Old and New

When I lived in St. Kitts I used to be the weather guru friends counted on. I got bombarded with emails yesterday and today about TS Rafael which came bearing down on just about the entire Caribbean chain.  St. Kitts has been incredibly lucky over the past couple of years with most of the storms just going around the island like it's in a vortex. Not so this weekend. These photos taken by Newz Chronicles Express show how much rain St. Kitts & Nevis are getting (video). We used to have this problem in Arizona, when people would cross obviously flooding areas and get whisked away in their cars. It resulted in a "stupid driver" law that would require those people to pay for their rescue. I'm not sure if people were driving these or just had them parked near the ghaut, but others are smarter and know to avoid the ghaut-turned-river until it calms down a bit. More photos keep coming in and with plenty more rain still left to fall, we can only hope there are no casualties before it's all over. Stay safe my friends!

Here in Key West it seems the summer has finally broken its hold. We've had some rather chilly winds (gusting about 25 mph) and much less humidity (down to about 60% from over 80%). Hallelujah! We were actually inspired to go for a walk Friday night and see what was going on. There is no question that tourist season is picking up (I saw my first cruise ship coming in while on a run the other morning; and a shark). The Sunset Pier was much more crowded than the first time we went. Mallory Square was too. We didn't visit the Cat Man this time but are sure he wasn't hurting for an audience. What are all those people looking at?!





Oh.



Some people were also staring at this.

I do have to say that Key West has consistently spectacular sunsets. Very nice.

We started wandering around in the opposite direction we went last time and stumbled across the Historical Seaport. You have boats docked in marinas on one side and restaurants/hotels on the other. While passing the Schooner Wharf Bar, we got drawn in by some great blues music. It turned out that a 40-year blue's veteran, Joey Gilmore (and his band), were playing and sounding fantastic. We came inside (which is a relative term, it's an outdoor setting) and found a table. We had each walked in with a beer in a plastic cup (you can walk around the street with booze as long as they're in a plastic cup). In St. Kitts, people walk into restaurants and bars all the time with either their own food or another establishment's. It took us a while to accept that this was common practice and start doing it ourselves without feeling bad for the place we were frequenting (it's not really in their best interest is it?). No one cared, usually, and that was that. So let's see how laid back Key West is. It took all of 2 minutes before the server walked up and asked us what we we'd like from their bar. Yep, we're back in the States (no fools they). I got a delicious summer ale (or two), Michael got what seems to have become his "usual" (Yuengling), and we had a great time.

We are getting very close to Fantasy Fest. I'm scared....