South of the Frost Line

I spent most of yesterday on a train.  Not a classic steam train or even a commuter train but the Conch  Train. We followed US Highway 1 to it's demise into the southern seas to the island within ninety miles of Havanna, Cuba. The  southern most city in the U. S. of A, Key West, Florida.  After taking the bridge from the mainland which for over one hundred and thirty miles touches down on about  dozen islands US-1 becomes Roosevelt Boulevard in Key West. Fortunately, we found a parking space two blocks off Duval Street.  Duval has been called one of the longest streets in the world because it reaches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. My travel companion had a craving for one of the most famous meals in the world as recorded in song by Jimmy Buffett,  "A Cheeseburger in Paradise". Key West has the pay-to-park system now.  Simply insert your credit card or non-plastic currency into a vending machine that spits out a ticket which you place on the dash of your car indicating how much parking time you have purchased. As we walked toward the Margaritaville Cafe,  the Conch Train goes by loaded with aging American tourists and younger Asians.  We wave as the "engineer" expertly guides the train down the narrow streets. Key West  has an ambiance all it's own, more like the islands of the Caribbean than the mainland. We window shop the dozens of shops selling all things tourist  on the way to the restaurant. Our server wears a t-shirt with printed graphic and  white short shorts. Blonde curls tumble over her shoulders and she has the friendly smile of and island girl. We order two of the famous cheeseburgers and a couple of Landshark lagers. (Gotta help boost the size of the Buffett empire!)
Although the song says the the cheeseburger is served with "a cold draft beer" , Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Cafe does not sell draft beer.  We enjoyed our burgers which filled a need and finished our meal off with a slice of Key lime pie.  I maintain that you can't get decent Key lime pie north of Marathon Key. Back on the street we walked toward Truman Street and the Conch Train station. The store buildings are old along Duval as indeed they are in all of Key West's "old town" and sidewalks are rough.  As we crossed a street we were almost hit by a bicycle built for two. They were natives, I think.  He appeared somewhat aged, shirtless, thin, and wearing flip-flops. His grayshoulder length hair and chest length beard flowed in the sea breeze.  She on the other hand was prim and proper perched on the seat.  She was dressed in a pale print sundress, with wide brim hat, large sunglasses and her light brown hair was in a bun. She had a trim youthful figure and long tapered legs with sandal clad feet that barely reached the bicycle pedals. Her attitude was nonchalant as she touched up her bright red lipstick. We were  on the artsy end of Duval Street known for it's many  galleries. It seems that this part of the street was once populated with bars and various and sundry businesses catering to sailors.  But when he U.S. Navy left Key West in the eighties all those businesses went belly up.   The city in an effort to revitalize sold the buildings for one dollar each to anyone who would restore them.  Many artists bought buildings and created their own galleries.

At the corner of Truman and Duval is one of the four Conch Train stations.  We bought our tickets and were soon aboard.  Since there were passengers already aboard we got very poor seats. We had the last seat in a car.  The absolute worse seat on the train.  They should discount this ticket.  Not only does it face the rear, it is designed for pygmies from equatorial Africa. The train driver/tour guide was a woman with the voice of a sideshow barker. Her feeble attempts humor were disastrous.
At the next station near the sea we got off and went into the Overseas Railroad Museum. It had a lot of information and memorabilia of what was known as "Flagler's Folly". But it was a folly no more when Henry Flagler finished the rail road in 1912.  The 128 mile railroad connected mainland Florida to Key West. In about twenty minutes another Conch Train arrived. This was not our first ride on this kind of train. They are fairly common in tourist areas.  We have ridden them in St.

Augustine  and Carcassonne, France. This driver/tour guide is great, a constant flow of good information from his mouth.  Our train weaves through the narrow as he extolls the virtues of this island at the bottom of thee country. We pass Truman's "Little White House", Ernest Hemingway's house, the southern most house in the U.S.A. and dozens more famous landmarks. One intriguing landmark is the southern most point marker. There must a hundred people there waiting in line to have their picture taken with this cylindrical chunk of concrete. We did not.  There is a Cuban part of the city. Many Cuban immigrated to Key West to work in the cigar industry and their influence is still there. Probably the biggest mark they left are the chickens. Like the Hawaiian Islands, there a free range chickens all over Key West.  It seems that when the Cubans came to the city they brought with  them the sport of cockfighting.  They brought their fighting chickens with them.  When they found that cockfighting was illegal the released all their chickens.  Therefore, they are now are free range chickens.  But these are not ordinary free range chickens they are chickens protected by law. In Florida all wild birds are protected by law.  Since the chickens are no longer considered domesticated they are therefore wild and protected. We passed Mel Fisher's Museum and the Wreckers Museum and other tourist attractions which I found mildly interesting.  And then we were in new town, the part of the city reclaimed from the sea, as the Train traveled on along bougainvillea shrouded lanes.  We passed the old high school building with it's Tiger mascot out front.  The tiger is over twelve feet long and built by the students in the metal shop from an old automobile. If you look closely you'll see that the tail is an exhaust pipe and the white fangs in his mouth are  spark plugs.  The new high school has the conch as it's mascot. I think it would be quite a contest for the "Fighting Conchs" to play the "Fighting Rainbows" in football. (There's a Hawaiian high school with the Rainbow as it's mascot.) Throughout the Florida Keys the conch shell is prominently displayed and locals refer to themselves as conchs. There was once even a Conch Republic.  It seems that in 1982 the U.S. Border Patrol set up a check station controlling all traffic to and from the Florida Keys. The residents of the Keys responded saying that if they were going to be treated like a foreign country they would oblige by succeeding from the union.  The Conch Republic surrendered after a few minutes of independence and then asked for foreign aid.

After the train ride ended we had great barbecue at Daddy Bones  across the street from our hotel. The place has that smokey odor that is only found in barbecue joints. The decor is bight and colorful  with a sofa made of the tail fins of a a 1959 Cadillac. Our food was great and served by a cute tattooed girl with an obvious surgically enhanced bosom.

Thursday morning after a breakfast by the pool at our hotel we met a friend of Claudette's for coffee at Starbucks on Duval Street. The place was packed. No seats could be found.  We walked back up the street and found a bench at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. While the two old friends reminisced and caught up on what was current in their lives I checked out the church which in 1831 was the first non-Catholic church on the island.  The impressive concrete building has beautiful stained glass windows.  What I found most interesting was that many of the windows pivoted open for ventilation.  Although this architectural detail caught my attention it paled in comparison to the beautiful music emanating from the sanctuary.  I followed my ears to find two people on the bench in front of the keyboard of a grand piano.  Four hands were tickling those ivories. I chatted briefly with the man and woman responsible for the beautiful music. They said that concerts were regularly scheduled at the church during the noon hour.  Some classical music and a few pops with a few bits on the pipe organ too. But, alas, I would not be around to hear their performances. Highway US-1 would take us north and by noon we would be sitting by the Gulf of Mexico eating conch fritters with rice and black beans at Porky's Barbecue on Marathon Key. The fritters weren't anything to write home about but the beans, rice and plantains were tops. The only city in the continental United State that is frost free was far behind now.

By late afternoon we were in the Art Deco area of Miami and eating Cuban food and reminiscing about our time south of the frost line.