Key West and Fort Jefferson
We’ve been in the Florida Keys for almost a week. The weather has not been ideal, more cold than usual like the rest of the country. It was a bit tricky to find a spot to stay, so we’re in our second campground now. Key West is interesting but not really what I expected. The islands are scenic, but absolutely flat. As for downtown, it is mostly gift shops and restaurants and bars. With an emphasis on bars. Most of the people walking around are drunk and showing it. The gift shops are pretty much all selling the same old tired junk, like teeshirts with sayings that are only funny here where everyone else is drunk too. Ingrid and I spent the evening browsing the shops and many times I had to turn around and walk right back out. It was either clothing that belongs in a strip club or the teeshirts with the obscene sayings.
For Valentine’s day, we took a boat trip to Fort Jefferson, about 70 miles out from the Keys into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s part of the Dry Tortugas National Park. The boat trip there took about two hours and was very bumpy at times. Almost everyone on board got sick. None of us did, but we all came close enough that we were holding sick bags.
The fort itself was impressive, as were the cannons and other structures. The photos speak for themselves. Our guide was really knowledgeable and a good storyteller. Plus, she gave Ingrid an ice cream sandwich when no one was looking! I learned a lot about the history of the fort, including that it was built all in brick. The bricks were brought in ships from Maine. Sixteen million in all, I believe. Each trip to Maine took 3 weeks one way. Two thousand people lived on Dry Tortugas island, including “northern slaves”. These were the military men who were caught doing something bad, like sleeping on the job or visiting their family at unauthorized times. They were sentenced 3-5 years service on Dry Tortugas- unbelievable! The guide called this the mistake of their lives. The humidity on this island is 95% in the summer and fresh water is very scarce. The sewage plan never worked so it constantly stunk. Several attempted escape, but none made it alive. This fort never delivered a blow in anger, not even during the Civil War. It seems that a lot of their plans for the fort never made it to completion. There was also a handmade boat on display that had just arrived in December, with 17 cuban refugees. It was tiny, and it was sobering to see how desperate people are to escape Cuba. I was glad to see that they were all granted citizenship. Sorry if you feel differently, it’s one thing to read about this kind of thing and have an opinion, and another entirely to see the actual boat in front of you after having ridden only 1/24th the amount of time that they did to get here, on a much more comfortable and large boat!
Ingrid and I really loved the beach here. Pure, soft, fine sand and of course the beautiful pale aqua ocean with its gently lapping waves. The seashells were amazing, and easily the best I’ve ever seen. Maybe it’s because I’m used to California beach seashells, which are tiny. Here there were huge conches, spiral-looking ones, huge pieces of coral, dead but vibrantly blue jellyfish, and some bright purple plants. I’d always wondered where those huge shells come from, and now I know. I just wish we could have stayed longer. I told Andrew it was surreal to see all those beautiful shells, just laying there for the picking, for free. This trip was expensive, so I don’t think many kids make it out to the island, and hence the shells are unclaimed.
There’s camping here, where the boat drops you off and picks you up the next day. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be alone on an island 70 miles from civilization, sleeping under the stars and surrounded by this huge fort with all its ghosts. We’re saying maybe to this idea. But not right now. We have to get back to Fort Lauderdale, where my sister and mom are coming to visit with us for a few days.
Ingrid met a little girl here who only spoke Japanese, except for the word “hi”. She said hi to Ingrid about 4000 times today, every opportunity she had. Ingrid was really sweet to her, and she ended up following us around most of the day. They picked up pretty shells together and Ingrid did silly things while Miaki (?) giggled.
There are also some kids next door to us here at the campground, but they’re older. Homeschooled. I knew it right away, when I heard one of them playing the flute. No kid I know brings their flute on vacation and plays it outside. They also had that open friendliness and genuine curiosity that I’ve come to know from the homeschoolers. The more neat homeschoolers we meet on the road, the more proud Ingrid is to call herself one.
Yesterday, Ingrid and I headed to Pirate Soul, a museum, while Andrew took vanny to his photo shoot. I must say it was one of the better museums I’ve been to. Every exhibit was interactive, and so well done. Authentic pistols, muskets, newspapers of the time with intriguing stories, a real treasure chest, pirate booty called “pieces of eight”, even the horrific confession from one of the more famous pirates. Each room was decorated such that it took you into a scene, like the deck of a ship or into the town square where you witnessed the hanging of a caught buccaneer. Did you know that they sometimes put the hanged body into a cage and let it rot for all the townspeople to see? We got to hold a musket and go through the many steps it took to load a pistol in those days, only to be able to fire it maybe twice during the battle! After seeing all this brutality, which was sometimes too much for Ingrid, we walked into the gift shop where to my dismay Ingrid informed me that she wanted a pink “pirate princess” flag to hang above her bed. I tried to explain to her that princesses really have nothing to do with pirates, but of course she didn’t care. Instead I gently steered her toward the dress up section, where she chose a pistol and pirate captain hat. I gave in to that. I never thought Ingrid would want to own a pistol but she’s been playing with it now happily for two days. Just by coincidence, our current chapter book is Treasure Island. We are about 60% into the book and I’ve been surprised and delighted at how much Ingrid likes this book. It is brutal, but not in a gory way. I was skeptical that she chose this book out of the ten or so that I had picked out for our next book, but it turns out this was a great choice.
