Day One - Let the Duval Street Pubcrawl BEGIN!

We started the day out with ends. Here's Bob at the Southernmost point of the continental US (which, by the way, is a lie - the Florida Keys are technically islands and as thus, are not "continental" US. But I digress. And here's Bob, at the the end of US Route 1. I'm pretty sure I was there somewhere, too. .

We also went to the Key West Butterfly Conservatory and hit Mallory Square, where this week we can see the cigarette boat races and today there were a bunch of practice runs - man, those boats are loud and they sure cruise! Those butterflies, while they reside in ridiculously hot conditions were a peaceful respite!

We discovered today that travelling in Key West is a definite challenge. All I read in the guide books were warnings - don't take cars, there are no places to park (this is true). But what they don't tell you is how else to get around! Today, we walked 1.5 miles to a visitor center to buy tickets to one of those multiple stop trolleys, which was a GREAT reconnisance tool for us as it has 10 stops all around "Old Town", which is Key West the tourist destination and you can get on and off at stops all day long. We used this type of transport in NYC and it's definitely the way to go - except if you are looking to go back to a destination multiple times! Problem with this method of transportation is the last bus runs at 4:30PM, so you can't stick around for the sunset celebration (and it's expensive at $50+/day for the two of us). We've been advised by some extremely helpful conchs (Key West lifers) that (1) the public transportation system is widely unreliable, don't spend your vacation time depending on that mode of transport, (2) scooters and "electric cars" are available - problem with those, they are extremely slow (10 mph max) and US Route 1 that leads to Old Town is a 2 lane highway, which is a pretty gnarly road for such slow transport PLUS you still have to deal with the problem of parking. Our final, and probably only, option for transport is slightly less expensive than the trolley and is to take a cab to and fro from Old Town (approximately $20 cab fare each way, totalling $40/day). We'll be experimenting with the transport options . . .

Ok, transportation lesson over! In addition to Key West reconnisance, we started training for the Duval Street Crawl today and I got the chance to start hitting all of Jimmy Buffett's haunts from the early days.

A MOMENT OF SCIENCE, PLEASE . . .

We started our training for "the crawl" by going to Captain Tony's - Jimmy Buffett put Capt. Tony's on the map with his hit "Last Mango in Paris". This place is a major fire hazard - it's got underwear, bra's, business cards and photos stapled to every wall, beam, post - just about anywhere you could staple something and as you can see by the photo on the left, that it also has a tree growing through it! Sadly, and I probably would've known this had we not been offline, Captain Tony passed away on Saturday, November 1, 2008 - just as we were tooling our way down to Key West. . . We toasted Capt. Tony and signed his guest book, a sad event to start our crawl off with. . .

We shook it off, however, and then went to Margaritaville and had a cocktail, at which point Bob declared he was hungry and we needed to "find someplace decent to eat". I couldn't fault Bob on that point, the Margaritavilles are wonderful for atmosphere but the food just doesn't cut it. So we strolled down Duval Street in search of food. First stop - Sloppy Joes, we ended up not going in because the menu was gross. We pressed on and finally stopped at the Hog's Breath Saloon. There we finalized the crawl training for today and got something to eat. Something we didn't realize - there are chickens walking all over Key West - they are all over the streets and even in the outdoor restaurants (such as the Hogs Breath Saloon) and they are a protected bird in Key West.

This would be where my newfound interest in birding may have caused me a problem. The chickens were running around the restaurant and I'm looking at a menu loaded with seafood and *ahem* CHICKEN! Thus, my options were quite limited and as I made eye contact with a rooster, I'm stuck. Not getting chicken tenders, not getting a chicken sandwich. So I ordered a garden salad (and whispered my desire to have chicken with it) - doesn't our food arrive and said rooster is at my feet, glaring up at me! No lie, this rooster staked out our table, chasing the pigeons away and at one point (I think I didn't cover that piece of chicken up enough with dressing), he pecked me. Bob found this all quite hilarious and on that note, we ended the day to come back to the camper and plan tomorrow's activities.

I'm pretty sure they'll involve BEEF. . . .