Rolling Ledfords: First Stop: Key West

Monday, December 12, 2016
I woke up at 6:30 am this morning and quietly slipped out on the balcony to watch the sunrise letting Ken sleep a bit longer. The heavy clouds in the east kept us from seeing much of the sunrise but it was pleasant just sitting outside and watching the sky and seas and thanking God for all of this beauty and the opportunities He has given up for travel and to see this beautiful world He created.

Since Ken was up shortly after I got up, we decided to get dressed and head up to the Oceanview Cafe for breakfast before the rest of the ship would be up there causing a huge "traffic jam." And indeed, it was pretty quiet so we were able to settle at a table right next to the rail in the aft of the ship where we could enjoy a delicious breakfast and watch as we began to pull into the "keys".

We wandered the outside areas of the upper floors of the ship with the specific goal of watching the ship dock in downtown Key West. This is the first time for this ship at this port and also the largest ship to come into Key West. Wow did we take up alot of space!!!! I tried to get a picture of the full length of the ship after we got off but it was impossible.

Our primary goal was to walk to Ernest Hemmingway's home for a tour but we'd barely got going when we noticed these wonderful statues

outside an old building as well as sidewalk made up of blocks telling the history of Key West.

We climbed up on the wrap around porch of the building to see yet another unique statue

and then continued around to the front.

It turned out this was the old custom house that is now the Key West Museum of Art History. What a treasure!!! Two hours later we were ready to move on after seeing some marvelous pencil drawings lining the stair walls all the way up to the 3rd floor. They illustrated Ernest Hemmingway's book "The Old Man and the Sea." with a quote from the book mounted by each photo to show what the picture was representing.

The hallways and rooms were filled with fascinating stories, illustrations and history of the area including bas relief pictures created by Mario Sanchez

showing his many memories of the old Key West he had lived in since his childhood.

Like in this carving he shows the workers rolling cigars and the reader (on the left) who kept them informed and entertained while they worked. (his father had been a reader)

Tennessee Williams had lived here too and not only wrote but produced paintings - not the best

but then he was famous so guess that makes them "wonderful enough for a museum".

There were many displays and printed histories from Hemmingways life including this statue of him

There was the whole story of Flagler building the railroad, creating long bridges along the way and then the total loss of all of that in a terrible hurricane that killed many residents especially in Long Key and totally destroyed the connecting bridges and roads such that the Keys could only be accessed via boats yet again.