Thursday Doors – Key West

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Florida Keys Map, Map of Florida Keys

One of my husband’s hobbies was scuba diving. When we traveled, he loves to go the places where he could go on a diving trip. He has dived in Big Barrier Reef, Australia, North Carolina, Hawaii, Aruba, and Key West, to name a few.

I don’t dive. I don’t swim. We decided to go to Key West because it is an interesting island. Lynton made one diving trip, and we did sightseeing the rest of the time.

Key West is an island in the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it makes up the City of Key West.

Key West is the southernmost city in the 48 adjoining United States. The Island of Key West is about 4 miles long and 1 mile wide, with a total land area of 4.2 square miles. It lies at the southernmost end of U.S. Route 1, the longest north-south road in the United States. It is about 95 miles north of Cuba at its closest points.

We visited the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum. It was crowded with visitors shoulder to shoulder. Hemingway owned a 38-foot fishing boat named Pilar. It was acquired in April 1934 from Wheeler Shipbuilding in Brooklyn, New York, for $7,495. “Pilar” was a nickname for Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline. Hemingway regularly fished off the boat in the waters of Key West, Florida. Several of Hemingway’s books were influenced by time spent on the boat, most notably, The Old Man and the Sea (1953) and Islands in the Stream (1970). I wasn’t able to take too many photos. Here’s one photo of the model boat Pilar.

Scale model of Pilar on display at Hemingway’s home in Key West (Credit)

We also visited the Martello Museum and a Shipwreck Museum. We climbed a tower where there was a camera connected to a website. Lynton called his friend Randy, who went on the website and could see him while talking on the phone. We went downtown to hang out from late morning to evening. The Cuban cigar was legal there but he couldn’t bring back any so had a couple of puffs just for fun.

A Theater with the statue of Marilyn Monroe in her movie The Seven Years Itch
Foggy Night
Lynton and his Cuban cigar

In this post, I highlighted the Little White House.

Being built in 1890 as quarters for Navy officers, the Little White House later was used by American Presidents William Howard Taft, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. Truman used the facility as a vacation home and functioning White House between 1946 and 1952. National legislation was drafted, and official government business was conducted daily from the site. Perhaps the most important of these actions occurred on December 5, 1951, when Truman enacted a Civil Rights Executive Order requiring federal contractors to hire minorities. President Eisenhower used the site in 1956 while recuperating from a heart attack. Secretary Colin Powell and foreign leaders held an international summit here in 2001. The Little White House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

We took a guided tour

The sunset was gorgeous. The sun was huge. We were taking a walk on the other side of the street. As the sun went down, I ran across the street and literally chased the sun to take as many shots as possible. I was happy with this one.

Thursday Doors – Key West

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