Day 8 -- April 8, 2003 -- Tuesday

Sunny, beautiful blue sky, and 82 degrees. We have enjoyed fabulous weather! In eight days, we saw only two or three raindrops late one afternoon in Miami. The sky was SO BLUE today that I took a photo of it just to be able to remember. We thoroughly enjoyed Key West today. Second best day so far (still rank Day 2 in Savannah as the best).

We walked through town this morning looking at the shops, bars, and restaurants. We stopped at the Key West Candy Company where we had breakfast of a chocolate-covered, frozen Key Lime Pie-on-a-Stick. Yummy! We also bought a half pound cookie at a cookie kitchen. The lesson of the day certainly won't be about nutrition.

Our destination was the Ernest Hemingway Home - the most anticipated sight on Bozzie Jane's list, because of the Hemingway cats. Hemingway was introduced to cats by one of his sons. Gregory Hemingway had a cat named Snowball, and Snowball had extra toes. Normal cats have five front toes and four back toes. About half of the cats at the museum are polydactyl, which means they have extra toes. Most cats have extra toes on their front paws and sometimes on their back paws as well. Sometimes it looks as if they are wearing mittens because they appear to have a thumb on their paw.

The Hemingway cat herd grew over the years, with all of the cats descendants of Snowball. There are now 61 Hemingway cats living at the home, and half have at least one extra toe. We toured the home, with Carl the guide. It was interesting to see the home and hear great stories about Hemingway, but the cats were the stars of the show for us. The cats have the names of famous people for the most part, and there is a cat cemetery on the property where the cats are buried when they go to cat heaven.

Some of the cats include Audrey Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Pablo Picasso, Joan Crawford, Sofia Loren, and Charlie Chaplin. Our guide told many wonderful stories about the cats, and I regret that our tape recorder was broken, and my memory has faded as I write this account.

After the cats, it was roosters. Several people recommended Blue Heaven Restaurant to us, and we found it on a side street. It was like walking into someone's back yard out in the country. There were roosters and other critters wandering around, and the tables sit out in the dirt. By now you know that we like "quirky" stuff, and Blue Heaven had quirky with a capital Q. My Shrimp Quesadilla was fabulous. Our waiter, Robby McClung, recommended the Banana Heaven for dessert, so Boz and I split one. It was absolutely amazing. From what we could tell, the chef starts with bananas, butter, rum, and perhaps brown sugar, and the bananas are sauteed in that concoction. The hot bananas and syrup mixture was then poured over a delicious banana bread, and if that isn't enough, homemade vanilla ice cream was scooped onto the side. It was OUT of this world, and so rich that we barely made a dent in it. Best dessert by far!

As we walked down the street, we passed a young man sitting on the pavement next to a storefront. He was holding a very professionally-printed sign that said "Hello, My Name Is Lance. Goodbye." I snapped a photo, but why we didn't stop to talk to Lance to find out what the sign was all about is beyond me. We blew it. Barbara and I have speculated about it. I choose to believe that Lance is writing a book about the few people who would stop to ask about the sign and ask how he's doing.

We saw the Key West Lighthouse Museum and the Harry Truman Little White House.

We spent a lot of time just walking and looking at the over 300 bars as well as restaurants and shops. We went in Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville, and I was blown away with the variety of items, the quality of the items, and the graphics. Jimmy Buffett is one sharp cookie!

The Strand Theatre is closed down, but what an amazing-looking building. Then we just about croaked when we saw a sign that says a Walgreen's Drug Store would be moving into that spot. This would be criminal. Someone needs to stop this from happening. Key West is overly commercialized for the tourists, but at least most of the tourist area has maintained the great old buildings and proper look and feel.

One of the highlights of the day was stopping at the Key West Gift Shop. We were drawn in by a fabulous pink flamingo display in the window. Inside, we met Stan the Pink Flamingo Man. We have thoroughly enjoyed Key West, but it isn't what we expected. Stan summed it up for us. He said: "Key West is a fantasy of a place and time that has long since died." Stan has decided to leave Key West. Guess where he has decided to move -- Savannah. (See Day 2, and you'll know why.)

Walking through a residential area was also a treat as we saw some lovely old homes.

Sloppy Joe's was Hemingway's favorite bar, so we stopped in for a tall cool one. The singer/piano player was excellent. He looked just like Jerry Springer and played and sang like Randy Newman. The next thing we knew, a young 13-year-old boy was up on stage playing ragtime piano like crazy. It was quite a show. Little Boy Flowers was his name, and he recorded his first CD at age 9. One of those great surprises that makes a trip special.

We saw a few other interesting surprises today - a jalapeno pepper-shaped car and a big seashell at a Texaco station. The car was cool, and we decided the shell surely must be the world's largest sea shell at a Texaco station.

After walking around and seeing the sights all day, we made our way to the waterfront for the Sunset Celebration. Every day, Key West celebrates the sunset. A massive cruise ship docked late in the day, and the wharf was packed with thousands of people. We met some nice folks, including Ray and Shirley from Massachusetts, Karen and her mother from Ardmore, Oklahoma, and Robin and Tom from Lucky, Ohio. I was tickled with several of the sunset photos that I took.

Once the sun set, we joined a huge street crowd to watch Dexter the juggler entertain. I have never seen such a big crowd for a street entertainer anywhere. Young Dexter is another sharp cookie, and he really knew how to work the crowd. He racked in a bundle in tips.

We were still full from Banana Heaven and various and sundry other things, so we just grabbed a few slices of pizza at Billie's Bar & Restaurant. It was quite good. We popped across the street for dessert at Key Lime Pie Heaven. We had a Key Lime Cookie and a Key Lime Slushie. Different, to be polite.

We did a little shopping and called it a day. I am now the proud owner of a Belly Bag and eyeglass straps that will enable me to suspend my sunglasses and glasses from my neck when I remove them to take photos.

The most important lesson that we learned today is that when things are really good, it makes a lot of sense to just relax and enjoy it. Take the Hemingway Cats for example. They could leave; there is nothing to stop them. One of our fellow tourists asked Carl the guide about this, and he said why in the world would any of them want to leave when they have such a great life there. A never-ending bowl of food, plenty of water, unrestricted access to a fabulous home and grounds, constant rubbing, weekly housecalls from the vet, etc. Life is good, so why mess with the status quo. Bozzie Jane said if she was a cat, she would want to be a Hemingway Cat.

Random Comments:

We have been getting great emails from people we know and people we don't know who have heard about the trip somehow. Today, we enjoyed email from strangers Bob and Linda Cambell, and they gave us several places to see as we head back to mainland Florida. We are still laughing about the email from our dear friend Berlinda Shanklin who suggests that we will have an even greater need for the new wide angle lens for the camera if we keep eating so much dessert.

The Daily Journal of Round America:

Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we've been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we've seen and done as well as about life in general.

You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this web site. Other pages of interest include the running report of "vital statistics" on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you'd like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest and the full itinerary is shown.