There was a chirping cricket or bird close by our room last night that interrupted my sleep off and on throughout the night, but the comfort of my bed and the chilled room under these warm covers quickly put me back into a restful sleep. I awoke this morning to mom getting ready at 9:15 and then I joined her for breakfast. The breakfast this morning was wanting. Their special didn’t appeal to me and they didn’t have the hard cooked eggs that I coveted yesterday, so I settled for an English muffin and fruit after a very long wait from our ESL waiter who forgot about me. The highlight of breakfast was a syrup colored honey that I put on everything.
Our hotel seems overrun with foreigners. I hear French and Italian in the courtyard and there were smokers at breakfast. Mom was annoyed at the rude foreigners in line yesterday at the Hemmingway house bookstore where I purchased “To have and have not.” I figured if I was going to visit Hemmingway’s house, I ought to own a book by him. We only happened onto the Hemmingway house yesterday. As we have no agenda, after our morning by the pool relaxing, we ventured out.
We began our outing with lunch at Mangoes only a block away, eating the best Turkey wrap on earth with chutney, avocado and turkey like leftover from thanksgiving – thick sliced and juicy. We each only had half of our wrap, the rest being in our hotel fridge. I also had a coconut mojito. Every time I have one of those drinks, I picture Glenn Howard asking in rural Florida “Who put these collard greens in my drink?”
Our waiter at Mangoes was a fey, thin man from New York who classicized another table saying they were from New York, but were really from New Jersey. The horror!
After our relaxing lunch, the food in me, or perhaps the mojito, calmed my anxiousness for getting out of the room. Mom and I split up for a moment for me to shop for a swimsuit that I had bought 2 years ago on my last trip here, but ruined in Greece by sitting in a too-chlorinated hot tub. They didn’t have that style anymore.
As we ventured closer to the Hemmingway house, it was getting on to be 4pm. The place closed at 5, but we went in anyway. First, we wandered the gardens and then took a tour from an Italian from Boston who added some distinct flavor to the tour.
I was impressed that the place didn’t smell more of cat with 45 of them living on the property – a number of which had 6 toes as they were all descendants from Hemmingway’s own cats for whom he liked the 6-toed species.
The house was lovely, albeit not air-conditioned. My favorite part was seeing his loft study where he wrote, the typewriter on the table and his chair still posed where he left it 50 years ago.
After this bit of culture and history, where I learned more about Cuba and this literary giant for whom I don’t remember anything from high school English class about… we went down the road a piece more and found a Hawaiian shirt shop. Mom bought Ric a shirt and Hannah a dress. I bought Ric a shirt also with airplanes on it since I’m in the Air Force.
Then we went back to the room to clean up for dinner. Mom has fallen in love with the pool’s bathroom and chose to shower in there again. I showered my sunscreen off and dressed in all white for our dinner at Hot Tin Roof – a place I had discovered on a past trip here.
Hot Tin Roof is the restaurant for the Ocean Key Resort and has a beautiful view of the sunset with the address 0 Duval St. Just above Mallory square and far enough away from the sunset festival to have a nice dinner, but still enjoy the low-key music from the band playing below – this is a higher scale restaurant. Having timed our reservations to coincide with the sunset, we arrived only moments before it became comfortable… the sun glaring in our eyes and the humidity frizzing mom’s hair. Mom and I each started off with a martini. Mine was a key lime pie martini mixed with Licor 43, which reminded me of the swizlestick bar in Fort Walton Beach. I started the meal off with shrimp scampi – 2 of them… just a bite to put something in my stomach, although the puff bread did a good job of that too. The shrimp were pink, large and local. Mom had the grilled scallop served over polenta. My meal was the Yellowtail snapper, which came with a tangy red sauce over it and was a rather large slice of fish. I couldn’t eat the entire thing, but really wanted to. The fish was a bit dry, but the flavor of the sauce made up for any misgivings. An Australian Sav. Blanc complemented my meal. Mom had the shrimp risotto, which had arugula in it and proved humorous to watch her slice her grits. Her meal, although good, was far too rich for me. Our meals came only moments after the beautifully clear sunset dropped behind Sunset Key across the water. Not a cloud in the sky that evening. Our wait staff seemed accustomed to the amateur photographers who covered the outside balcony where we sat. The inside of the restaurant was empty, perhaps expected for a Monday night as the new crop of tourists had not yet descended on the island. With only moderately good and considerably pricey food, I may opt next time to watch the sunset from the pier and enjoy the festival below instead. A good experience nonetheless.
From dinner, we went down and walked around the vendors in Mallory square. Nothing appealed much to me, although mom found a beautiful mother of pearl bobble for her necklace.
After dinner, we drove home and went on walk about again. We saw the beginning and the end of route 1 and attempted a photo, but my camera battery died. We then stopped into Margarittaville – a tourist trap to be sure – but we wanted some desert and settled again on Key Lime Pie.
From there, I dropped mom off and I went out, first stopping to see the drag show at Aqua and then over to Bourbon street where I sat at the bar outside and watched an episode of Will and Grace. It was a lonely, albeit enjoyable night. While watching Will and Grace, I met these 5 guys who are staying at Big Ruby’s, my favorite guest house down here where I’ve stayed the past 2 times. They were strangers and it reminded me of all my travels how easy it is to link up with people and spend your vacation with them, never really to see them again.
Off to rent bikes now in this humid 90 degree day...
Our Bike excursion lasted a few hours. It began with a wait for the bikes to be delivered. I’m betting we could have gotten a better deal had we walked the three blocks, but for $18 to have them delivered and rent for a 24 hour period, didn’t seem obtuse. Mom’s bike was a misfit and we immediately called back to the guy to have him adjust the seat and oil the wheel.
Our bike delivery guy had bought a one way ticket to Key West in 2000 from Nebraska, never having been here before. He was tanned, dirty, friendly and an enigma to me. How does a person leave everything except the shirt on his back and move to a place like this? I wonder if whatever character trait exists in him to have made him do such a thing exists in me. I am spontaneous, but I don’t think I would ever leave all of my commitments for this lifestyle. Who takes care of you when you’re old? What happens? Or does everybody who shows up on Key West’s doorstep eventually become self sufficient on this seafaring, tourist breeding island?
Our bike tour took us first to the obligatory southern most buoy where we did the obligatory photo op, then to the southernmost house, which has a house next door, just to its south. Pretty though.
Then we found the butterfly garden… a tourist attraction to be sure, but one of nature, so it appealed to me.
We parked our bikes in the shade and cooled off in the gift shop. The 90 degree heat was getting to me. Mom needed food and had packed our leftover turkey wraps from yesterday in my knapsack for lunch. We perched on a bench out front of the butterfly garden and ate our sloppy seconds.
The entrance to the garden was magical. Butterflies of all colors swarmed around us, my favorite being a large electric blue one. My camera at the ready, I played the shutterfly for about an hour in there, even though the path was short and could have taken half a minute to walk. I think of all the people to go through in our group, had we been the first out, we were three times over the last out. I tracked butterflies with my lens, finally getting the hang of shooting these avoiding creatures. Some actually posed for me on branches and flowers. I attempted to shoot mom with a butterfly on her, but only managed to get one flying in front of her. In going through some of the less focused pictures and deleting them, I accidentally deleted one of my favorite photos. Mental note… no more deleting on the camera itself.
Once we finally meandered out of the garden, we hopped back on our bikes and tried to get lost in Key West, a task that isn’t easy to do given the grid streets and ease of navigation. We passed an above ground cemetery, some chickens and I photographed mom riding her bike. She has tasked me with taking one good picture of her from the trip.
My favorite photo story from the trip so far though is last night at dinner when the sun was setting, mom was proud of herself that she captured a bird in her photo. I wanted one too. Mom had her camera at the ready for another shot and naively asked me to tell her when a bird was coming. About ten minutes later, a bird quickly flew through the shot and I hollered “Bird!” She laughed. About 10 seconds later, 3 came in the shot and I hollered “bird, bird, bird!” She lost her total composure at this, as did I. I love funny moments like that…
Upon coming home, we changed into our bathing suits and headed for the pool. I read a bit more in my book, Ragtime, which I’m over half way complete with and still don’t think there is a plot. Perhaps a moral, but not a plot. Certainly not character development. Bored with my book, I asked the loud and friendly bartender, Billy, if they did frozen drinks. Surely. So I ordered a strawberry daiquiri. He made 3… one for me, one for Orlando girl and one for mom… even though nobody but me ordered one. Mom joined us at the bar after he delivered it to her poolside. How nice. I like the Garden Hotel more and more.
After another dip in the pool, we are reading ourselves for another bike ride and for Cuban food for dinner at a local place. We are celebrating Obama’s decision to allow more flexibility for Cuban Americans in contacting and supporting their relatives there.
Off we go.
No comments:
Post a Comment