The day after the
NASCAR races, we went to downtown Miami. It was cleaner than I remembered from an
earlier business trip.
One of the buildings that seemed completely in place was this condo building with the
Tiki head columns. Penny says they looked like Mr. Potato Heads. So expected of a former first and second grade teacher.
Outlandish colors and shapes seemed perfectly at ease here,
as did this art deco area in Miami Beach.
We've gotten rather used to seeing cruise ships, but this one certainly had a most interesting paint job. Click on the photo to enlarge it, if you are interested.
The next day we went to The Keys. There were several long, impressive causeways. We passed over several keys which had various levels of development.
Remember Henry
Flagler, namesake of
Flagler College, and Standard Oil partner of John D Rockefeller? After the completion of the Panama Canal, he expected Key West to be a major freight hub for ships coming
through the canal from the west, so he invested a considerable amount of his money to build the Florida East Coast Railroad from the mainland to Key West. He rode it to Key West shortly before his death at 82. Here is a remnant section of that railroad.
When you arrive at Key West, you are at the southernmost point in the Continental U.S. as indicated by this monument.
One of the most striking things here is, of course the tropical plant life. Here, Penny stands between aerial roots of a huge Mangrove.
This huge philodendron also attracted our attention.
It is hard to tell, but there are two cruise ships in port. We were impressed with how quickly they left once they steamed up. Within about fifteen minutes, both were gone. Does the lamp post in the foreground decorated to look like a candy cane seem as out of place to you as it did to us?
This was one of the neatest buildings in historic Key West.
We had lunch at this restaurant. They had very good jerked chicken. If you double click this photo, you will note that before it was turned into a restaurant, it served as the first headquarters of Pan American Airways.
This building was once the customs house. It is now the Key West Museum of Art. Of course, all of the bricks had to be hauled from the mainland.
This is a closer view of the sculpture, entitled
Whispering Finish outside the art museum above. To me, it alluded to more elegant times here. There were several smaller sculptures of people, one of which looked like a soccer mom out jogging, another was a photographer taking a Polaroid of a fisherman. All seemed to point toward Key West types of activities.
This is the "Little White House" of Key West. Harry Truman used this as an escape. It was here that Truman wrote a memo urging a two-week truce during the Korean War. You may recall that General Douglas MacArthur objected publicly to this, resulting in his dismissal by Truman. It has been used almost all of Truman's successors. It was also used by Colin Powell to host peace talks between Armenia and Azarbaijan.
This is the second story of Ernest Hemingway's house. Can't you see him out on his veranda, daiquiri in hand? It was here that he wrote
A Farewell to Arms and
The Snows of Kilimanjaro.
We stopped for a pop on the way out of Key West and saw this hen with her chicks walking across the driveway. A car on the way out honked at her (as though it would really move her along faster), and the rooster in the background acted like he was ready to take her on for threatening the little family. P.S. One of our birding friends identified these as wild red junglefowl. They've been here since the 1800s. Thanks for the tip Steve.
The day after the NASCAR races, we went to downtown Miami. It was cleaner than I remembered from an earlier business trip.
One of the buildings that seemed completely in place was this condo building with the Tiki head columns. Penny says they looked like Mr. Potato Heads. So expected of a former first and second grade teacher.
Outlandish colors and shapes seemed perfectly at ease here,
as did this art deco area in Miami Beach.
We've gotten rather used to seeing cruise ships, but this one certainly had a most interesting paint job. Click on the photo to enlarge it, if you are interested. 
The next day we went to The Keys. There were several long, impressive causeways. We passed over several keys which had various levels of development.
Remember Henry Flagler, namesake of Flagler College, and Standard Oil partner of John D Rockefeller? After the completion of the Panama Canal, he expected Key West to be a major freight hub for ships coming through the canal from the west, so he invested a considerable amount of his money to build the Florida East Coast Railroad from the mainland to Key West. He rode it to Key West shortly before his death at 82. Here is a remnant section of that railroad.
When you arrive at Key West, you are at the southernmost point in the Continental U.S. as indicated by this monument. 
One of the most striking things here is, of course the tropical plant life. Here, Penny stands between aerial roots of a huge Mangrove.
This huge philodendron also attracted our attention.
It is hard to tell, but there are two cruise ships in port. We were impressed with how quickly they left once they steamed up. Within about fifteen minutes, both were gone. Does the lamp post in the foreground decorated to look like a candy cane seem as out of place to you as it did to us?
This was one of the neatest buildings in historic Key West.
We had lunch at this restaurant. They had very good jerked chicken. If you double click this photo, you will note that before it was turned into a restaurant, it served as the first headquarters of Pan American Airways.
This building was once the customs house. It is now the Key West Museum of Art. Of course, all of the bricks had to be hauled from the mainland.
This is a closer view of the sculpture, entitled Whispering Finish outside the art museum above. To me, it alluded to more elegant times here. There were several smaller sculptures of people, one of which looked like a soccer mom out jogging, another was a photographer taking a Polaroid of a fisherman. All seemed to point toward Key West types of activities.
This is the "Little White House" of Key West. Harry Truman used this as an escape. It was here that Truman wrote a memo urging a two-week truce during the Korean War. You may recall that General Douglas MacArthur objected publicly to this, resulting in his dismissal by Truman. It has been used almost all of Truman's successors. It was also used by Colin Powell to host peace talks between Armenia and Azarbaijan.
This is the second story of Ernest Hemingway's house. Can't you see him out on his veranda, daiquiri in hand? It was here that he wrote A Farewell to Arms and The Snows of Kilimanjaro.
We stopped for a pop on the way out of Key West and saw this hen with her chicks walking across the driveway. A car on the way out honked at her (as though it would really move her along faster), and the rooster in the background acted like he was ready to take her on for threatening the little family. P.S. One of our birding friends identified these as wild red junglefowl. They've been here since the 1800s. Thanks for the tip Steve.
No comments:
Post a Comment