Travel Journal: Our Key West Trip: Wednesday

February 19, 2014

At the Atlanta airport, we experienced the benefits of pre-TSA clearance for the first time, which allowed us to go through security much more quickly. While we were standing in the regular line dad inquired about the little symbol and asked the attendant if I could go through with him, to which she asked if I was over 12. Obviously she had not had her coffee yet. Delta flew us into Key West on a huge plane that was chock-full.

The plane ride was uneventful except for the exciting walk across the tarmac when we landed, which I had never done before. I felt like a movie star or an important diplomat.

The airport was tiny and had a bar. We landed at noon and waited almost an hour for a ride from Enterprise car rental -- which was probably never going to come anyway. We finally wised up to Florida Standard Time (FST) and took a taxi to pick our relatively cheap, off-site rental car.

We had a wonderful lunch at a vegan/vegetarian hole in the wall called Sugar Apple which dad has not stopped talking about. We sat at a tiny bar and passed the time until lunch came (a tempeh dish for me and curried tofu and brown rice for dad and a mango smoothie to share) reading children's literature on why not to eat animals (after all, we don't eat our pets). Dad tried my dish and would like to point out that it was the first time in his life that he has liked tempeh.

We had a few hours before we needed to check into our AirB&B room that was in Sugarloaf Key, a 30 minute drive up the Keys, so we headed over to A&M bike rental and started cruising. As we biked down White Street (near the center of town) we passed many colorful houses and the city cemetery, which was equally colorful. We stopped to take pics of the apartment-style housing for coffins. Some were 3-4 stories high!

A placque on the gate and a run down house

First on our route was our most important stop of this whole trip (more or less): the home of Elizabeth Bishop at 624 White Street. It was everything I imagined and less.

Lizzy and Louise Crane lived at 624 White Street from 1938- (look up). We found out from the current renter that she moved to a house on Olivia Street in 194_, after she and Crane split up and she could no longer afford to live there. He was a guy from England and very chatty - he had obviously done a bit of research on Bishy. We actually didn't meet this fellow until our second trip by Bishop's White Street house, on Friday, but I'll put all of my Bishop mentions in one spot. He said the current owners of the house were a sibling team who were rather crazy. I'll let the pictures tell most of the story about the current state of the house, but the current renter told us that the house

The back of the old Bishop house was a mess.

was currently undergoing some much-needed repairs (including fixing a leaky roof, which he had told the owners about sometime back in the fall). We learned an interesting tidbit about Bishop's Nova Scotia house from this fellow - that it is owned by none other than Thomas Travisano! This entertained us greatly, because we are to meet Dr. Travisano, a professor in upstate New York and head of the Bishop society, in about a week.

After wandering around Bishop's house and meeting the current feline residents, we biked around the tourist quarter of Key West, past more quirky neighborhoods.

We returned our bicycles by 4:45 and then set out for our B&B minus the

View from the porch

breakfast. Midge and Tom live in a two-story house over-looking a the Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge. Lots of mangrove and keys and a small sliver of ocean in the distance. We entered through a garage of sorts littered with natural sea sponges and other manner of junk that

The Medidtation Room

is presumably cleared out during hurricane season. We climbed some stairs and knocked on the door to meet Tom Jolly. His name is befitting of his personality. Tall, lanky and shirtless, he has a big smile on his face almost all of the time. He showed us to our room, which is usually the meditation
room. There is evidence everywhere that Midge, whom we did not meet until she returned from her meditation retreat, is on a spiritual quest. Their only request was that we did not use any fragrances.

We saw a blimp out the kitchen window which we had seen all afternoon floating a couple hundred feet above the key. Dad thought it was recreational but Tom had other ideas. He shared his speculation that it was being used by homeland security. Suddenly our trip took on a sci-fi feel.

Ate at Mangrove Mama's for dinner. Crowded, delicious, rather generic live music.

******************************************************

More photos from Monday ...