Feb 26-27 2012 Key West

Key West was a 60 mile drive each way. We are at MM 47 in the keys. They are 110 miles long. Key West is pretty busy, tourist oriented key. Two cruise ships were docked when we were there. Lots of people,traffic, T-shirt shops, expensive shops, nice old homes and lots of history. No where to park. We took the Conch train- a tour train around town and saw the key points and learned lots of history.

Greetings from Key West. The Conch Republic Flag.  A ways back the government put up a road block  on the keys to monitor illegal aliens and smuggling. It was a 4 hour wait to get thru. Key West said it was ruining their tourist trade. The road block continued anyway. So the mayor of Key West declared it the Conch Republic, he was the prime minister. They seceded from the union and declared war on the union.  They armed themselves with Cuban bread and went to the naval base and threw it over the fence at the soldiers. When they ran out they surrendered and then asked for a million dollars in aid. After all the newspaper publicity the road block ended.

John with Mae West at the theatre. The kept the rococo décor on the outside of the theatre, but built a Walgreens inside it. Historic episcopal church.

stained glass windows inside.

The original Margaritaville café. You could not take a photo of anything in Key West without others in front of it, it was too crowded .The southernmost, southernmost house in the USA. It was built south of the original southernmost house

The southernmost point in the continental USA. John is more southernmost here.

Mimosa flowering tree, passion flower vine.

butterfly museum. The blue fish is a sicklet.  A plant at the butterfly museum

red flower and bird wing butterfly. a zebra long wing, it is Florida's state butterfly

mating butterfly's, blue butterfly

another blue one (morpho maybe??) and a butterfly grasping the flower to eat.

Julia butterfly , male  bird wing butterfly

butterfly on a leaf, and a banyan tree

A cock. The Cubans brought fighting cocks to the US. When they became illegal they just released them all. The birds are protected by the Florida wild bird law, so they have lots of chickens roaming the island.  the stained glass window is the eye of god. It is in the first Afro-American church in Key West.

The Green Parrot, oldest bar in Key West-1890. The Conch train-we took our tour on it.

Mile marker zero on US highway one. A kapok tree. They used to use the fibrous seeds to fill life jackets.

John with the dancing girls on the beach, A red sail boat

They have the’ Celebration of the sunset’ at Mallory pier. Artists and performers are there every night. The first guy is juggling fire on top of tall unicycle. The second guy is balancing a unicycle on his chin and doing contortions. 

sailboat in the sunset.