March 18th through 20th, 2008

Tuesday 18~~~We drove to Portland today and we spent the night at the Raddison Inn, near the airport. We stayed up late and morning came too early for Sharon, we almost missed our shuttle. The flight went well and soon we arrived at Miami, Florida. We rented a car and off to Key West we went. Sharon had never seen the Florida Keys before and it was quite interesting, very boring if you live there and have to drive that long stretch of road to Miami very often. Key West is a very delightful fun place, We drove all over and saw so many things. We went to the "Everglades National Park this afternoon and we saw a lot of crocodiles. (picture) We are now at the furthermost South East point of the United States. (picture) We have now been to three of the four points. We will see the last one when we do our trip to Maine.That evening we went to "Jimmy Buffet's bar of course and as we walked in the door, a man just fell off of his bar stool. They told us to come on over and sit down if we weren't afraid of the stool throwing us off. LOL (Picture) Sharon liked the large screen showing old shows of Jimmy performing and singing. It took a lot of looking to find the studio where he records his music in Key West, it is an old ice house down on the wharf. From there we went out for a wonderful meal at an American style fish house. All of the buildings are open in front to the street, kind of like New Orleans. We took the tour of Ernest Hemingway's house (pictures) and learned his life story, he was a most unusual man with his many wives and strange ways but his home was neat. We have never read any of his books, but after the tour, Sharon wants to read "As the Bell Tolls". One of the pictures is his study and the other picture is a picture of Hemingway at various ages.