Key West: The Final Day

I was able to get this editing window to stay without going blank using Safari for the first time in 4 days. The window still empties of all content if I try to sign on using Firefox.

I'm putting the final entry about Key West on here today, and hoping that I shall be able to continue posting using Safari.

We went swimming in our hotel’s huge pool every chance we got. The Inn at Key West has the largest fresh water pool on the key, and it provides a rich tropical oasis for the crazed tourist mind and body. Every evening upon returning from our touring and especially the last day of our trip to key west we did marathon swimming. The pool area was beautiful after dark and we took another swim before retiring each night of our stay in Key West.

We scheduled no touring for our final day on the key. Instead we spent most of the day lounging in the sun and swimming. We went into Old Town late in the afternoon for a walk through some of the back streets in old town and then to dinner on the porch at Café Sole, a wonderful little restaurant on the corner of Francis and Southard. We had conch Carpaccio, hogshead snapper in a borie blanc (white wine sauce made from white bordeaux), and a desert sampler. *1 The hog’s head snapper is a local fish; buttery, mild and sweet, perfect in the sauce. I’ve had conch in the past and wondered what all the fuss was about. This time I thought the Carpaccio was to die for. The porch is intimate and the service impeccable. One small complaint, the tables are a bit close, which did lead to a friendly conversation with two Catholic priests. *2 You don’t have to take our word because Café Sole has won all kinds of local “best restaurant” awards, as well as from Wine Spectator, and in Zagat Magazine for “the best in the keys.”

The next morning and afternoon we drove home through a cloudy mist filled ocean, gulf, and island seascape that totally obscured the usual intense pastel and aqua color of the shallow water surrounding the keys. I took no photographs, as I was totally disappointed. However, that was the only thing that was not delightful about our too short 3-day trip to Key West. Jaded friends have said that “once you’ve been to the keys 4 or 5 times there’s nothing else to do other than the tourist stuff.” I say the tropical ambience alone is worth it. Next time I’ll pack a couple of books, the iBook and iPod, book a small, private inn with a lap pool in a quiet section of old town, and we’ll plop ourselves down for a few days of total relaxation. Perhaps we’ll even go out to Ricks one night to watch the younger set party and dance.

Notes

*1 Borie is a place in Bergerac, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France.

*2 The Catholic Church is taking such a terrible beating over the priest molestation issue, and the institution deserves the beating. To claim that God in his infinite wisdom had men write that homosexuality is unacceptable 2000 years ago – in other words, singled out a sexuality as yet undefined a scant hundred-fifty years ago - deserves whatever visitation of bad luck (karma) accrued. At the same time, I don’t pretend to speak for God as the Catholic and evangelical churches do. I just want to say as a non church going Christian that every Catholic priest I ever had the privilege of knowing was a kind and good person.