Saturday, October 25, 2014
Wow, woke up to blue sky and sunshine. It’s the first time we have seen the sun since last Sunday. In the last two days we heard some parts of the Keys got 10 inches of rain. As you might imagine, there are big puddles around. We were glad our campsite was on a concrete pad.
We departed Pennekamp about 10:30 with plans to make a stop along the way before getting to Bahia Honda State Park. We had several choices, but decided on Crane Point at Mile Marker 50 south of Marathon. This is a 63 acre preserve owned by a non-profit group with a mission to save hardwood hammocks from development.
Crane Point is named for Francis and Mary Crane who owned the property in 1954, but the draw for us was the Adderley House. George Adderly moved to this area with his family from the Bahamas. About 30 others joined him later; time period, early 1900s. The interesting thing was that George used tabby for his house. Tabby is a mixture of sand, lime, and rocks or shells. Lime was made by burning shells, usually oyster at a high temperature. It was dangerous work because the lime was caustic. They used salt water to make the tabby, but then had to remove the salt or the concrete would be weak. Not sure how they did that. This is a picture of Tabby construction.
Tabby was used like mortar between the rocks and shells to form the walls, then more Tabby was used like stucco to provide a smooth wall surface.
Considering this house is over 100 years old and has survived numerous hurricanes, offers testament to the durability of the construction method.
This is a hammock, which means drier tolerant plants and trees. There are also strand areas containing mangroves trees. A surprising find were cactus in the hammock areas.
Back on the road toward Bahia Honda SP we crossed the seven mile bridge. Along side is the old bridge that Flagler built. This stretch of the old railway is not wide enough to support today’s highway requirements, so the new span was built. Seeing the arches used to support the rail and the fact that they are still intact after 100+ years of storms is impressive.
Although pretty nice, this park is not quite as nice as Pennekamp. The electric is convenient, but the water is a good 75 feet away and it is noisy. US1 runs within 100 yards of the campground and since it’s elevated and surrounded by water, the traffic noise is high. Lucky Lynn, she will not be bothered by it for sleeping.
We finished off the day wandering around the park, here are some pictures.
Bay Bean
Monday October 27, 2014
Today we are off to Key West, about 35 miles down the road. We heard the place can get zooey later in the day, so we got an early start. The Island Fest wrapped up yesterday, so we are hoping for a quieter day.
First stop was the Southern Most marker. Probably everyone who visits KW takes a picture, here is ours.
First impressions of Key West…..cross between Old McDonald’s Farm and Jurassic Park. Chickens are running around everywhere, they’re more common than pigeons. And there are lizards, big lizards, like 3 feet big! We understand there is an iguana problem here due to release of pets.
Although we have seen many lighthouses, we wanted to visit the one in Key West to have a chance to climb to the top for a look around. There was a bonus, the grounds had Seward Johnson statues. We have seen several of his pieces in Cadillac. They are bronze with either paint or an alloy to modify the bronze color. Here are a couple pictures.
The lighthouse was also interesting since its early keeper was a woman, Barbara Mabrity. Actually, she got the job when here husband died. They had six kids, so for obvious reasons, stayed on the job so she had a house and a small wage. In 1846, the original lighthouse, a wooden structure at the edge of the island got blown away by a hurricane. It also took the lives of all her children, only she survived.
The current lighthouse was relocated inland to a high spot and made of concrete. In 1847 she resumed her duties until the age of 82. Think about hauling oil, trimming wicks, climbing 88 steps 4-5 times a day. We did it once and that was enough!
Not being big fans of Hemmingway or Truman, we skipped past those houses to tour. We did stop at Flagler Station, the old depot for the Florida East Coast Railway. Inside was a lot of info about construction of the bridges, Flagler’s life, and the FECR Extension. We plan to visit Pigeon Key tomorrow and expect to learn more, so we will cover Flagler and the Florida East Coast RR in a later post.
We stopped at Kermit’s for a badly over priced piece of Key Lime Pie. Very tasty! Mallory Square and the Historic Seaport were interesting but a bit touristy for our liking. The Key West Art Museum is in the old US Customs House.
The Historic Boat Basin was a collection of really big yachts, fishing charter boats, shops, and restaurants.
In Mallory Square, was a sculpture park with busts and descriptive signs telling about the individual. Additionally, a statue depicts Wreckers. The guys would salvage cargo and ships that ran aground on the reef. It was big business. Unscrupulous Wreckers put up lights intentionally mismarking the reef location before the lighthouse was built. Despite the later presence of a lighthouse, it was still common to have 500 shipwrecks per year. The salvage of these shipwrecks spawned a large import export business for Key West. .
Our last stop to tell you about was the Key West Cemetery. The draw to come here is the Spanish/American War Memorial. Not surprising due to elevation above sea level, almost all graves are above ground mausoleums.
Lizards and Chickens
This one was in the cemetery.
In the middle of the street, for crying out loud!
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