An Historic Odyssey

This past week was one of historic activities and visits.  Monday we spent much of the day watching the various inaugural activities in Washington D.C. as our 44^th president was sworn in for his second term of office.  It was an historic event of monumental proportions.  While we enjoyed the day and the activities, spending that much time in front of the boob tube left us feeling groggy, so we planned several excursions by bicycle for the remainder of the week.

The Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center, located at the Truman Waterfront, was our first destination on Tuesday.  It is operated by NOAA, Mote Marine Laboratory, and other alphabet soup agencies.  They have exhibits of the “living reef” in small aquariums and live video from the reef.  There is a superb movie chronicling the adventures of a young woman in the waters around the Keys.  One of the highlights for us was a 3D video of the ocean depicting a tremendous variety of sea life…it was just like being there.

Porthole in an Under Water Live Aboard Research Pod

Aquarium @ ECO-Discovery Center

Invasive Lion Fish

For three weeks we have regularly passed a Mexican restaurant on Stock Island called Chico’s Cantina.  There has always been a crowd there, so we vowed to stop someday.  Well, on our way home from the Eco-Discovery Center, we decided that it was the day.  We were pleasantly surprised.  As anyone following this blog regularly knows, we are aficionados of Mexican food…good Mexican food.  Anyway, Chico’s did not disappoint.  They even had a green chili sauce that approximated that found in New Mexico--our favorite.  Our only complaint is that like every restaurant in Florida, a couple of enchiladas for lunch will set you back about $50.

The Key West Historic Armory has been taken over by an arts group and offers exhibits and events in the venue.  The art on display this week is that of artist Andreas Franke.  He created fascinating underwater images of people doing ordinary things, like hanging out the laundry, and then he displayed them on the sunken ship “Vandenberg” where thy could only be viewed by scuba divers  The art became encrusted with the kind of goo one would expect to find on the bottom of a boat, but perhaps not as thick.  This created an amazing effect that enhanced the power of the pieces.  The armory also had a display of sculpture that was interesting.

Sculpture in Armory's Garden

Historic Key West Armory

One of Franke's Vandenberg Pieces

For lunch the day of our bike trip to the Armory, we stopped off at Paseo, a restaurant we had wanted to try to with our friends Tom and Lore, but it was closed the day we were there with them.  The food was delightful…a Caribbean/Island style of food leaning heavily on pork, chook, rice and beans.  It was delicious.  We sat with a Canadian couple in the limited outdoor seating area.  They were on a bus trip from their winter home in St. Petersburg and had selected Paseo from an online restaurant rating site.  He was a retired dentist and she was a retired school teacher.  Interesting folk.  They (he) lamented the fact that Canada was now a white minority country and even their small town in Ontario had become that way, too.

Classic Key West Architecture

Key West has a living population of some 25,000 full time residents.  This time of year that jumps significantly with the influx of winter tourists and cruise ship escapees.  However, it is interesting to note that there are actually more dead people residing in Key West than there are living ones.  A quick visit to the historic Key West Cemetery will show that there are some 75,000 folks interred here since it was established in 1847.  The Historic Florida Keys Foundation offers a free brochure and map highlighting 58 sites worthy of one’s attention.  That was about 50 too many for us, but we did manage to see the plot set aside for the victims of the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana in 1898, the event that ignited the Spanish-American War.  We also saw B. P. Roberts’s headstone which reads, “I told you I was sick.”  The Foundation likes to point out that the “…twenty acre park-like setting…(has) Bahamian mariners, Cuban cigar makers, Spanish-American War veterans, soldiers & civilians, millionaires & paupers, whites & blacks, Catholics, Protestants, & Jews rest(ing) side-by-side, echoing the island city’s diverse heritage.”

I Told You I Was Sick

Some in the Ground, Some Vaults

On the literature front, we just completed reading Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain of Dallas, Texas.  This is a fascinating fictional look at a squad of soldiers from the Iraq war being feted by the Dallas Cowboys at one of their home games in the old Texas Stadium in Irving.  The depiction of the major personalities in the Cowboy’s organization, while fictional, is dramatically accurate and quite disturbing.  We won’t spoil the plot line for you, but suffice it to say you will have your eyes opened by this book.

A quote from the book fits right into what we have experienced here (and other places) and which has found footing in the letters to the editor of the local newspaper.  Fountain writes at one juncture, “Retail dominates the land.  Somewhere along the way, America became a giant mall with a country attached.”  The talk here in KW is about the volume of disgorged cruise ship passengers who are changing the commercial landscape.  There are even a couple of lonely voices calling for a big box store to be built up the Keys because one can’t buy necessities in Key West any more, just tourista crappola.

South Florida and the Keys have become a retail/vacation haven for Europeans and South Americans.  Everything here is cheaper for them than at home and elsewhere (no matter how expensive we think it is).  That’s why the dominate language on the streets is not English, it is a conglomeration of other languages.  American cruise ships are most numerous here to be sure, but European ships also call in here regularly.

Which Vessel Would You Rather Be On?

If you have ever owned an RV you have probably had a string break on one of your day/night shades rendering it inoperable.  We had one break two years ago, and we hired someone to restring it.  However, when another one broke last week, we decided to do it ourselves.  Actually, the decision was easy as there is no one here in the Keys that does that kind of work.  Anyway, we ordered a restringing kit and it arrived on Monday.  We set Wednesday aside to complete the task.  My old British Columbian friend, Brad, had assured me that this was a piece of cake.  Well, we completed it successfully, but we aren’t ready to hire ourselves out as shade restringers.  UHG!

A number of years ago we were traveling near Marfa in far West Texas and came upon an Air Force blimp/balloon that was being used to electronically monitor the border for drugs and human traffic.  Well, there is an identical blimp/balloon here above Cudjoe Key called “Fat Albert” by the locals, and it is also operated by the Air Force.  It monitors refugees from Cuba, drug traffic, and sends propaganda via radio Marti to Cuba for the brainwashing of Castro’s minions.  According to the local paper, Fat Albert has served its purpose and will be decommissioned.  Wonder who or what will be doing its job.

Ray & Kathleen: Someone Down Here Agrees With Us!

Out The Front Window of our Motorhome