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Summer-Signature-Cocktails-Map / Beer Travel / Drinking Travel / Key West Travel / Florida Keys / → All Tags

Belly Up For A Root Beer Barrel Shot At Key West's Green Parrot Bar

While the summer is at its peak and you're no doubt tired of chugging bottled water under the sun at tourist sites, we're going to hit some of the world's best watering holes and down their famous summer cocktails. Bottoms up!

When one thinks of an evening spent in Key West, sipping some of the more alcoholic local flavors, drinks like Key Lime Martinis or the Key West Cooler come to mind, but at local favorite Green Parrot Bar, the regulars tipple something decidedly more down-home.

For one of the cheap, but tasty Root Beer Barrel Shots at the Green Parrot, you must first bypass all of the tourist-trap bars along Duval Street. The Green Parrot isn't far—only a couple block away on Whitehead Street—but it's divey, Florida Keys laid-back ambience is a world away. Sure you can get key lime drinks here as well, but if you've been scarfing key lime pie all day anyways, we'd recommend the Root Beer Barrel.

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Key West Spring Break Part 3: The Pirate Craze Will Never Die

Wanting to do something active to counterbalance all the beer and pie, we bought tickets for an adventure cruise on a big catamaran called Island 'Ting. Casting off from the docks at 10:00 a.m. under the guidance of Captain Johnny, we broke our fast with scrambled eggs and juice and headed to an offshore reef for snorkeling. As was the case with the previous evening's sunset cruise, it was interesting to get to know the crew, which generally consisted of lifestyle junkies who take fun, low-paying, seasonal jobs around the world. Our snorkeling instructor Misty, for example, alternated between sailing jobs in Key West and Maui, and a fire fighting job in Oregon.

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Key West Spring Break Part 2: Yes, the Cats Really Have Six Toes

Of the few cultured things we did in Key West, the best was our visit to the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum on Whitehead Street. Hemingway lived in the handsome colonial mansion from 1931 to 1939, penning some of his greatest works from a detached study. An animated and somewhat prickly tour guide took us through the rooms and explained how Hemingway's wife Pauline had all the ceiling fans removed for aesthetic purposes, and spent extravagantly on installing one of the island's first in-ground swimming pools, prompting Ernest to surrender to her his "last penny."

As for Hemingway's famous cats, their descendants are still there roaming around and getting underfoot, and they do indeed have six and sometimes seven toes. It makes them look like they're wearing little catcher's mitts on their hands.

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Key West Spring Break Part 1: Taking the Easy Way Out

We just got back from a blissful spring vacation and the old trope is true again: it went by all too quickly. We were in dire need of rest and recreation, so instead of planning an ambitious and brainy trip to Angkor Wat or Ottawa or something, we decided to press the easy button and head to Key West, Florida for four nights. We took the Acela from Penn Station to Washington D.C. (nice train ride, decent microwave cheeseburgers), dropped Zachary off with his grandparents, and then flew unencumbered to Key West via Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport, which is unbelievably huge.

The heat hit us as soon as we stepped on the tarmac of the island's tiny airport and it felt great. We had left the chill of the north far behind and escaped to the subtropics. Before long we were in a shared taxi van with a gregarious local driver who provided a running commentary on all the sites we were driving past, pointing out the capsized sailboats in the water, unmoored in a recent storm.

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Maps / Travel Gear / Key West / → All Tags

Good Ideas: Key West Map Doubles as a Lens Cleaning Cloth

We're headed to Key West next month and I've been geeking out on the research, poring over all the travel guides I can find and lining up a few bars, restaurants and museums to check out while we're there. I wanted to pick up one of those Streetwise maps, but they don't have one for Key West yet, so instead I ordered a Rand McNally Fab Map for six bucks from Amazon, and I'm glad I did.

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Key West Airport Throwing an 80th Anniversary Party

On January 16, Key West International Airport will celebrate the anniversary of the first international passenger flight over water, made in 1928. A Pan Am Fokker Trimotor--with eight passengers in wicker seats--made the 90-mile run between Key West and Havana.

While remembering the past, EYW will also be showing off the future, with tours of its new McCoy Terminal Complex. The new facility will take over for the existing one, built in 1957. Back then, about 25,000 passengers a year used the airport; these days more than 500,000 flyers pass through every year. Needless to say, regular commercial service to Cuba doesn't account for the increase.

Related Stories:
· Key West to Honor First Pan Am Flight to Cuba [Sun Sentinel]
· Key West Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Airports coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: AmberLayne]

Key West Travel / Ernest Hemingway / Pilgrimages / → All Tags

Florida Catfight! State, Museum Do Battle

Writer Ernest Hemingway spent many happy years holed up in his Key West house, translating his experiences on safari and at war to print. After his suicide in 1961, his two-story bungalow became a pilgrimage spot for all of Jake Barnes' friends the world over -- and a refuge for the descendants of his six-toed cat, Snowball. But if the Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has its way, Snowball's relatives are about to get the boot.

Curators of the museum promise the Hemingway cats are well fed and happy, but according to the state of Florida the site doesn't properly contain the animals, nor does it have an Animal Welfare license. Can visitors still "enjoy the whimsy" of animals that just can't be caged? It's times like this that we ask ourselves: What Would Papa Do?  

[Photo: ll_rae_ll]

Related Stories:
·   Hemingway Stayed Here [Hotelchatter]
·   Key West Coverage [Jaunted]