Our latest post
It has become embarrassingly obvious I can no longer roll my eyes when I stumble into a pile of stuff Ranger Ed says he might need someday. What I call Key West clutter when it's HIS stuff morphs into priceless stuffed pillows and ancient quilts with threadbare...
Ranger Ed is on our roof playing whack-a-mole with the leaks in our solar panels. That's not a place people of a certain age ought be; yet, here we are. Living the dream of home ownership on a mystical, magical tropical island at the end of the road. A place where,...
Crikey! How could I forget the island's assault on our outdoor grills? But I did, as a dozen barbecuing cooks reminded me in short order. "Spot on," said a former Floridian, "but you didn't even get into the average lifespan of an outdoor grill." He wasn't alone in...
It doesn’t take a degree in demographics and a passion for data dumps to know when Key West’s snowbirds arrive. Lights in that once dark house come on at dusk. There are peals of laughter across the fence line and the rumble of interesting conversations of which I can...
It has become embarrassingly obvious I can no longer roll my eyes when I stumble into a pile of stuff Ranger Ed says he might need someday. What I call Key West clutter when it's HIS stuff morphs into priceless stuffed pillows and ancient quilts with threadbare...
There really is such a thing as the Key West state of mind. Whether you were born here, or first met Key West in 1970 or just a few weeks ago, those who love the island will never stray far. The Key West mystique is captured in every Jimmy Buffett song, in every step...
Couple years ago while visiting in Atlanta, I tossed my bag on the bed, unzipped the sides and flung them open only to watch my grandson wrinkle his nose and hear him say, "Oh. It smells like Key West." He was grinning so I decided he liked that tell-tale trace of Eau...
When you live in Key West at the end of U.S. Highway 1, months scroll by between trips to the mainland via the Overseas Highway. On a good day, it'll take four hours to do the 160 miles to Miami. On a bad day? Hope you're wearing adult diapers or are prepared to wing...
There's nothing like a shared Instagram pix or a Facebook album to entice visitors to Key West. All that sand, sunny blue skies and big puffy clouds as background for sitting in a kayak in the green, towering mangroves puts our tiny island on a lot of folks' bucket...
With its 81,708 residents, Monroe County, aka the Florida Keys, is a collection of makeshift small towns ranging from tiny Layton at 206 at the top of the Keys to Key West at mile marker zero with its 25,597. You don't need to remember any of those U.S. Census...
On Aug. 23, 1856, an American scientist forecast the now-weeks-long heat wave smothering Key West and the Florida Keys. The short scientific paper, published in the American Journal of Science and Arts, established the science of what we now call climate change. Just...
Sitting in the shade of a gnarly sea grape, smack upside the Navy fence and a few yards from the water isn't what I usually get to do on a Tuesday morning. Most folks who live in Key West do what everyone on the mainland does on a weekday: work, run errands, take care...
We've reached the point in the Key West mango season when friends, upon greeting me in the street, surreptitiously look to see if I'm carrying a 15-pound shopping bag. They don't even bother to hide the relief when I am sans bag. It's true. By the end of June, even...
Twice in the past week someone asked me if it's time to leave Key West. That's not a wholly unusual question. Folks leave Key West for careers on the mainland, for school, for family opportunities, for affordable cost of living, for health care, for plain old variety....
James Bond was on to something when he ordered his martinis shaken. You might want to consider nixing on-the-rocks cocktails and going with shaken the next time you hitch up on a Key West bar stool, because at least one hyper-local restaurant is adding a two-buck fee...
I'm not alone in grinning when I read a weather forecast that calls for rain. Or when I get up to promisingly heavy cloudy skies. Dadgummit! It could rain today. One needs only eyeballs to confirm it's been darn dry the past three months. It's dusty. Everything is...
No. Just no. It's not time for the Key West sargassum 2023 update. I don't write about Key West sargassum until June; heck maybe not until August. So, one beautiful Saturday morning back in mid-February, out on an Argo Navis sail with the Key West Art and Historical...
When I'm off-island and someone asks me where I'm from, I tell them Key West. When I'm home on the porch and someone asks, I say, "Where would you like me to be from because I probably lived there." I'm not a Key West local. I was born in West Virginia, traipsed...
Two kinds of residents can ignore the disaster that is Florida wind and flood insurance coverage: The mega-rich for whom a $20,000 annual bill is budget dust and the feeling-lucky homeowners with no mortgages. (Although why anyone would play Key West insurance chicken...
Twice a year Ranger Ed and I give into the temptation to whine about living in Key West. Welcome to the semi-annual outside cleanup. Up north y'all call it "opening the pool" or "getting ready for winter." Rake leaves; mulch plants; test the snow blower; shock (or...
By the time last Friday that I got around to watching Thursday's three-plus-hour community workshop on Key West vacation rentals, I knew these things for sure: No one set fire to city hall. The EMTs didn't show up and no one was arrested. From all accounts, the...
This isn't one of those Key West has changed laments. Of course, it's changed. Three years of Covid-19 escalated the speed of those changes, leaving us more than a tad discombobulated. Time wears away familiarity even when we hold on for dear life trying to slow or...
Key West doesn't make the best places to live lists. That's not surprising. There are at least five reasons we're never going to see our island on those lists; I'm good with that. You probably are, too. We know that despite our warts and wobbles, anyone who has loved...
Four kinds of people ride out a hurricane: Those with no where to go or no one to take them. Those whose clueless bravado having weathered a tropical storm or two leads them to believe hurricanes are just a bit more windy. Those who missed the evacuation window and...
When a mandatory hurricane evacuation order is issued in Key West and the Florida Keys, how do you know when to go and what to do? We’ll help you decide.