Monday, March 5, 2007

The cottage

This is the cottage that famous playwright, Tennessee Williams, bought in 1950 after renting it for 10 years. He wrote many of his plays while living here. The modest little cottage also has a gazebo and pool on the property. It's in a cute little neighborhood not far from Duval St. He used to ride his bike into town. The property is now privately owned. How historic!

Very chilly and windy today. I got on the computer and practiced my Spanish for a while this morning. Then played spades for a while. At 1:00 Mike went over and played shoes and I cleaned. (Something wrong with that picture.) Getting ready to pull out of here on Wednesday. Decided to go into Key West one last time. Went to La Te Da for dinner and the show (Randy Roberts). I was glad I had my suede jacket on. It was pretty chilly. Before we went to La Te Da we entered the address for Tenessee Williams’ cottage into our GPS (that my brother gave us) and stopped to see it. The cottage is in beautiful condition. Tennessee Williams bought the modest white painted cottage in 1950 after renting it for several years. Many of his plays were written there. Besides the little cottage there is a gazebo and a pool on the property. It is now privately owned.

The dinner and show at La Te Da as usual was great. Randy did Bette Midler, Cher, and another red-headed persona. We love his show. A great way to end our stay here.

When we got back to the campground, Floyd, Clara and Chuck were at Carolyn and Andy's. So we stopped and I had another glass of wine. Going to feel like crap tomorrow. Three excedrins before going to bed.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

This morning started out clear but then clouded up. Perfect day for kicking back and reading a book or watching old movies. We did both. Later that evening we took the laundry and drove to Big Pine. Read while the washers were going but after we got the clothes in the dryers we walked over to Pizza Works and had dinner. I had a meatball sub and Mike had a sausage sub. They were so good. We’ll miss that place. Went back to fold clothes at about 8:30 and freaked because they had locked the doors, turned out the lights, and put the closed sign up. Fortunately, we got in, folded the clothes and headed back.

Saturday, March 3, 2007

Another beautiful, but warm and humid, day. Perfect for going over to Little Palm Island for brunch. Little Palm Island is about a mile or so out in the Atlantic and is rated one of the 10 best resorts in the world. They take you out there in an old woody Chris Craft replica. The island is quite beautiful. PT109 was filmed there. Brunch was absolutely incredible. A buffet was set out with oysters on the half shell, crab, shrimp, all kinds of fruit and salads, and another area with several different kinds of breads. Then when you’ve had your fill of that you have a choice of 6 different hot, made-to-order entrées. You can order as many as you like. I had pork medallions, French toast, and Hawaiian benedict. They were all delicious. They keep the champagne coming. Then you have several choices for desert. They bring them out on a big platter and you can have as many as you like. Needless to say, we ate too much. We went out there with Carolyn and Andy, our Canadian friends. The highlight of the day though was when a key deer buck walked right up to our table. The dining room is a large, open veranda looking out on the ocean. The key deer just roam around. This guy is quite old. They're very small--the top of his back came up to about mid-thigh on me. I fed him some fruit. Not supposed to, but I did.

Friday, March 2, 2007

Up and out early this morning (for us). Stopped at Porky’s (on Marathon) for breakfast. We were headed to Robbie’s marina on Islamorada to catch the boat out to Indian Key, which was a prosperous wrecking community until it was attacked by the Seminole Indians. Most of the buildings were burned down. It’s now a state park and you can go over there and they take you on a walking tour of the island. It’s also a great place for shallow snorkeling. However, the dock was destroyed by a hurricane and it hasn’t been fixed yet. No boat. However, we could have kayaked out there (they even had a glass bottom kayak), but Mike didn’t want to do that. So we continued on to Windley Key and the fossil museum there. Apparently when they were quarrying for fill for the overseas railroad, they discovered a bunch of fossils in the rock and found it was quite beautiful rock once polished. They call it key stone. In fact, the post office in St.Louis is made from it. We walked some neat trails in the hammock (which is supposed to be the highest in the Keys). Then back home and changed and headed to Key West for a sunset sail aboard the schooner Liberty. Wonderful evening. Saw a beautiful sunset. After that we had a wonderful dinner at the Roof Top Café. Pork tenderloin with a sweet potato bisque. We dined outside on the deck. All kinds of people and stuff going on around Mallory Square on a Friday night. Quite entertaining.

March 1, 2007

This morning I had a 10:30 appointment to get my hair cut. Back home at 11:30 and then we decided to go to Smathers Beach in Key West. Rented a couple of chaise lounges and an umbrella and sat and watched the world go by. Cruise ships appearing out of the haze, parasailers, wind surfers, F15s on approach to Boca Chica, sea planes, huge yachts, and just people down for a week’s vacation trying to get a quick tan. At about 3:30 we packed up and drove to the old seaport and had an early dinner at Pepe’s—the oldest restaurant in the Keys (supposedly). Cute place. Back home. A beautiful day and evening.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

These guys are all over the place down here. We see them a lot in the campground. We've left grapes out for them, but they never eat them. Not sure what they eat.

Up early this morning and on the computer and took care of some banking and practiced Spanish for a while. Took the laundry to the Laundromat in Big Pine and after getting everything started we walked over to the bagel place and had some breakfast. Came back and was just putting stuff in the dryer and the power went out. But it came back on in about 15 minutes. Came home and put everything away and put my bathing suit on and sat outside to read for a while. Really warm and humid today. Thought it might rain in the afternoon, but it cleared off nicely. I called Little Palm Island and made our reservation for brunch on Saturday at 12:30. Carolyn and Andy will be joining us. Then called three campgrounds in Mexico. La Penita we’re not sure about yet. She told us to call back in April. Two others said they’re full. Not sure if we’ll be going to Mexico or not. Had dinner at an Italian restaurant on Cudjoe.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Went to Key West this morning and had breakfast at Blue Heaven. I had lobster benedict and Mike had a wonderful-looking tenderloin omelet. A beautiful, but humid, day. The girl at the table next to us was petrified of chickens. She was having a terrible time because there are chickens all over at Blue Heaven. One of the things that makes the place so neat. One of the hens had 8 chicks. After our sumptuous breakfast we headed to Mallory Square and parked. Walked over to the Hilton shops and signed up for a 1:00 parasail. There were two cruise ships in and a huge private yacht—the Mustang Sally. This thing was 150 feet long and had three levels above the water. There were a bunch of deck hands washing the outside. After talking to one of them I found out that its home port is Ft. Lauderdale but they’re in the Bahamas a lot. They have a permanent crew of 8. This yacht was probably more expensive than most of the estates we looked at on our estate tour. Tiger Wood’s yacht was moored at the same spot last year at about the same time. Wonder who owns this one?

Parasailing was great! We were on the boat with two other couples. We were the last to go up. It was very quiet and peaceful up there. We had a great view of Sunset Key. After the parasail we stopped at the Roof Top Café and had a couple of margaritas. I was so sleepy after that—the drink and the humidity combined. But we walked over to the historic seaport area and checked on the sloop Appledore to see if they still had sunset cruises, which they do, but the singer has left already. So, we’ll probably go on the Liberty instead. We drove back and had dinner at Captain Crossbones. I couldn’t wait to get home and take a shower.