Tuesday July 12, 2011

Well this day I had a plan, but I mainly improvised. I started out seeing Hemingway's house. He only really had the house when he was married to his first wife, but wrote many of his famous stories there. The house was kept up but very little of the furniture was the same as when he was there. There were a lot of cats, descended from one of the cats he owned. The house had a lot of pictures based on the story "The Old Man and the Sea". It turns out the fisherman was based on someone that Hemingway knew. The gardens were pretty nice too, including a very nice pool and an odd water fountain.

Next, I found the Audubon house. The house has only a rather indirect relation to the artist. He only lived in the Florida area for a short time. When he was in Key West he stayed at the house next to the one now called the Audubon House. He did ask the owner to cut some leaves and draw them as background for some of his pieces. In all somewhere between 19 and 23 birds from the keys were illustrated by Audubon. The house has many of these prints in the house. Other rooms of the house show the arrangement for the owner (a wealthy sea captain). Again the gardens were nice as well, especially given the limited size of the property.

Next I went to Mel's Shipwreck Museum (or something like that). This was established by someone who discovered one of the largest wrecks in the Keys. It took about a decade to find and another decade to get clear title. The museum partly told the story of the ship that was found and also how it was discovered. There were other displays about ships of the era (1600s) and even some things about pirates (there really was a pirate code, although not much observed).

One odd thing I noticed was there was investment office at the back of the gift shop for future expeditions. Most of the gift shop was also taken up by space to sell coins from various shipwrecks - not your usual museum gift shop.

After lunch I decided to go to the Aquarium. Here again were a series of pools with different fish in them. No dolphins this time, but lots of rays, turtles and nurse sharks. There were smaller tanks along the side with various smaller fish of the area. One of the large pools had a mixture of fish, including a huge grouper, and sharks. Gulls kept dropping in trying to grab the food that was being tossed to the fish.

I tried to find the square where it was recommended to view the sunset (for later) but I wasn't able to find it. I did find an odd commemorative square for the wreckers who had given Key West its start.

I headed back to the hotel to change and rest. I also took a walk with Mike's Pants to take a few photos. It was turning out that the material was a bit too flexible to really work well for long periods of time. The tape starts to come off almost immediately. Heat doesn't help. Although I had some good pictures, I need to rework the model a bit.

After some rest I went out for dinner. I went to a place recommended by my guide book. It was also very good. I headed for the square again and found it. I took some sunset pictures although I was a bit late. It was dark by the time I got to the hotel.