What we did in Key West

Saturday 23rd January 2010

Our one and only full day in Key West was spent sightseeing. Firstly, Hemmingway’s House, the one he lived in with his third wife, Pauline, who was a ‘Fashion writer’. I felt that the guide who showed us around didn’t care too much for Pauline. It would appear that she changed many of the original features such as taking out the ceiling fans and replacing them with chandeliers and when Hemmingway was away for 10 months covering the Spanish Civil War she had a very large swimming pool installed in the garden, at a cost of some $20 thousand, it was the first private pool on the island. On his return, Hemmingway threw a coin at her and said that as she might as well have his last red cent which she duly pressed into the wet cement on the patio in front of the pool, where it remains to this day (although it is now covered in clear resin).

The house, however, is very beautiful but not overly large. The main rooms all have French doors leading out onto wide verandas, both ground and first floor. His study, or writing room, is in a separate building at the back of the house and can only be reached via a steep, narrow staircase and the gardens are shaded by tall, exotic plants. It is a house that I would have felt very comfortable living in.

We also climbed the first light house to be built on the island which offered excellent views; we then visited the attached museum which was originally the keepers’ cottage. There are various bits and pieces of memorabilia dotted around with lots of photos and even a video film; but there are points around the building with a recorded history told by, and from the point of view of, the wife of the first ever keeper, and when he died, she became the first female keeper in her own right. Although deep in Confederate country, the lighthouse remained a ‘Unionist’ property during the civil war and was continually worked by members of the same family for the whole of its ‘manned’ useful lifetime.



We took each others photo at the most southerly point of the United States and we spent the rest of the daylight hours walking around looking at some of the architecture and other buildings of note finishing with the Curry Mansion; so named because it was built by someone called Curry! This house is now a hotel but for those of us who cannot afford, or are not prepared to pay, such inflated prices; for a small charge of $5 each we could take a self guided tour of the resplendent interior from the kitchen to the ‘widow’s walk’ on the roof. The widow’s walk is an area of about 2 by just under 1 yard on the highest point of the roof where women went to look for the returning ship of their husband. The house is now owed by Edith Amsterdam and her husband. Edith was given some award for her charity work.


As sunset neared we made our way down to the wharf at Mallory Square where the crowds gather and the street entertainers abound. Purchasing a couple of beers along the way, we found our perch and enjoyed the hustle and bustle of ‘sunset watch’ far more than the sunset itself which was certainly not one of the best we have seen. As quickly as they had gathered the crowd dispersed as soon as that burning ball had disappeared and we wondered how much money people had paid to go out on the boat trips to watch this disappointing end to a very hot, and otherwise, beautiful day.

We wandered around the square briefly watching some of the street entertainers or looking at the merchandise on offer on the stalls whilst appreciating the aromas of the various eating houses.



Another of the stories we had heard whilst visiting the Hemmingway house involved his favourite watering hole; Sloppy Joes. Legend has it that the owner of this establishment on Duval Street was told that his rent was being increased to $1 a week, a piece of news that did not please him, so he offered one free drink to any patron who would pick up one piece of furniture and carry it to the new venue – and thus it was that Sloppy Joes relocated. The original establishment is still a bar and is called Captain Tony’s and we felt we wanted to join the hack in a jar and have a beer in both establishments. Sadly the draught beer, offered in 12 or 22 oz measures at Captain Tony’s, is served in plastic glasses but the atmosphere was fun with a somewhat tiddily solo artist strumming and singing old favourites and the ceiling beams decorated with signed and dated currency; and bras.

Moving on to Sloppy Joes, where the beer comes in only one size, the plastic is more solid and has the name and motif of the bar printed on the ‘glass’. This place if considerably larger than Captain Tony’s and had a live band on the stage who were taking some old familiar tracks and making them their very own with some very colourful language. There were about 4 (that I could see) small bars dotted around, each with one bar tender; finding two stalls at the bar nearest the door, we got talking to some Americans, a guy on his own who had popped down from Palm Beach where he was organising some seminar (or something) and had some time on his hands (although he actually lived in Texas – and he was going to be 50 this year) and a retired couple from South Carolina trying to escape the unusually cold weather. The guy on his own, Mike, was really friendly and introduced us to the Sloppy Rita (Margarita) and the ‘Sloppy Joe’ – a burger bun with, what was essentially, a very tomato ketchup(ery) bolognas sauce – and actually very tasty after a few beers.

The next day, our last in Key West, we carried our world on our backs the two plus blocks back to the car and then went and visited our first and only American coin operated laundry. We had noticed at the villa in Orlando that the washing machine only managed a warm wash on the hot setting, a barely luke-warm wash on the warm setting and it also had a cold setting, but the entire process of washing, rinsing and spinning only took 15 mins; this laundry was the same, costing a mere $2 per machine. Luckily, our stuff is rarely very dirty, just a little – aromatic!

Our last day we carried our world on our backs the two plus blocks back to the car and then went and visited our first and only American coin operated laundry. We had noticed at the villa in Orlando that the washing machine only managed a warm wash on the hot setting, a barely luke-warm wash on the warm setting and it also had a cold setting, but the entire process of washing, rinsing and spinning only took 15 mins; this laundry was the same, costing a mere $2 per machine. Luckily, our stuff is rarely very dirty, just a little – aromatic!

We spent the next few hours at the Zachery Taylor National Park which houses the Zachery Taylor Fort, a fort that saw active service in 4 major wars; the American Civil, which surprisingly also managed to remain in Union hands, the Spanish/Cuban war, WW1 and the WW2. Now being renovated after falling to pieces, it still managed to convey the horrors of war with some cannons still in place and information about how these weapons were loaded etc. The latrines were still there! A row of 10 wooden lids atop a brick built cavity which were, apparently, flushed out twice a day with the tide. I’ll bet it was not the best part of the barracks!

Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was the 12th President but died after being office for just sixteen months. Initially uninterested in politics, ‘Southerner’ Taylor had a forty year military career in the United States Army before becoming the first President never to have held any previous elected office.

We took a walk along the beach to find somewhere to stop for lunch before our 150+ drive back to Miami’s South Beach. It took us five hours to get to the hotel we had booked for the two nights we had left in sunny Florida. Again, on arrival there was no where to park and no free parking at all so we decided to completely empty the car and take it back – it was due back by noon the next day anyway.

Paul, very foolishly, decided to attempt my idea of the best way to get to the Alamo drop off point, about five miles from Miami International Airport. The road map made it look very easy, sadly it was not and we should have gone the way suggested but we got there – eventually! And thus we said goodbye to our trusty and very pretty Corolla.

The car hire includes a courtesy bus to/from the airport so as there was no other way to get back to SoBe (local slang for South Beach) other than a very expensive taxi we decided to take advantage of this service presuming that there would be a frequent bus between the terminal and the city. The bus we found to take us to the airport was being driven by a very buxom black female with a heart to match her size. After enquiring where we were from and then welcoming us to her city, we explained are situation. She then, very kindly, proceeded to tell us the bus number we needed explaining that it might not take us as far as we needed to go because it was so late, however, she did tell us where to ask for and what number bus we should then pick up. She even told us how much it would cost us.

We still had a bit of a walk on alighting from the second bus and, thankfully, the driver on this second bus was just as helpful with his directions. This was the only time we were near any shops and even this late at night, for we didn’t get back to our hotel much before midnight, they were all lit up and open for business. We even saw our one and only, very obviously, hooker, made up to the nines but with very few clothes even though it was really quiet chilly.

We collapsed onto the bed of our very dingy hotel room and fell into a long and exhausted sleep.