Day 48 - New Year’s Eve and the Conch Shell Drop

The day started with a walk to Hemingway House for a tour.  We figured the lines would be shorter earlier in the day and we were right.  We walked right in.  One of the most famous aspects of the house and grounds are the cats that live there.  It seems Hemingway was superstitious, and when he found a six-toed cat, he wanted to keep it for good luck.  Today there are 45 descendants of that first cat here, 23 of which have 6 toes.  There are signs all over the house asking you not to sit on the furniture, but the cats can, and they do!  Outside there is a cat cemetery.  Hemingway was very prolific during his years in Key West, and he wrote in a small studio building behind the main house.  The pool was put in by his second wife, Pauline, after he left for Europe with the woman who would become his third wife.  She replaced his boxing ring with a very large (for the time) and expensive swimming pool. 

 

 

 

 

 

By now the morning clouds broke for some welcome sun.  Our next was at the Key West Legal Rum distillery.  David from Philadelphia opened the place on Christmas Day 2013, so we were among his first customers.  He had 2 rums for us to taste, original and vanilla.  Both were very smooth due to the fact that they are made from sugar cane and not molasses (according to David).  The only one we could buy was the original, so we did.

 

The Key West Winery is right next door, so we stopped in there too.  We tasted 4 wines and bought 2 – Hurricane and Blackberry.  This was enough shopping for Randy, so he puttered around the boat, then walked back through the Seaport to the only store he gets excited about, West Marine.  I went back into town and bought some sandals at the Kino Sandal factory, where they make the sandals right there.  I also decided on some sunglasses to replace those that I lost when I went “swimming” in Longboat Key and picked up a couple other items.

Our New Years Eve reservation was at Azur, an intimate local restaurant that I mentioned previously.  They served a four course dinner and there were a few selections you could make for each course.  The food was excellent again with some delicious sauces and flavors.

 

Later we joined the crowd on Duval Street to watch the Conch Shell drop on the roof of Sloppy Joe’s at midnight.  We yelled out the final countdown and very much appreciated spending the evening in summer clothes and sandals rather than freezing in Chicago. 

 

 

From there we went to the Smoking Tuna, just off Duval for a drink and some music before calling it a night.