An Adventure in Key Weird
Day 1
Well I made it thru the check in, my first travel on E-ticket (I make my living with much help from a computer but when it comes to my vacation I have some reservations on whom to trust) Delta’s self serve screens–you put in a credit card and zap it ID’s you and brings up you schedule.
As I walk from the curious isolation of Delta’s gate 60–a conglomerate of mall destinations on planes of equally small size: Serving such areas as West Palm Beach, Tallahassee and of course Key West.
Down the long walk. I reflect on the fact that Susi should be here and think about the comments we would be making and the places I’d be insisting we had to see in the short four days we had.
Flying south to Key West–tiny boats just dots on dark lake whose border are more swamp than shore. Short of Louisiana and coastal areas can there be any place so water filled as Florida. Large lakes wandering about in contortion of darkness, smaller lakes and the ever present retention ponds are everywhere some with connections—like cords to larger bodies of water, some alone. Some surrounded by the flat grasslands, some but fewer with stands of trees, many more surrounded by growing groups of houses that consume Florida’s open space by hundreds of acres or more each month.
As we continue on toward the end of the state the developments give way to sparser buildings and home..there are even fields with furrows, cleared for growing..and larger sections of green and an increasing number of trees and even a stream maybe big enough to be a river which has thing arms of water flowing from it.
Rivers here aren’t what I’m use to up north. I was born about 20 miles from the Ohio. The farm house I was born in had a stream (they called it a creek—or a run (in this case Wolf Run) that ran along the road that fronted the house just a some feet from the front door and the creek bordering the side of the road which was and still is to this day dirt. Though a small stream it was a establish water way and had banks that denoted where it ran—unlike the more mushy streams one sees in Florida. The water seep out here and there forming pools, boggy areas or down right expansions loo swamps. From the air they look like hairy caterpillars contorting about—like a huge scary insects going thru a maze.
The rivers below also form lakes, large recreational areas where boater grumble and often kill the slow moving manatees that are often found in Florida’s water—complaining that their pleasure of speed is more important to the slow, odd but to me so sweet, creatures that only ask to live and hurt nothing or no one. I mean if they they could grow thumbs, develop larger boats and the like, would they mow we humans down while our children looks on.
I can see the Gulf Coast now–the whole curve of it with its high rise hotels cluttered along its barrier islands like teeth on the bottom of an open mouth of a huge amphibian.
Beyond it just blue water–a bright haze and all accented by small fluffy clouds which also form dark spots on the ground or sea below. We also see the of towns. And now the glades. Rivers of grass with water like scars on a pock marked face. And it’s off flow lazily reaching out perhaps to join the restless waters of the Gulf.
The last city—must be Naples–compact, neat home to millionaires I have been told.
We are over the water now–only one tiny white boat pacing ahead—nothing but sea with only clouds to block the view. of ripples on the water. 70 miles out of Key West and descending to it in 15 minutes. Its a beautiful day, 81 in Key West with a breeze.
This certainly beats driving. Mike made it in 6 hours (new land speed record for him) Wed, but that ‘s still 5 more hours than de plane, de plane.
We had a drink and pretzels on the plane. We’re not full and the stewardess is off for the rest of the day—so happily am I. Nothing much to see as we’re straight over water, our descent heading into the Key West Airport—Opps there goes the ears.
The planes shadow on the water–it resemble a sea monster–something lurking below the depths of the clear water of the back country. Here it is clear enough to see the foliage under the surface. Also here and there you can see small waves splashing against the shallows that are scattered about. I really need this vacation—to relax for a few days.
Now the mangrove trees growing along and even in the shallows of the Gulf. and now that channels that snake into the small scattered islands of the Florida Keys. The water a darker, deeper green now.. And the boats everywhere from pleasure to working boats—-from fishing boats to tour vessels and so many in between.
Touch down—more later.
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Duval Street
The main artery of tourism is Duval–it pluses with the blood of currency, how Duval Street goes, so goes the economy of Key West.
On Duval Street sets two areas of historical importance slated soon to be changed. First is the Strand, a theater building which most recently was Ripley’s Believe it or Not”. Now it bears a sign “Coming soon Walgreens.”
The other is the Quay–the Quay once a small Key based chain of restaurants which have now all disappeared–though the sign is still prominent on the turquoise painted building.
But first maybe I should tell you of Duval over all.
It starts with its head resting near the Gulf of Mexico. Here are two upscale hotels, one on each side of the street. One has a large deck where they sell food and drinks and which is very popular during Sunset.
After this comes the long Quay building. When sailors frequented the area from wreckers and the like in the 1800’s this was a red light district, now all of that which is left is just an aging building which is soon to become an Eckerts (to match the Walgreens down the street)
Across Front Street (which during heavy rains and particularly high tided, resembles a river more than a road.) on the right is a fantastic brick building—it is old with a tower and alternating colored brick design that makes it a fantastic rarity of design even in Key West. The building is a bank. If you ever saw the old Billy Crystal and Gregory Hynes movie “Running Scared” .
They applied for a loan here and then roller skate out along Front with a view of the building..
Now you’re into Duval proper–whick is made up of a mass of trashy t-shirt shops, cameras, electronics and the like that take most of the space in the next few blocks. If you come to Key West seeking perfection, you will be disappointed. Duval has all the class of most of the world’s beach towns…..but then I come to Key West for fun not fancy. And while it has all the fine finesse of a midway—–that’s what I think a lot of us come for: the trashy ambiance is so much a part of the city, that to loose it would be to loose some essential part of Key West.
What is happening to Key West now though is that the tacky atmosphere (like one of my fav Freddie’s above) reveled in is becoming the conventional and classy—-Of becoming more a mall than an adventure. With the individual funky little shops giving way to corporate giants with shops like every other shops across America or even the world.
But there are still shops to tempt and tantalize though they are loosing their place among the t-shirts, and corporate entries.
I keep belaboring the t-shirt shops and this has been a major issue in Key West for years. Laws have been passed to prevent a new t-shirt shop being opened next to any existing shop–the thought of nothing but tee shirts from sea to sea seeming too much to bare.
There are other issues. T-shops are owned by many types of people and not all are honorable or locally owned.
Shops have been known to greatly over charge (hundreds of dollars for just a few shirts). This is particularly true of the custom made shirts. The basic shirt is available at a very low rate, but the transfers cost more than a painting by a reputable artists. This is done to many tourists, usually i charged on a credit card and tourists with little or no English seem to be even more likely to be duped . Multiple city standards have dealt with posting costs etc, but the papers still post monthly complaints about the rip offs.
We have long had a subscription to the Key West news paper and so we have seen these shops involved in many other weird schemes over the years including money laundering and my favorite, a clerk who married a non-citizen visitor so that he could remain in the country. I wander if they over charged for that too?
Along this end of the street you’ll find the Bagatelle…a trendy restaurant residing on a porch and some rooms inside. Sitting on the porch is my favorite. Duval provides a great dinner show.
On your right across from the restaurant is the bank’s parking lot and thru the parking lot is the Hog’s Breath–a small, yet famous bar whose name came from the founder’s grandmother who use to say “Bad Breath is better than no breath at all”. This some how changed to Hog’s Breath (whom one would expect it to be a given that they would have bad breath). They serve food and drinks in an odd shaped building with the bar proper in a sheltered court yard area. Their t-shirt shop (this is not one of the evil shops and quite safe to buy things from–which I have several times since their shirts are always on my friend’s request lists) next door (on Front rather than Duval) is larger than the bar area.
As we continue on we dodge crows and religious groups with sales areas right on the sidewalks—who are allowed to sell tee shirts on Duval, while others aren’t because they are protected by freedom of religion—and that’s the truth I was told I didn’t make it up.
At the corner of Greene and Duval things get interesting.
OH By The way my accounts of Key West take place some time in the 90’s I flew down alone and eventually met my husband who’d been on a charter fishing with his buds……I spent my vacations in the Keys and we were generally accepted as being what the staff at the Green Parrot–a local’s bar called “Temporary Locals” We fitted in there and had had serious talks about eventually moving there when we were ready to retire….but any way.
Please come back next Tuesday July 7th or 8th and I’ll appraise you of more Key West info —some of which might really interest you.
