larger keys had tourist-type places lining the highway, and ALL of them had sea food restaurants or markets. Key West is the very end of the Keys,
Mile Marker 0
on Highway 1 and also the end of Highway 1. It’s a busy, closely packed tourist town~~think Red Lodge in the summer….surrounded by water! It was fun, with Caribbean flavor~~music, items for sale, accents, the whole thing. We walked around there quite a while. The whole trip took 12 hours, and we were out of the car for about 3 hours! We’re not going again! I wanted to stop at different keys going down, and Bob kept saying we needed to get down there, and then we’d consider stopping on the way back.. We didn’t! Key Largo is the first key off the mainland, Key West is the last, and it takes 3.5 hours to get from one to the other!
We didn’t see wildlife like I thought we would (alligators and such) but we saw a lot of signs telling us that Key Deer are endangered, and to drive carefully to avoid them. And signs telling us that “speed kills key deer’, which made me think they should start a rehab for them so they can get their little lives turned around!
People from Mt, ND and MN might want to skip this paragraph. Weather reporters down here are really
Are we tourists, or what??
Here we are at the southern most point of the contiguous US....the tip of Key West. (Yep, that's a key behind us!) bored this time of year~~I mean, how many different ways can you say it’s going to be in the 70s, with a light ocean breeze and oodles of sunshine? Well they got all excited this week, because there were some cold fronts coming into the state, and temperatures were predicted to drop to the low 50s (at night) and could plunge into the high 40s!! Finally, after about four days of warning us of this winter weather (their words!) they used the term “cold weather”. I was afraid someone from the northern states would hear those words~~and temperatures~~and kidnap some of the weathermen and show them what “cold weather” is! The serious part is that several cold fronts are moving in, and it could be “colder” until Monday. Alright, it was a bit chilly this morning, but it was 73 by noon. Bad winter here in Florida!
I didn’t mention last Friday’s tour, but it was certainly one we’ll never forget. We were scheduled to go to Billy’s Swamp, but some things came up and two of the couples couldn’t make it, so we decided to postpone that one for a week. After a LOT of discussion, we decided
A cactus and a poinsettia just
don't seem to go together! I mean, they look pretty, but aren't they two different seasons? to go to the Indian Village~~a historical venue not far from here…or so we thought. We had the address, two GPS gizmos, our picnic lunches, six of us in a pickup and we were off. An hour (and 32 miles) later, we still hadn’t found it. The address we were given just didn’t even exist. We had a laughingly good time trying to find it, but unsuccessful. We stopped at a flea market (about seven miles down our street!) instead, and after shopping we decided to bring our lunches home and eat on our pop-on-the-patio patio (it was before the big winter cold set in, and we couldn’t find a place in shade to have lunch!) We sat and visited until mid-afternoon! You can be sure we gave the tour committee a hard time about that one (we’re not on the tour committee this project!)
We went to a flea market Thursday afternoon, just to see where it was, and how big it was, and come to find out it's the biggest one we've ever seen (and we were at one that said they were the world's largest, so this must be a universe one!) It had pretty much
Just one of the choices.
If we went again, we'd spend the weekend, so we had time to experience more of the restaurants...the shops we were finished with, but we didn't have the time (or room) to eat all the places we thought were interesting. the same stuff...lots and lots of sunglasses, perfume, watches (by the millions) and shoes and shoes and shoes! It was so interesting…and cheap. It also had 14 drive-in move screens! You tune your car radio to an FM station to hear the audio for the screen you're watching! And then we got to the fresh fruits and veggies, and they had sugar cane for sale! We got to talking to a young Cuban man who was buying three pieces about 5' long, and he said you eat it; mostly just chew it and then when all the sweet is gone you spit out the rest. But you can also juice it, and he and another man standing there were nearly salivating as they told us how good the cane juice is! I asked how much he was going to pay for the pieces, and he said he didn't know, but he hoped about $6. He was waiting for the woman to peel it (with her machete) and cut it into chunks. He asked if we wanted to try the cane juice ("uice" is how he and the other guy kept pronouncing it) and then he told the woman to give
us some. She gave us about 1/2 a glass, and it was the color of the water that would run out of the bottom of an over-watered plant. I said "Yuck" and he laughed and told me to try it, that it doesn't taste like dirty water! It was good~~sweet, with kind of a weedy after taste, but we both only wanted a couple sips! The whole thing was very interesting, and it's just great when you get someone who will talk with you like they did. We also discussed green coconuts, as the woman was using another machete to cut the green away and reveal the small coconut, which she pierced and then poured out the juice, and sold to a man; he wanted a quart, and I’d say it took four or five to get a quart of juice from. If they're green, the coconut meat is soft, and is used like a jam, or else just spooned out and eaten. They sold the coconuts with a straw, and people would walk around with them, sipping on the juice. About a dollar apiece....some places $1.50. We didn't buy that or the sugar cane, although I think we will
See how there are no beaches?
We were under the impression that where water met land, there'd be a beach. Wrong. get a coconut when we go back.
School is closed Monday (not because of this cold front, but because of MLK Day.) We're going to do some painting in the school, and the men are going to replace light bulbs and ballasts in the classrooms. Next week is homecoming, and there’s a carnival on the ball field on Thursday, and then a parade on Friday. Big week!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.04s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0205s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
Becky Lynn
non-member comment
Trip to the keys
Glad you enjoyed your stay. I used to live in the keys and be glad you didn't see any key dear. The penalty for hitting one that jumps in the road in front of your car is worse than if you hit a person. Anyways the keys are beautiful. I was there for spring break thanks to a deal I found at http://www.vacationtrader.org that only cost $100 per night to stay in a timeshae. The only bad part about the trip was the ticket we got on the 7 mile bridge!