Butterflies and Old Town Tour


Advertisement
United States' flag
North America » United States » Florida » Keys » Key West
April 13th 2017
Published: April 13th 2017
Edit Blog Post

IMG_5219IMG_5219IMG_5219

Intense Blue on the Inside
Old Town, Key West, Florida

I'm normally very good about directions and can retrace my steps easily and quickly. I also don't tend to forget things. But yesterday morning was a bit challenging and, although we joked about it all day, I must admit I am wondering if all this traveling is mixing my mind up. Or maybe I'm just getting old and can't rely on old habits as much.

You see, yesterday I forgot both my phone and my car. My head? Well, its still attached, but... Here's the story:

We had taken the bus into Key West Tuesday, mostly because we didn't want to have to park the car (it isn't cheap), and because we were pretty much headed to just one spot - Duval Street and Mallory Square. But yesterday, our destinations were less certain and we were considering a tram or trolley tour of the old town area. So, we thought, the car would give us a fixed spot to center on and some flexibility in moving around. After a late breakfast we headed into town, found the public parking garage at Grinnell and Caroline, paid the $15 for five hours, and headed out
IMG_5223IMG_5223IMG_5223

Yeah, Another One
to locate the trolley tour. We had a pamphlet describing the ticket office location and we thought we had seen it the day before.

But there just aren't any visible landmarks in Key West. There are a couple of buildings, hotels and condos, that look about six stories, but you can't see them when you are walking the streets. And there certainly aren't any mountains around to orient yourself to - not like at home, or at most places we have been to. You might think that looking for boats would help, since you know they are at the shoreline, but when on an island, you have shorelines all around you - the appearance of boats don't tell you a thing about which direction you are headed. The streets are all natural names, and are not arranged alphabetically, so even if you find a street sign, which don't exist on most intersections, you still don't know squat about where you are (unless the street is 'Duval' or 'Greene'). Surprisingly, the sun was of little use to me. I can do a fair job of determining cardinal directions by looking at the sun and the shadows it casts. But if,
IMG_5229IMG_5229IMG_5229

Yet Another
as happens the further south you go, the sun is pretty much overhead, then that trick doesn't work so well either.

Well, you say, why not just use the GPS on your phone. Indeed! Well, that was the problem - I had forgotten it. We had left the parking garage and, with help from a friendly resident, headed in the right direction. But a couple of blocks later, I wasn't certain which way was correct. And, in my haste to get the parking permit onto the dashboard, I had left my phone in the car, attached to the charging port. Realizing I needed the phone to take pictures, I said I'd go back to the car and get it - we were just a few blocks away, right? So, leaving Joan on a street corner to marvel at the sights, I bounded round the corner and headed back to the garage.

And promptly got lost. I went up and down two streets that looked familiar and then realized that I was back on the same corner that I had been on just a few minutes earlier. With no phone and no map, I had no idea where I
IMG_5235IMG_5235IMG_5235

One of Joan's Pink Flamingos
was, nor where my rather valuable automobile was parked. Sheepishly I decided to return to Joan, which I was pretty sure I could do. I rounded a corner and there she was, a bit angry, asking where the hell I had been. I confessed that I didn't have my phone and that I had lost our car. Joan had a map and, after looking at it, I had a pretty good idea where to go, but we decided I had wasted enough time already, and that Joan could take all the pictures - so we moved on to try and locate the trolley tour place.

It doesn't help that there are at least three of these tour companies operating in Key West. One of them is easy to spot because they call it the Conch Train and it looks rather ridiculous. The other two use conventional buses that look like trolley cars - we had decided on one of them. But it took some time to track them down and find the ticket office.

Once on the tour, we learned some valuable stuff about Old Town - history, geography, famous people (like Hemingway). The highest spot in Key
IMG_5237IMG_5237IMG_5237

The Other One
West is just 18 feet above sea level and they moved the cemetery to that spot decades ago after a storm surge managed to flood the city with corpses from the old one. The southernmost point in the continental US is right there in town and there was a line with dozens of people just to take pictures at that marker. Hemingway liked to drink at a place called Sloppy Joe's. And, speaking of bars, there are 360 of them in Key West, a quarter of them on the 1.6 mile long Duval Street. There's even a building that has three bars in it, one on each floor. The third floor bar is a clothing-optional place called The Garden of Eden! The lowest recorded temperature at Key West is just 41 degrees, making it the only city in the continental US that has never frozen. And, because of the ocean breezes, the highest recorded temperature is just 97 - gets hotter at home, and much colder.

So we picked up lots of useless facts on our tour and saw lots of old buildings and homes. Key West is an interesting town. The trolley allows you to get off on
IMG_5247IMG_5247IMG_5247

8 inch wing span. Might be a moth.
any of their 8 stops and then pick up a later one. Joan had wanted to see the Butterfly Conservancy which is down in the southern part of Duval Street. So we got off there and went in to see an amazing collection of beautiful butterflies. I really enjoyed a variety that, when the wings were closed, were sort of a dull grey green, but when flying revealed a very intense blue color. It was sort of surreal to have these creatures fluttering around your arms and face. Joan fell for a pair of pink flamingos, who were also there. After the butterflies, we found a great place to eat, reasonably priced and oriented more to the locals (Camilia's) Had a good lunch and got back on the trolley.

We disembarked the tour near where we thought the parking garage was. And, with the help of a map this time, I located the structure. Interestingly, it was only half a block from where I had left Joan earlier that morning, but in a direction I did not go. And my phone was still in the charger. Another day in paradise over.

Here it is Thursday morning and it
IMG_5250IMG_5250IMG_5250

Tropical Birds Too
is raining cats and dogs. We are planning on leaving Key West today, but I am not going to enjoy hitching up and driving in this rain! (17.1.36)


Additional photos below
Photos: 8, Displayed: 8


Advertisement

IMG_5256IMG_5256
IMG_5256

About Ready to Head Home


Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.036s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1mb