Week in the Florida Keys

Every winter Rob and Kile take a one-week winter vacation. For many years we went to places where we could go cross-country skiing, but after several years of bad luck with the weather we decided to try warm places instead. Last year we went to Arizona and this year we decided on the Florida Keys. We stayed at a time-share resort located on Lower Matacumbe Key. Lower Matacumbe is one of the Keys that form the "Village of Islands," Islamorada.
The weather was lovely and mild, albeit a bit windy at times. Here are some pictures from our trip.

	The resort where we stayed was called Topsider. It consisted of 20 individual apartments, with each apartment raised on stilts to protect it from damage in the event of a hurricane. Here you see a view of one of the neighboring apartments taken from the apartment we were staying in.
This is a view of the apartment we were staying in. The grounds were nicely landscaped with lots of flowering bushes and trees.
	The interior consisted of a large living room, dining room and kitchen and then there were two bedrooms and two baths. The picture here was taken from the kitchen. We spent an afternoon at a place called Theater of the Seas and in the following pictures you will see some of the attractions there. They have trained dolphins, parrots, and sea lions as well as lots of fish and turtles. In particular they act as a rescue agency for injured turtles.


We spent a day in Key West and we'd love to go back there some time and spend several days there. One of the attractions of Key West is the Hemingway House. The house is fixed up the way it was when Hemingway lived there, including the very odd fact that there are no ceiling fans anywhere in the house. Hemingway's wife didn't like the way fans looked and had them all replaced with crystal chandeliers. Hemingway loved cats and they had lots of cats in the house and on the grounds. One particular cat was a six-toed cat. The organization that owns the Hemingway House now, maintains the tradition and they always have around 40 cats. Many of them are polydactylic (i.e. have 6 toes) and are descended from Hemingway's first six-toed cat. The black and white cat in the picture below clearly shows extra digits.

	Hemingway did his writing in a studio that was separate from the house. It was built above the garage. The typewriter on the table is supposedly the one that Hemingway actually used when he lived in Key West.
One of the things you have to do when you are in Key West is watch the sunset from Mallory Square. As the sun starts to go down, a huge crowd gathers at Mallory Square where they can watch acrobats and jugglers and magicians and listen to singers while waiting for the sun to set. Numerous boats take tourists out to see the sunset from the water.

Our trip to the Florida Keys