The Southernmost Part of the U.S.A.

About ten years ago, I read a biography about my favorite author, Ernest Hemingway, which detailed his life in Key West, FL. Since finishing that book, I have been wanting to make the pilgrimage to his house to see where the author lived and wrote one of my favorite books For Whom The Bell Tolls. We knew that it was going to be too short of a trip (we were only there for one night), but we were both ready to visit this island paradise that we had heard so much about from friends and travel shows.

We started driving on May 15th from Florida City (which is at the gateway to the Keys) around 8:30 AM and kept the convertible top up while the weather was still a bit on the cool side. Our first stop in the Keys was 30 miles away in Key Largo to see the original boat from the Hepburn/Bogart classic African Queen (one of my favorites). Funny quote from Chris "What movie is this from?" Not super exciting, but it gave us a chance to put the top down. Chris kept teasing me that there were crocodiles (one of my least favorite things in the world) waiting in the waters for me--not really funny.

We made it over to Key West in about 3 hours, just in time to eat lunch at the Cuban restaurant, El Siboney, that is hidden in the corner of a residental area. Chris had fried pork cubes, while I stuck with my seafood theme for the trip and ate freshly caught grouper. Our restaurant picks in Key West came from the website http://www.roadfood.com/ and we were very pleased with all three meals. Dinner and breakfast were especially great. Our dinner was at the Victorian House turned into restaurant, Louis' Backyard, where we had a wonderful view of the water and enjoyed a magnificent meal. I was especially excited that the restaurant had shrimp and grits (I am big fan of grits) and made up my mind of what I was having as soon as I noticed the picture on roadfood of the dish. I was not disappointed in my plate and even had to smack Chris' fork away a couple of times, while devouring the shrimp, grits and sauteed veggies in my bowl. This is our view from our table that night. Our wonderful meals in Key West was finished off by breakfast at Blue Heaven http://blueheavenkw.homestead.com/Blue_Heaven_Restaurant_Key_West.html. This is a quirky restaurant with an outdoor eating area with random chickens & roosters running around and kitties taking siestas. Ernest Hemingway also boxed and had cock fights at this location. We had to wait awhile for a table, but it gave us time to look around the grounds where people were selling their artwork, a lady was singing some folk songs and people were starting to drink at the bar (Key West is serious about their drinking!). Ever since New Hampshire Street Bistro closed down in Lawrence, both of us haven't been able to cure our Eggs Benedict cravings. So we each ordered one (a regular one for me and a lobster one for Chris). Marvelous! Both were perfect and Chris' spiny FL lobster was sweet, tender and unbelievable. They didn't call the restaurant Blue Heaven for nothing!

As for the non-food side of our trip, we were able to do a lot in our short time on the island. Key West is small and compact. If you have a car there, it's really easy to get to all the attractions in a short amount of time. Since we weren't hanging out at the beach (we were waiting for the Carribean part of the trip for that), we did everything that we had planned on doing. My only "to-do" was to visit the Hemingway House, which was well worth it for the historical aspect, the friendly, lazy kitties and beautiful garden. This picture is pretty typical of the Hemingway Cats: lazy, lazy, lazy. Other things that we did were the Key West Lighthouse (88 steps to a great view of the island), Fort Taylor (which was actually used in the Cuban Missile Crisis in Oct 1962), shop & walk down Duval Street, the Southernmost Point of the U.S.A. Marker (which my geography nerd told me really isn't the southernmost point) and a drink at Sloppy Joe's.

All in all, Key West was very relaxing, laid back and a perfect place to get away from everything. We'll be sure to visit again!