Key West: The famous & iconic Beach Fantasy location. Airport in the East. Most tourist sites are in the West; An Air Naval Base is just East of Key Haven on Boca Chica Key.
The Conch Republic at the Southern Most Point of US, However that may not be totally true because Ft Zachary at Whitehead Spit looks a little further South. I would call this buoy, Duval Street, Truman White House, and Hemingways’s house are the Key West average tourist center. Very busy here with alot of tourists. This was our first stop at about 3:55 PM.
Joe works at Seven Fish Restaurant at 921 TRUMAN AVE, KEY WEST, FL. Originally from New Brunswick, NJ. Very nice guy. We went to this restaurant on day 1. Quiet & unassuming restaurant away from the Duval St action. Has a very interesting menu. It was a hell of a walk from Duval Street. I walked > 20,000 steps that day. Too tired! Last stop of the day.
Hard Rock Cafe @ 313 Duval St, Key West. This is the the heart of Key West party culture on Duval Ave. Like previous vacations, I missed photos at some places. We did stop this day at Whistle Bar, stopped at Capt Tony’s(I have a shirt) I believe the next day & visited the Truman Annex, but no pictures! Did unfortunately miss Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square..
St Paul’s Episcopal church @ 401 Duval St, Key West. https://stpaulskeywest.org/about-us/our-history/. Established in 1831. I have no idea why this is significant other than perhaps the irony of the location in middle of partyland, or it’s one of the oldest buildings. It does have some prominent people history as well as architectual uniqueness. This was about 6:15 PM on Sunday.
Fantasy Fest is a multi day extravaganza including alot of dress up events & parties, some kinky. We visited only the public ones. We first encountered strange behavior of passengers on our direct flight to Key West culminating in the Ground Crew at the airport dressed in costumes, good ones. This photo was the Sunday costume parade down Duval with us on Angela Street. Pretty sedate by Fantasy Fest standards
I took 8 pictures of this parade in one minute. It was an eyefull. It also shows the affinity for bikes in the area. We rented at a bike shop near our room on 10/22/23. The young & very serious bikeshop mechanic set us up & then gave uus a warning. Be careful because everybody might look happy & alert while driving, but that does not mean they are not inebriated. Bike defensively. Assume nobody sees you.
There are alot of costume parades & parties for Fantasy Fest. This is a celebration that builds to Halloween. This parade is very popular for all ages. This event is offically sanctioned & suppoted by town of Key West, BTW. When we arrived at the Duval Inn, the Asian Hostess queried us about whether we knew what was happening that week? At that point, we were aware something was going on, but not really. The 2023 version was October 20-29. Don’t google it unless you want ane eyefull.
Thus began our bike day. We went to Fort Zachary Taylor and biked all around the western end of Key West. Obviously this had beautiful views & important historical strategic value now addressed by a Naval Air station 10 miles East. There are occasional Fighter Jet flyovers in Key West. The most memorable facts of the fort was that it was one of few forts in the South retained by the Federal Government during the Civil War, and the distance of the fort from the Sea was a product of tides changing the landscape.
Looking from fort, is a monstrous Cruise Ship leaving the Key West Dock area. BTW, we are looking at Gulf of Mexico which meets the Atlantic just south of this view. We were down at the dock area in town later and observed passengers re-boarding & amazing some made it back to the boat. Let’s also put to rest the impression that Key West is a beach paradise. It’s not. We later that day went to the main “beach” and it was rocky, uncomfortable, and sparsley visited. There was a nice tropical park behind it, but also sparsely visited.
Carol’s standard proactive contribution to organizing our trips was picking one expensive standout restaurant where she paid. At Key West, it was Sunset Key Restaurant. This restaurant required a boat trip to/from Key West to an island. This island also had residences so the large Boat scheduled hourly transported both residents & diners.
This must’ve been when we arrived based on the location of the sun. This was the path between the restaurant and the dock. As you can tell it was very striking. As this was a Monday night Sunset Key was not very crowded. Must be crazy on the weekend. The path brought us to a bar & waiting area. We did not have to wait long and barely finnished our drink.
This restaurant was obviously very beautiful & swanky. I cannot remember what I ate unfortunately: Certainly fish. The restaurant has a great menu. The only encounter I recall was a young bartender snootily asking me what type of beer I liked. I named every beer type I knew. The bar was nearly empty & we were brought to dinner quickly.
This view is from the Southern most Point looking West towards the Truman Annex which is not in the picture. There is some high tech gear there. This perspective also is in the genral direction of the Fort & “beach” which we visited on the 22nd. Not a great picture, but covers an area not otherwise photographed.
This is the Hemingway Home & Museum at 907 Whiterhead St. This particular perspective of his desk whick cannot be seen unless you look at “View Full Size”. From museum documenation, this seems like where he worked although it seems odd that he would work in his living room next to his comfy chair which is in the next picture.
Hemingway House continued. Picture taken from same location with different persepctive. This includes his comfy chair with another typewriter behind it. I don’t know what anybody did in those chairs back then without an oversized TV to fill the space. Lots of adventurous artifacts on the walls. No artistic paintings.
This is the Tuesday TUTU parade; Picture taken at 511 Greene St. This parade is a fairly public event considering. This is about 7:15 PM. This is apparently our grand finale as it ends the pictures except for south of the airport next day. as probably notices this is an older crwod somethink parraleell to Buffets “Parrot Heads”. Probably some overlap.
Travel Day: We went to Airport early of course. Had time to wander to the south of airport looking at Straits of Florida once we checked our luggage. There was a park overlooking ocean with some old building, I have a non-descript picture. Next to it was this museum where art was made from metal junk by a immigrant welder/junk collector/artist.
I’m about 75% sure this is the place we stayed at, Duvall Inn. I had no pictures. It was NE of Duvall St & close. It was not a hotel but an amalgamation of adjacent buildings in a regular developemnt centered on a pool and meeting hall that served breakfast & snacks. Very nice place & well run. There were rooms in the main building , cottages, & bungalows. Run & owned by native Chinese.
Truman Florida White House: 111 Front Street. Vaguely East of view in photo #13. I did not have a picture here. This was most interesting because of the history of it. “Following World War II, President Truman needed rest and a warm climate to recover from a cold. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz recommended the Key West Naval Station. Truman rested and relaxed in November 1946 returning for a total of 11 working vacations lasting 175 days until March 1952.”
“The Lobster Shack Key West”, 507 South St. I’m about 50% sure this is the place where we ate Lobster Rolls. I did not have a picture. This was a must-do for Carol & we spotted this place during the bike ride. I remembered we ordered the Lobster Rolls on the left side of house and then had to find a place to sit on right. It was very festove. Advised the lobsster rolls were very good.