We drove down to Key West with hopes to tour Ernest Hemingway’s house to see all the 6 toed cats, take a

picture at the Southern Most Point in the contiguous U.S., see the wild chickens and roosters that freely roam the streets, and attend the Sunset Party on Mallory Square.  We only managed to do two of those things though because we got there later than originally planned. :(

This is a section of the famous Seven Mile Bridge.  It connects the Key Islands together.  It has been used in quite a few movies - True Lies (a section was blown up for the movie), 2 Fast 2 Furious, License To Kill, CrissCross and Up Close and Personal.  It was also featured in the British TV show Top Gear.

It was funny seeing trees growing on parts of the old parallel railroad bridge out in the middle of no where.

I loved all the fabulous moss growing off of the giant old trees in downtown Key West.

I also really liked the plants on top of this building.

We LOVED, LOVED, LOVED all the “wild” roosters and chickens freely roaming the downtown area.  The roosters, being roosters, often fought with each other.  I’d love to live in a town with random foul roaming around!  It’s quite a controversy there in Key West though.  Most people seem to hate them because of messes they make and dealing with domineering roosters.  Luckily, there are rooster and chicken relocation programs that will catch them and move them to a forever farm in mainland Florida.

We made our way over to Ernest Hemingway’s house but, sadly, it was already closed for the day.  We just missed it.

We were disappointed because we really wanted to locate as many of the 6 toed cats living on his property as we could.  We also wanted to see the penny that he had cemented into his wife’s fountain, which he

said, after all the money spent on his home, was “his last penny”.At least, we were able to see a few of the cats through the fence.

Too far away to could their toes, though. :)

So, we walked on down to Duval Street to head towards Mallory Square for the Sunset Street Party. 

We saw lots of interested buildings, street performers, and a funny little train trolley thing.

They have a Sunset Watching Party complete with many, many street performers swallowing swords, juggling fire, animals jumping through hoops, one man bands, magicians, escape artists, etc. and artists selling their masterpieces, every single night!

This dog comes and gets your dollar bills to put in the donation bucket if you like this guy’s performance and want to donate to him.

The sunset was BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!

I found Gluten free Easily’s webpage on eating gluten free in Key West.  Yay!!  We chose to eat at Caroline’s Cafe and, after speaking to the manager, we chose the Fisherman’s Meal, or whatever it was called.  It was a

huge portion of freshly caught blackened fish with huge sides of rice pilaf and steamed broccoli. We also chose to have a side of Caesar Salad since we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and were STARVING!!! It was super, super YUMMY and very filling!!!!! Sadly, I didn’t get a picture but there are some on Gluten Free Easily’s website of the blackened fish she chose over a Caesar salad.  The manager is going to try to put together a gluten free menu to make it all easier. YAY!

We also used a website called Key West and the Florida Keys to gather ideas on what we wanted to see while down visiting the Florida Keys.  Great website full of pictures!

Also see our other Florida pages

Hawk’s Cay

Sea Turtle Hospital

Gatorland

Epcot