Key West

        There is a shuttlebus from Marathon to Key West that costs seniors a dollar to ride each way.  It’s small and stuffy, and makes many, many stops, but you can’t beat the price.  We got up before dawn on Wednesday (Dec 27) to stand at the bus stop in front of Marathon’s Coast Guard station to catch the 0728 shuttle.  We watched a colorful parade of people get on an off along the 48 mile ride, and got to Key West about 0930.  

We’d been there once before, many, many years ago, and had dim recollections of a touristy wharf, palm trees and white fences and porch rails.  We walked the same waterfront, saw the Schooner Appledore which summers in Camden, and then made our way to the Conch Trolley and Train for tickets to get the hop-on/hop-off narrated historical tour.

There’s a lot of history in Key West, going back to the 1500s when Ponce de Leon came looking for that mythical fountain.  The area was known for pirates and wreckers (people who made a good living salvaging wrecked boats on the surrounding reefs - sometimes even luring them onto the reefs with beach fires meant to represent the lighthouse) and sponge divers.  President Truman held sixteen working vacations on this island.  Ernest Hemingway wrote most his novels here.  The southernmost point of the Continental US is proudly marked by a buoy and tourists literally line up for hours waiting to take a selfie with it.  US Rte 1, which runs from Fort Kent, Maine and all along Maine’s coast as well as the full Eastern seaboard, ends here in Key West. 

We took the tour of Hemingway’s place.  He was fond of polydactyl cats, and currently there are 61 cats in residence, free to roam the one-acre estate.  The place is well maintained - consisting of a small house, a small former barn which Hemingway remodeled into his writing studio, an in ground swimming pool, and a beautifully landscaped yard that is now rented out as an event center for weddings and parties.  The whole estate is enclosed by a wobbly-looking ‘privacy’ wall made of reclaimed bricks from Baltimore.  

Hemingway's writing cottage.

Hemingway's bed, complete with cat.

We had lunch in Key West, walked around some more, and took the shuttle back to Marathon, capping the day with dinner and key lime pie at the 7 Mile Grille.  We’d been told it was the best key lime pie in the Keys.  We haven’t eaten enough key lime pie yet to agree.