Travelers Palm Inn

     If you like to travel you really must put the drive on the Overseas Highway on your bucket list.  It is fascinating, weird, beautiful, tedious, and fun.  At times the scenery is miles of mangroves and scrub.  Other sections are miles of run down motels, dive shops, boat yards, and seafood cafes.  Some areas are full of new construction and fancy shops.  Everywhere the brilliant turquoise blue ocean peeks around the buildings.  Sometimes the road is just a few feet above the water.  Sometimes the road is a bridge that goes on forever - one bridge is seven miles long.  You are always aware of the sea and boats.

    The water is both a threat and a promise.  The single road back to the safety of higher ground would take days to evacuate the islands, so you have to be a bit of a gambler to live here.  However, the sea that can be wild is a shimmering jewel today, just begging us to stop and watch the sea birds, fish, snorkel, and swim.  Miles and miles of warm water in infinite shades of turquoise.  

     The outskirts of Key West look like any tourist town - motel chains, fast food, gas stations.  I am disappointed until we cross into the historic district where the flavor of Hemingway's Key West is everywhere.  Narrow streets, small cottages, sidewalk cafes.  

    When i was planning this trip I looked online for a place in the historic district and found a set of three pretty two bedroom cottages where one bedroom can be made into a studio apartment with a microwave and mini-fridge.  Our little home in Key West is just beautiful.  The cottages cluster around a courtyard with a pool that is surrounded by palms, bamboo, and orchids.  It is a little oasis. 

    We unpacked and went to the pool which is just 20 steps from our door.  It is solar heated and perfectly warm.  We spent the rest of the afternoon floating in the pool, reading on the chaise lounges, and barbecuing our dinner on the nearby grill.  Another couple stopped by for a quick swim, but otherwise it was as if we had our own pool.  The breeze came up a bit as the sun set, but it has been in the low 80's each day and, here in Key West, 70 overnight.