Time For Some Fun

I have to admit I'm still struggling with this blog a bit. I'm just not feeling Key West yet and that makes it difficult to write about. To be fair, we haven't done that much that would be considered fun as we get ourselves settled in, but I miss wind. I miss our "private" Sunday beach.



I miss hills. I miss the view of the sea and ocean we had from almost anywhere. I miss my morning run up the peninsula and hikes with friends.



I miss the monkeys.



I miss the Shiggidy Xpress and our friends.

I miss our hashes...and our friends.



Those last few photos are from Facebook taken after we left. Yep, it is definitely time to get out of the house, make some new friends, and figure out what's fun about Key West. Sniffle.

Saturday gave us an opportunity to get out and about when it turned out to be National Park's Day and Museum Day. For the national park we were hoping to get to the Dry Tortugas National Park, which is 70 miles from here by boat or plane. When we saw that it was going to be over $150 each to get there by ferry or catamaran (over $250 if we went via seaplane), we realized that we needed to make friend's with a boat owner. Ouch! We'd save a whole $5 for the park entrance fee, but what we need is a National Ferry Day where the trip over is free (or discounted). Ok, so that was out.

So on to Museum Day. This one was sponsored by The Smithsonian Institute and required you to pick where you were going and print tickets. We decided on the Lighthouse and Keeper's Quarter's Museum and the Audubon House and Tropical Garden.  The Lighthouse was built on the coast in 1826 but got walloped by a hurricane in 1846 so was moved inland. After new buildings and various trees/foliage in the area started making it hard to see out, height was added in 1894 bringing us to what we currently have. Due to some nasty luck and early deaths of their husbands, the lighthouse was mostly run by women. The Lighthouse, electrified in 1927 and then decommissioned in 1969, entailed 88 steps to the top and gave us some great views.



The house where three families lived (from 1886) was also part of the tour. Hey! They played Mexican Train dominoes! Ok, probably regular, but with a little imagination...



Then we were off to the Audubon House and its grounds. This place almost ended up a gas station in the 1950s before a non-profit stepped in and saved it. The house was owned by Captain John H. Geiger, a harbor pilot and master wrecker, who lived in the house with his wife and nine children. Around 1932, Geiger let John Audubon, an ornithologist (a bird expert), stay with him. Audubon sighted and/or shot and then painted 18 different species of birds. He painted them life size for the rich people and then figured out a way to make smaller versions using a pretty complicated method I'm amazed anyone came up with.

It was interesting seeing his point of view when he couldn't nab a flamingo. "I cannot even at this moment boast of having had the satisfaction of shooting a single individual." I noticed he was still able to paint it though...One thing that really stood out to us were how small things in the house were. I don't know if you can really get the perspective here, but the high chair and the cradle are tiny! It's hard to imagine one butt cheek of today's munchkins fitting in these things.





The grounds were very pretty with huge butterflies flitting about and a coi pond for good measure. We also liked how they just wrap orchid roots in moss and then tie the plant to things (trees, fences, etc.). No pots. No watering. We're going to try that on our deck.



Note - you must have some water from the water fountain just outside the gift shop. It's so cold it'll give you an ice cream head-ache if you're not careful and tastes like water from a fresh mountain stream. Next time, I'm bringing a re-usable water bottle to fill up. :-)

Afterwards, we needed to do some serious grocery shopping (we had no condiments, no spices, no "usual" stuff in the cabinets). On the way, I thought this plane contrail looked kind of cool heading for the sun. Kaboom!

And then Michael was off to the hash. Because this group only runs (no walkers), I skipped it still babying my hip (which is much better). This happened to be a super-hero hash, so I'm glad Michael was there with the camera. I hid a couple of faces just in case these folks didn't want it out there, although they did run around Key West for 2 hours looking like this....

I don't know why....

This one involved several stops at bars (everyone is required to drink one beverage), and a couple of beer-bag drops to give the hare more time to make a get-away,



and the usual fake trails with strange markings.

 

Afterwards, the group continued to embarrass themselves at the final pub (don't look too closely at that last one).



I'm glad there's still a hash we can participate in, but you sort of have to create your own views, and well, I miss the hiking part! Anyway -  anyone can come - Saturday hashes cost $10 and they include all the beer stops. If you don't drink it's $5. The pick-up ones on Mondays are free (BYOB).

Next Sunday is freebies for locals day (first Sunday of the month), so we'll take advantage of that to see some of the other museums (and jump on a trolley or train). We will also be making a habit out of going to the bagel place and getting salt bagels on the weekends. We haven't seen those since Grenada when all boaters were required to take orders from other boaters whenever they went to the bagel shop (and we all fought over the remaining salt bagels). Yummy.

So there's a little bit of this and a little bit of that as we find our way.