Key West mojitos (Sunday, February 2, 2025)

Sugar, lime juice, rum, sparkling water, and Papa's homegrown mint equals mojito celebration.

Fox, Amon, and me

Not to be left out, Leeloo had her Key West chicken.

Ooh! And Cuban nachos. Like Texas nachos except with banana chips and black beans. 

 

Taquero Mucho (Friday, January 24, 2025)

 Pink, pink, pink! Pink chips! Pink drinks! A "choose your feathery cowgirl hat" machine. We meet Greg Pratas at Taquero Mucho on Fridays for happy hour. Highly recommend the street tacos! 

Snow in Austin (January 21, 2025)

Home at last to freezing temps and snow, and Threadgill's regular Janis Joplin. So glad we packed jackets.

Even though parked under a tarp at the Parking Spot, Max's windshield was covered in snow.

I think this is the first snow experience for T.C. and Colette.
 

Homeward bound--or not (Monday, January 20, 2025)

 The airport was a mad house thanks to canceled and re-routed flights due to snow storms. Hard to believe in sunny, warm Key West. 

Thanks to snow on the ground in Austin, our connecting flight out of DFW was postponed until the following morning. Probably the best airport to be stranded in overnight! We had fabulous Mexican food at Papacito's and caught the college football National Championship game. 

Not to mention the 24/7 7-Eleven near our gate! We watched something I can't remember now on Papa's laptop. See him connecting to the internet in the background? 

We did it! (Sunday, January 19, 2025)

 The Key West Half Marathon is behind us. We both finished in about 3.5 hours (Donna before me, of course) and received the flip flop medals. Beautiful sunny day, about 78 degrees. Much different than the 28 degree Charleston Half in January 2024!

The first gift of our pre-dawn start was immersion in sunrise on the beach. The Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean meet at Key West. Not sure which body of water we're admiring here.

We were serenaded along the way with "When the Saints Go Marching In" by a three-headed horn player.

Continuing the King Cake Rum Cream tradition started after the Charleston Half. I'm wearing the very colorful Key West Half Marathon shirt.

The ultimate reward after covering walking/jogging 13.1 miles? Hot tub relaxation!

Authentic Cuban mojitos (January 18, 2025)

Crystal and her husband are reverse rum runners. They ran their Key West rum to Cuba to find out how to make authentic mojitos. They are the first legal rum distillery in Key West, hence heir name: Key West Legal Rum. Donna and I learned how to combine mint leaves, lime juice, sugar, rum, and sparkling water to make the perfect mojito.
 

The muddler is an imperative tool. When you muddle the handful of mint, be sure to include the stems. That's where the flavor comes from. She used a special sugar that we apparently can't readily find in the USA. I think we'll be fine using regular sugar in our homemade mojitos. Tom keeps pots of fresh mint on hand. Perfect!

Hemingway House (January 18, 2025)

Behold! Ernest Hemingway's typewriter. Inserting a paragraph literally meant "cut and paste." I've knocked over more than one glass of tea that was in the way of the carriage return, back in the day. 

Before destruction by a storm, a catwalk spanned from the upstairs master bedroom porch to Hemingway's writing studio. He wrote daily from 6 a.m. to noon, producing 500-700 words daily. Seventy percent of his works were written during the nine years he lived at Key West.

Hemingway spent so much time at his friend Joe’s bar [the original Sloppy Joe's] that when Joe was moving locations, Hemingway remarked that surely he’d spent enough money there to own a small chunk of it, and Joe laughed and gifted him with one of the bar’s urinals.

 

Hemingway's wife Pauline, upon finding a urinal in her yard, was understandably unimpressed, but made the best of a bad situation by adorning the urinal with decorative tile. Hemingway had the urinal, along with a large decorative Spanish olive jar that he’d brought from Cuba, fitted with plumbing and converted into a self-refreshing water fountain for his pets. The cats seem to like it and you have to know the story or stare hard to realize there’s a urinal involved.

 

Hemingway House (January 18, 2025)

The famous polydactyl cats at the Ernest Hemingway house stroll the grounds, sleep on beds and in the gutters, and even have their own cemetery.

Typical cats have 18 toes: 5 on each front paw and 4 on each back paw. Polydactyl cats have as many as 9 toes per paw. Both Jake, a Canadian polydactyl cat, and Paws, an American polydactyl cat, were recognized by Guinness World Records as having the highest number of toes on a cat, 28.

One of the 59 cats who live at Hemingway House.

 

Southernmost point in continental USA (January 18, 2025)

Donna and me, then Tom and me, at the buoy. I can't imagine Diana Nyad making the 110-mile swim from Havana, Cuba, to Key West, in 2013, the only person ever to do it. Without a shark cage. At age 64. 
 

The true southernmost point is on the adjacent Naval Air Station, which has been instrumental in Naval communications since 1905. Iguanas sunbathe on the rocks.

Cuban coffee, the Southernmost Point, and a chicken: Key West times three!

Porky's (January 17, 2025)

After driving across the 7 mile bridge, we had dinner at Porky's on the water. We'd hoped to see sunset, but it was too cloudy.

 View from our table. We might not have seen the sunset anyway.

Chickens and cats. Six-toed cats at the Hemingway House, regular cats everywhere else. I guess chickens and cats get along?

Leaving Porky's. A full first day in Key West!

Seven mile bridge (January 17, 2025)

 

Before Henry Flagler built a railroad from the Florida peninsula to Key West between 1905 and 1912, access was only by boat. The project required 23 bridges. The longest was this one. Today, you can walk across the bridge, between Knights Key and Little Duck Key. Too bad it was raining when we were there.

Starting line.

The railroad was finally complete in 1912 and was called the 8th wonder of the world. Parts of the railroad remain. The 113-mile long railway remained in operation until the Labor Day hurricane in 1935. The hurricane ripped through the Florida Keys with winds estimated at 200 mph. It is considered the most intense hurricane to make landfall in the U.S.

Key West Half Marathon registration (January 17, 2025)

 Seriously. The chickens are everywhere!

We arrived right before the line officially opened.

Good thing! Way longer by the time we left.

Relaxing through the rain storm (January 17, 2025)

 What would an afternoon in Key West be without a pounding rain storm? We were snug and dry outside Sloppy Joe's.

Captain Tony's Saloon (January 17, 2025)

 

Live music, beer, bras, signed dollar bills.

Captain Tony. The politician who keeps his promises. Not like the definition of an honest Louisiana politician: "When he's bought, he stays bought." I somehow think Captain Tony wasn't for sale.

Key West chickens! (January 17, 2025)

They're everywhere! I wonder where this Mama and her chicks spend the night. We did see a flattened rooster that didn't get to the other side.
 

Roosting in a hedge outside the El Siboney Restaurant at 5505 5th Avenue, Stock Island. A favorite of locals. Incredibly delicious Puerto Rican mofongo. Trust me. A ball of fried, mashed plantains with garlic, pork, broth.

Mandatory key lime pie (January 17, 2025)

 Key limes and sweetened condensed milk. Heavenly combo!  Christopher Columbus brought key lime trees from Haiti to the Keys. Sweetened condensed milk was not invented until 1856 by Gail Borden and the pie wasn't invented until the 1890s. The name of the first key lime pie baker is lost to history.

Happy staff at the Key Lime Pie Bakery at 412 Greene Street. Looks like chocolate dipped key lime pie on the tray. Next time!

Making like Carmen, rolling cigars. Not on our thighs though (January 17, 2025)

We took a cigar rolling lesson at the Rodriguez Cigar Factory. The family emigrated to the Keys after Castro nationalized the cigar industry in their native Cuba. How did Carmen roll cigars on her thigh? Hard enough on a flat surface! The cigar flavor depends on which leaves you use.
 

Ta da!  Now the cigar must cure in a cool, dark place for 6 months. We don't have humidors so Mr. Rodriguez gave us air tight containers to store them in.

The tobacco leaves are shaped with the slicer near my elbow. Hmm. Cigar should be ready around Father's Day. Perfect!

Key West Day #1 (January 16, 2025)

Cuban nachos at El Meson de Pepe's! Sort of like Texas nachos but on banana chips. So yummy!
 

Thank you, Donna, for the hand-painted Mardi Gras bead tree glasses. We broke them in with our obligatory trip wine.