Category Archives: Travel

The Southernmost Point

Posted on April 11, 2011 | 4 comments

Hi Everyone!

I have covered bits and pieces of our trip to Key West over the last few weeks, and considering that the trip itself was only four days, there has been an amazing amount of material, but now we are winding down to the last few topics. 

While the Hemingway House was both intriguing and inspirational, and the visit to the Key West cemetery reflective, a trip to the Southern part of the island is simply one of those cheerful touristy things that tourists do when they go to Key West.  Over towards the Atlantic ocean side of the island, the two or three blocks that lead to the Southernmost point are covered with things dubbed the “Southernmost” – the Southernmost restaurant, the Southernmost Hotel, the Southernmost Inn, the Southernmost grocery store, the Southernmost dog (well, they didn’t really have a Southernmost dog, but I am surprised that someone didn’t think to bring a dog and hang a plaque around its neck saying so!)

The Southernmost point in the continental United States is actually not quite the Southernmost point – there is an antenna off a jetty behind a fence that you can see from the point dubbed the Southernmost point that is a little more South, but a) you can’t reach it, and b) it is built on land that was created/dredged/reclaimed by filling in the water, so in a typically pragmatic fashion, Key West has continued to call the Southernmost point, the Southernmost point.

To be sure that it is recognized, someone placed a (very colorful, can’t be missed) monument there stating that it is the southernmost point. 

Mark and I at the "Southernmost" Point

There was a line to have your picture taken at the monument, and the family in front of us was kind enough to take a picture of both of us with our camera.

Although it is kind of touristy, it is not a complete gimmick, as there are some interesting historical sites surrounding the southernmost point.

The most  recognizable site  is the Southernmost House.  The history of the Southernmost house is set out in this plaque:

The Southernmost House, itself, is a Victorian mansion complete with all the trimmings.  We did not tour the house while we were there (after all, you have to save something for the next time), but we took several pictures of it, including the following.

As the posted sign by the Southernmost House noted, the mansion was built in 1897.  Technically, it is no longer the very southernmost house anymore, as someone came in and built one house right behind it on the block leading to the Southernmost Monument that is more Southerly, but, I guess, age having its privileges. this mansion was the Southernmost House originally, so the Southernmost House it shall remain!

At the very corner of the turn to reach the monument, there is a structure known as the cable house.  It didn’t look like much, but appearances, as the placard on the cable house showed, can be deceiving.

The Cable House

Its history:

The Southernmost Point/House/Inn/Hotel/Motel was simply a fun, cheerful trip, and cost almost nothing (we even were lucky enough to find a parking spot we didn’t have to pay for!) and, in its own way, was as much a highlight of our trip as the other adventures were.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Remembering the Maine

Posted on April 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

Good morning everyone! 

I hope the thunderstorms moving through the South/Southeast yesterday and last night left you unscathed.  We did okay, I think, except for a lack of sleep on Kayla’s part that does NOT make me envy her teachers today!

The Maine Monument, Key West Cemetery

 Time for reflection is often rare these days, but while we were in Key West, Mark and I had the chance (well, really, I forced him) to go by the Key West Cemetery.  Old cemeteries, cemeteries with lots of history in them, are usually very quiet places good for reflection, and to find such a oasis of calm amid the bustle of the Historic District in the rest of Key West was a true pleasure.

We couldn’t stay long, but we were able to see the one place in the cemetery I wanted to see, which was Key West’s monument to those soldiers who died when the U.S.S. Maine exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba on February 15, 1898. 

As a result of the explosion, 266 men died.  The cause of the explosion remains controversial to this day, but the purpose of this entry is NOT to answer a question that is still in dispute after over 100 years, but simply to remember 266 men who died serving their country. 

Key West was the last stop the Maine had made, for refueling and obtaining supplies, before it went on to the Havana harbor.  When the ship exploded, those bodies that could be recovered immediately, and the wounded, were sent back to Key West.  About two dozen of the sailors of the U.S.S. Maine are buried in the small enclosure, and the City, at its own expense, placed the monument to them that stands there today, a sailor holding an oar.  (Eventually, an extensive recovery operation in Havana harbor took place, and many of the other dead sailors are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.) 

When we were at the cemetery, it was a perfect day, with the breeze that comes off the Atlantic Ocean and the breeze from the Gulf taking turns twisting through the trees and over the grass.  It was peaceful.  The U.S.S. Maine area of the cemetery is enclosed with a small metal fence, and there are other markers and persons buried in it, including a monument put up by the survivors of a torpedo boat that fought in the Spanish-American war to their fellow serviceman who died the year after the Maine exploded.  

So, the next time you are somewhere and two gentle winds take a moment to swirl in the grass or trees around you, stop for just a minute to breathe a prayer for the safety of all of those men and women who choose to defend their country, and one of thanks for those who were willing to serve and in doing so, paid for their service with their lives. 

Ground Marker in the Maine section of the Key West Cemetery

Finally, to all of you for today, I can wish you nothing better than that you find, at the end of your life, that the following epitaph, also in place at the Key West cemetery but in a different section, is perfect for you:  God was good to me.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Morning Interrupted and A Splash of Color

Posted on March 30, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning (or good afternoon in the Central U.S. Time Zone and those points further east) everyone!
  • Morning Interrupted

Today’s title, “Morning Interrupted,” was far more prophetic than I ever intended it to be.  Not only was my early morning (i.e., pre 6:30 a.m.) routine left in shambles but my mid-morning schedule has been disrupted as well. 

Powerful Spark (From Print Shop 2.0 Deluxe)

 Mark was out of town last night, so of course a round of thunderstorms chose to rumble in around 4:00 a.m.  Kayla is very afraid of thunderstorms, so she came padding into our bedroom around 4, and I let her go ahead and crawl up into the bed on Mark’s side.  Those negotiations taking a little time, Mandy and Darwin viewed them as a sign that it was time to get up, so they started jumping on and off the bed in great excitement.  You really haven’t lived until all four paws of a 55 or 60 pound dog hit you squarely on the chest at 4:00 a.m. in the morning!

I threw them outside into the thunderstorm to do whatever they felt they needed to. (Tyra knew better than to wake up.  Besides, she is not going into a thunderstorm unless she is thrown out into it, so she got to stay inside and asleep at the foot of the bed.) 

Once they came back in, around 4:10 or so, my only hope of getting any more rest before 5:30 was to separate Darwin and Mandy, so I put Darwin up in his carrier (he usually sleeps there or in the den at night – he only got to sleep in the bedroom last night because Mark wasn’t home and our routine was disrupted anyhow) and kept Mandy in the bedroom with me.  Mandy settled back down, but Darwin felt it was his sworn duty to bark with his loud “intruder alert” bark every time a strong thunder clap sounded over the house.  This practice guaranteed that even if Kayla could get to sleep, she was going to wake back up once he started to bark, which further ensured that I wasn’t getting back to sleep either.

After about 45 minutes of that, Kayla got up and ran into the bathroom and started to be sick.  I got her settled back down and we finally got maybe an extra half-hour before we had to get up.  After we got up, I took her temperature, and she was in that no-man’s land between 98.6 and 100 (at 99.3), so I gave her a choice on whether to go to school or not. 

She elected to go because the school is doing the Stanford Achievement Tests and she was going to try to finish the test (this is the second, and last, day of testing).  I let her off at school at 7:15 with a wish and a prayer, and toodled my way to work, where I hoped to have an uneventful, but fruitful, day. 

Alas, as you probably suspect, that was not to be!  About 9:45 the school called and said that she had left the test, with the principal at her side, saying that she was too sick to keep taking it.  I asked the nurse about her temperature, and she was still in that no-man’s land, although a little higher at 99.7, and hadn’t gotten sick again. Even though I wasn’t sure that she was any worse than she had been when I dropped her off, I left work and traveled back to our home town to pick her up.  It was a good thing I did; as soon as we got home, she was sick again, and then when I took her temperature, it was up around 101.6!  Fortunately, our doctor can see her at 2, and right now she is asleep on the couch, in which state I hope she stays for a couple  hours, since sleep is the best thing for her. 

I would like to go to sleep, too, but as every mother knows, your child will never get sick on a day when you are fairly caught up, so I have a project I get to work on for a while here at the house.  However, as I have said before, I am very grateful to the people I work with for their understanding about family and priorities and I am grateful that I can work on a project at the house to keep caught up.

All of which is a long way of saying nothing this morning, so far, has gone according to plan, but maybe the new improved plan will have better luck!

  • A Splash of Color

Even though a sick child is something every parent can sympathize with, I hate to end my blog on such a damp note, so instead I am finishing this entry off with a few pictures of some of the flowers around Key West that Mark and I enjoyed seeing.  This is a very small sample compared with what is avaible to see down there, but I hope it brightens your day.

Picture of a house taken from the Conch Train

 

Tubebuia Tree, Key West

Bougainvillea

Tabebuia Tree Flowers, Key West

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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New Nephew, Manatee Mailboxes and Bugs, Scooters and Tiki Lights

Posted on March 28, 2011 | 5 comments

Good morning everyone!  I hope you had a great weekend!

  • New Nephew

Some mom adventures aren’t funny, just sweet.  That was the case this weekend, when we got to meet our new great-nephew for the first time.  We were all excited, but Kayla especially was beside herself at getting to meet her new cousin.  She got to hold him on the couch for a little bit, and sit beside him, my niece Ann and my nephew Andy.

Anne, Carter, Kayla, Andy

Kayla is very, very good with babies, and it was extra special for her when she got to hold her own cousin.

Kayla holding Carter

 

I got to hold the baby also for a while, which was way cool!

Me holding Carter

We even got a picture of all of us together who were there, which means we had one of those special pictures where four generations are present – Mark’s Mom, me, Mark, my brother- and sister-in-law, my niece and nephew and Kayla and Carter, the baby.

Group Photo!

 

Getting to meet our new family member was one of those sweet family moments you won’t forget.  The only thing that would have made it more perfect would be if my other nephew, Matt, and my other brother and sister-in-law could have been there.  We missed you guys!

  •   Manatee Mailboxes

Other events are bemusing.  In our drive down toward Key West, we found an unusual feature possessed by many houses – the manatee mailbox.  We liked them; they reminded us of Mandy, our uniquely individualistic happy-go-lucky basset hound husky mix.  I’ll show you a picture of both, so you can decide whether or not there is a resemblance.

A Manatee Mailbox

 

mandy

  • Bugs, Scooters and Tiki Lights

Other events build on prior experiences.  When we went on our honeymoon to Cancun almost 24 years ago, we learned for the first time that VW Bugs, when they die, are sent to Mexico.  This discovery has been confirmed the other two or three times we have stopped by Mexico on a cruise.

On our trip down the Keys, we spent one night at Key Largo, and had dinner there at the Fish House.  It was truly wonderful sea food, with a unique decor – the entire roof was decorated with what appeared to be RV tiki lights.  Accordingly, we have concluded that RV tiki lights go to the Fish House at Key Largo when they die, which is not a bad deal for them at all!  

However, it is our conclusion that scooters have the best deal, because when they die, they get sent to Key West!   If anyone knows what the scooters have done to deserve this, I would be interested in their thoughts.   

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Six-Toed Cats, a Studio and a $20,000 Swimming Pool: The Hemingway House

Posted on March 25, 2011 | 8 comments

Good morning everyone!
One of the places we visited last week while we were at Key West was the Hemingway house.  Ernest Hemingway lived there with his wife Pauline for about 9 years in the 1930’s.  (All of the facts listed in here came from the tour guide.  I hope I am remembering them correctly.)  This is the approach to the house from the side.

Side wall of the Hemingway House Grounds

 We came to the house this way because parking is a premium in Key West, and we found a lot about four blocks away, just after the intersection of Whitehead and Southard Streets as you head towards the Atlantic ocean, where you could park all day for $20, and he would let you drive away and come back to the lot later in the day.   

Cat in the Ticket Booth

This friendly feline was helping to greet visitors in the ticket booth.  Ernest Hemingway liked cats, and was particularly fond of those cats who have a mutation that gives them six toes.  The more scientific name is a “polydactyl” cat.  He had somewhere between 40 and 60 living on the grounds at the house while he was there, and the people who take care of the house now keep the population also around 40 to 50 cats.  Interestingly, each cat’s birth is recorded, so each of the cats currently residing at the house has its own geneological record.  The cats are everywhere through the grounds and the house and the staff works hard to keep them happy, so the cats will stay there.  (This was the one spot in Key West where we didn’t see any roosters;  I wonder why?  🙂  The roosters may be ubiquitous in Key West, but apparently they are not stupid!) 

The European Chandelier

This chandelier came from Europe and includes Venetian glass.  Pauline shipped it from Europe to use as a centerpiece of the house, and apparently it was the talk of the town once it was installed.  The house was originally built by a doctor, who paid to have the limestone coral base rock excavated to provide the only full basement in the city of Key West.  It sits on a full acre of land, which also makes it one of, if not the, largest homesteads in Key West.

Frances, the Cat, Asleep in the Master Bedroom

In the master bedroom, our tour group found Frances the cat comfortably curled up on the pillows at the top of the bed.  Yes, Frances really is her name; our tour guide told us that she was the least interactive among all of the cats at the house.  Laying there asleep in the master bedroom is as close as she gets to interaction.     

Books that Belonged to Hemingway

The upstairs hallway, although a little narrow, is lined with bookshelves on one side.  These books are not necessarily the ones that were in the house when Ernest Hemingway lived there, but they are books he owned and used or books given to him as gifts.  He had an estate in Cuba after he left Key West around 1939, and he kept most of his books there.  Unfortunately, the estate was confiscated by Castro after the Bay of Pigs invasion.   

The View from the Upper Veranda

 There is a huge veranda that wraps around the outside of the house on the second floor.  Mark took this picture for me.  On the front side of the veranda, you get a wonderful view of the Key West lighthouse through the branches of the African Tulip Tree on the house grounds.  The African Tulip Tree, as you might tell from the name, is not native to the Keys, and in the city of Key West they are rare.  The flowers on it are striking.

Ernest Hemingway’s Writing Studio
Behind the house is what used to be a coach house and barn.  When the Hemingways moved into the house, they converted the top floor into a writer’s studio, the first one Ernest Hemingway had.  He was a very disciplined writer, and would go out there every morning to write. 
Ernest Hemingway’s typewriter in the studio
I just had to take a close-up picture of the typewriter in the studio that he used to write on.  From a writing standpoint, I felt that I was standing on hallowed ground and I admit I was hoping that somehow wafts of inspiration and writing talent would descend upon me while I was standing there.   The most important thing I learned from the tour was simply to write every day.  Period.  Of course, it helps to have something to say, too! 

Lounging in the Writer's Studio

 One of the cats had found its way into the writer’s studio (human visitors can only view the studio through a piece of clear plastic, but the estate owners left an opening large enough in the bottom of the barrier for the cats to get in.)  He or she looked quite comfortable.

One of the Cat Feeding Areas

The estate has several areas where food is put out for the cats, and this was one of them.  It is between the house, and the writer’s studio and pool.  None of the cats were around it at the time we were there, but I am sure it is a frequent haunt of theirs!

Finally, since I was there as a tourist, and not thinking about blogging at the moment, I neglected to take a picture of the pool, but it is a beautiful salt water pool put on the grounds by Pauline.  It cost $20,000 to build in the 1930’s.  The dollar equivalent today I cannot even begin to calculate.  The reason it was so expensive is the hard coral bedrock of the island.  It took an extraordinary amount of manpower to excavate the bedrock out in order to put the pool in.  According to the tour guide, Pauline put to pool in while Ernest Hemingway was off on a trip somewhere.  When he came back, he tossed a penny in the pool, telling her that she might as well have his last cent, too.  She took it with good grace, given that it was her family’s money that paid for the pool, but kept the penny.  The same penny now is covered by plexiglass on the pool deck. 

Now a confession – I really can’t remember much about Hemingway’s writing, since I haven’t read anything of his since high school.  I do remember he had a spare writing style that let a few words do a lot of work.  However, my curiosity was piqued, so after we got back from Key West I hopped onto my trusty Kindle and downloaded two of his books that I hope to get to read sometime soon.  I really, really enjoy my Kindle, but that is a topic for another day!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

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Spring!, Roosters and Butterfly Farm

Posted on March 23, 2011 | 2 comments

Good morning everyone!  We have made it to Wednesday, and the weekend is in sight. 

  • Spring!

The same thing happens to me every spring – no, I don’t mean allergies.  At some point in the spring, I find myself wandering through the garden section of  the local Wal-Mart or Home Depot, looking at all of the flowers and vegetables that are available.  Even though I know any flower I plant has a less than 40% chance of survival (it’s the whole watering thing that gets me), visions of luscious gardens on a par with those at Calloway Gardens or Bellingrath gardens dance through my head, causing me to fall into some kind of a trance.  I wake up from the trance headed toward the car with a buggy full of flowers to plant that probably will die since they are not cacti and can’t live without watering.  Sigh.  I did manage to restrain myself somewhat this year; I got two big pots of peonies for the front porch (last year I managed to keep two similar pots alive through about June), some grass seed and fertilizer to use on bare spots in the back yard, and then caladium, lily and gladioli bulbs for two specific (small) areas in the front.  I envy all of you out there who are great gardeners!

  • Roosters

On to the roosters – here are two pictures Mark took for me of a rooster in Key West.

The most unusual thing about the roosters of Key West is the fact that is it not unusual to see one – they (and the hens and chicks) wander the streets freely and are protected from any harm by a city ordinance.  I never did quite figure out why there are so many of them and why they are allowed the run of the city streets, but they don’t bother anyone  and their colors are striking.  We not only saw a lot of roosters, but a couple of hens with their chicks following them at various places.   I was trying to imagine what it would be like for our family to live in Key West, and couldn’t get much past the image of No-no (Mandy) and Bad Dog (Darwin) repeatedly escaping from our yard to chase the roosters, and being brought back by the Key West police with multiple citations for us to deal with!

  • Butterfly Farm

For those of you who were wondering where Kayla was in the middle of all of this, she was having a great time with her Grandma Dottie.  One day, for example, they went to the butterfly farm, where no less than three butterflies landed on her! 

Mom said that Kayla sat still as long as this butterfly was sitting on her foot, and that that was several minutes!  One of the attendants was kind enough to take their picture together.

You have to look really close at Kayla to see it, but there is another butterfly on the foot that is toward the front, which is why she is standing so still. 

Kayla likes a lot of insects.  About the only ones she doesn’t like, and won’t handle or come near, are stinging insects like bees and wasps, spiders and cockroaches.  I have learned how to kill spiders if called upon to do so (revolutionary though that is to those who knew me in my youth) but I still won’t do cockroaches.  Mark has to be called in for a job like that.  Fortunately, we have only had one to kill the four years plus we have been in this house, and it conveniently appeared on a night when Mark was home!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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The End at the Beginning, Vegetarian (Not!) and The Beginning after the End

Posted on March 21, 2011 | 2 comments

  • The End at The Beginning

For those of you who didn’t know, or couldn’t guess from the pictures on Friday, Mark and I had the chance to go to Key West and stay for a few days during Kayla’s Spring Break, since Kayla wanted to spend Spring Break with my mom in Florida.  Key West is a long way from Alabama, so we finally got down there last Monday.  The very first thing we did once we got there was to drive to the end of U.S. 1.  This is a picture of the sign marking the end of U.S. 1.   It gave me quite an unreasonable sense of accomplishment to have driven to the end of U.S. 1, but doing so,  and traveling by car down the entire length of the Keys from Miami to Key West, are two things I have always wanted to do, and I finally got to do both on Monday!  Hence, the title:  at the end of U.S. 1, our vacation began!

  • Vegetarian (Not!)

As with any good trip, the journey to the destination had its moments, also.  The funniest came on the first leg of the trip, when we met my Mom and Kayla ( who were driving back to Mom’s house in a separate car) for lunch at the Cracker Barrel in Tifton.  Because St. Patrick’s Day was approaching, Mom decided to have corn beef and cabbage, which Cracker Barrel usually only sells during the first part of March.  Kayla finished eating before the other three of us, and was looking at what Mom was eating, so Mom, deducing that Kayla would not be interested in the corned beef or the cabbage, asked her if she would like to try some of the potatoes or carrots that came with the corned beef and cabbage.  Kayla looked at her and said emphatically, “I am NOT a vegetarian!”  Mark and I had to laugh!

  • The Beginning After The End

We reached home Saturday, and so yesterday we spent just kind of catching up on things.  While we were gone, pine pollen season arrived in Alabama.  Pine pollen season is extraordinary; a fine yellow-green dust covers everything that is standing still!  For example, here are two pictures of one of our cars from Sunday.  It is a black car, and had no pollen on it when we arrived at the house on Saturday.  After only one night of sitting outside, this is what it looked like:

Pollen Close-up

 

The plus side of pine pollen season is that it also means that the roses in front of our house have started blooming again.  For someone like me, who has a brown, not a green, thumb, (It’s the watering part that I fail at – as well as the weeding once the temperatures around here reach the mid to upper 90’s and stay there until at least September) the roses around the front of our house are a dream come true.  They are called Knock-out Roses:  they need no work (I know this because I have done nothing with them the entire time we have been in the house, except to have the  man who works on our yard for us to trim the bushes in the fall) and they bloom profusely all but about two months out of the year!

It was nice to have the roses greet us when we got home!

I have a lot more to say about Key West, and will spend several days saying it, but for now, it is time to get ready for work.  

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Thunderstorm Frenzy and Vacation Mystery

Posted on March 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

  • Thunderstorm Frenzy

Kayla has always been terrified of thunderstorms.  About a year ago, I was reminded of how much. 

After I picked Kayla up from after-school care, she and I needed to stop at the grocery store.  As we went in, a cloud was coming up from the west, but I thought we could get in and out of the store before the storm reached us.  Unfortunately, I was wrong. 

Right after we had gone through the check-out line, the leading edge of the storm hit, complete with fierce wind and driving rain.  Kayla wanted to stay at the store until the storm blew over, and I flat out refused.  She clung to my hand in the store and said, “But Mama, I am so light and I don’t want to blow away!”  I told her to hold my hand, as I was pretty sure I wouldn’t blow away.  Clinging to my hand like it was a lifeline and she was lost at sea, we hurried across the parking lot, where I safely deposited her in the car, after which I put the groceries in the back, got in the driver’s seat, and headed us back home.

Unfortunately, we have several stop lights to go through before we reach the house, and one of them turned red.  I stopped.  Kayla started pleading from the front seat, “Mama, please keep going.  I don’t care if you go to jail, let’s just go through the light.”  (Item:  There were nine cars ahead of me!).  I said wryly, “Thanks.” and she replied, “I don’t care if we both go to jail, just keep on going!” 

Luckily for me, the light changed then so we could keep going forward.  I was trying to help her, so I told her to try closing her eyes and instead of listening to the thunder, listen to the rain hitting the roof.  She tried that for a minute, then opened her eyes back up again with a “What now?” look.  I said to her, “Now, pretend that the sound you are hearing is either fairies or pixies dancing on the roof.”  At that, she opened her eyes wide, looked at me, and, this child who had been losing her mind in the thunderstorm, stated matter of factly, “Mom, you’re embarrasing yourself.”  At least she stopped thinking about the storm for a minute!

  • Vacation Mystery

Mark and I recently had the opportunity to spend some time on vacation at an absolutely wonderful place!  I am waiting for some pictures we took with an old-fashioned disposable camera to get developed before I talk about it, but I will definitely have a lot to share next week.  See if you can guess where the place was by the following pictures (no fair guessing if you already know where we went!):

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy

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