Key West, Florida

Oh me, Oh my! It sure was good to be back in the good ole USA. Granted we had a good time in our other ports of call, but as Dorothy soon learned, "There's no place like home" and we reveled in it.

Once again another beautiful sunrise. Never tire of those. Another Carnival ship was pulling in after we had already docked. The Coast Guard boat was going out to escort them in, complete with a gun on the bow.

Peggy and I enjoyed The Old Man without the sea. The reddish building is the former Custom House, now the Museum of Art and History

Row 1 ~ Tim, the best tour guide ever, showed us these sights from the Old Town Trolley. He pulled the trolley bell and right on cue, this little man ran out of the Key Lime shop carrying a pie in his hands. I almost got it ~ wonder if he would have let me keep it...or maybe it was one of those fake ones the Asians use in all their restaurants to let one know what the fare looks like. The Key West Hard Rock Cafe is uniquely different. Legend has it that this old three-story Victorian style house is still haunted by the ghost of its original owner, Robert Curry, who meanders along the corridors. Row 2 ~ Trinity Presbyterian Church is an African American Church Founded in 1892 by the London Missionary Society; established as a Wesleyan Methodist mission church to the Bahamian immigrants.  In 1931, the Presbyterian Church took it over when the London Society felt it was too expensive to send missionaries from London and the Bahamas. The Strand Theatre is now an interesting Walgreens. A nice B and B displaying the American flag, Florida state flag, and the Conch Republic flag so named for the time when Key West wanted to secede from the US. Row 3~ The Southernmost on the Beach Hotel. Next, the Southernmost House followed by the Southernmost Southernmost House. Are you getting the picture here? Sounds a bit like one-upmanship.

The girls in front of the famous Hemingway House wall. Legend has it that Hemingway stole the brick from the city and built the wall with his buddies from Sloppy Joe's Bar. The city found out and fined him a penny a brick. The house was surrounded by the wall so it wasn't easy to get a photo. One of the 6-toed cats that have the run of the entire estate, inside and out. A wedding took place in the outside garden while we were there.

Key West is the End of US 1 and the furthest South one can travel and still be in the USA. Polar Bear Ice Cream enjoyed by Willie and Polly. One of the ubiquitous roosters on the island. Polly heard them cock-a-doodle-doing whilst on the ship this morning

Some of the many establishments. "Daydream", a 3-D Matisse behind the former Customs House.

Back on the ship. Jane is one of the lovely dancers who put on the Vegas-style shows that we enjoyed. One evening I was sitting next to her boyfriend who is from Johannesburg. She is from Oxford, England and they live together on the ship. Oh to be young and full of ambition with no inhibitions again. Richard and I played Bingo. We had to form the letter T. Neither of us won = (. The final photo is of the young lady who was our Head Waitress most of the nights. Her name is Lurlek, from Thailand.The majority of the staff were from Croatia, Thailand, India, Belarus, very young, and hard-working. It was a delight getting to know them.

Saturday we played Hand and Foot all day. Carolyn and I called it a night by 9PM. We decided to leave the door open so as to be lulled to sleep on our last night by the sound of the wake gently flowing behind the ship. We both woke at 11 as the boat was starting to rock. Looking outside we realized there were whitecaps on both sides of the wake that were wider than the wake itself. The spray was rather heavy so we closed the door. We awoke again at 2 and then 4. At 4, we turned off the alarm clock, and stayed up. Thus ended our last night onboard.