Archive for August, 2009

Fort Zachary Taylor State Park

(305) 292-6713 – www.fortzacharytaylor.com/home.html

Truly a hidden treasure

It’s a bit hard to find if you haven’t been there before. It’s buried inside the Truman Annex, which in itself kept us away for a while. There’s a guard booth at the public entrance to the Annex, and it’s not very clear that it’s fully open to the public. In reality you just drive on through right past the guard. Apparently there are some local political debates raging about that guard house and the possibility that the Navy may add a gate. I guess the City approved the Navy’s plan to add a gate with the proviso that it never be closed.. haha. True Key West compromise.

Anyways, once you pass the guard booth, you are in the Truman Annex proper, and there is a very cool neighborhood there which used to be navy housing, but was sold to the City a while back. It’s beautiful.. quaint little cottages and conch houses.. it reminds me of Seaside in the panhandle or even Celebration in Orlando. Definitely worth a detour on your bikes to ride around a bit in here.

Once you ride past the neighborhood, you come across the old Navy Port where they used to house Navy submarines. The docks were decommissioned in 1974 because the newer nuclear subs were too large to fit there, and now it’s a favorite place for locals to go watch the sunset.

If you veer to the left as you get to the docks, you come across an entrance to the Naval station there and another gate leading to Fort Zach Park. It costs $2.50 per person on a bicycle or walking, and $4.50 for the first person in a car, $7.50 for two in a car, and .50 cents per person after that. Definitely worth riding your bikes in… Christina bought us a yearly pass that lets us get up to 8 people in at a time. It cost her $80.00, it’s since gone up to $120.00, but even then, when you go as often as we do, it’s a well worth it.

You follow the road a bit farther and you’ll pass The actual Fort Zachary Taylor on the right, and come to a parking area.

The Best Beach on the Island

I love, love, love this beach. I was never fond of going the beach until I visited the Virgin Islands a few years ago and experienced what a real Caribbean beach was like. I have a friend who owns a house on Water Island, right next to St Thomas, and it was on his beach – Honeymoon Beach – that I re-connected with my fantasy of island living. It was like a slap in the face, I’d been doing it wrong my whole life!

Well Fort Zach Beach is as close to that Caribbean beach paradise on Water Island as I’ve found in Florida. It’s rarely if ever anything close to crowded, the water is blue and crystal clear, there are tons of beautiful colorful fish swimming around, and the waves are minimal. The beach is rocky near the water, so you’ll probably want to wear water shoes if your feetsies are tender. There are picnic tables and BBQ grills peppered through the australian pines and palm trees running the length of the beach. The grills are clean and rust-free, and the picnic tables are in good repair.

There’s a pavilion on the beach that serves up sandwiches, ice cream, and even beer as long as you keep it on the deck area. I was surprised to find beer on the menu there as it’s a state park, and well you know.. they frown on you bringing booze in. (Not that I ever let that stop me). I haven’t had any of the food from there, so I cant comment on the quality yet, but when I do, I’ll come back and update this post.

Fort Zach Beach is on the south-westernmost tip of the island, so it’s kind of cool because you are right at the point where the Atlantic merges with the Gulf of Mexico. Around the west point, the gulf-side of the beach is lined with large boulders so you definitely won’t want to try to swim there. It’s a super-great place to watch the sunset and boat traffic. The cruise ships go right past here too, so that’s pretty neat.. they are so big it boggles the mind.

The entire park surrounds the fort, but it wasn’t always that way. The fort used to be jutting out into the ocean, but when the Navy dug the shipping channel and submarine port, the dirt was used to build the land that the park now sits on. So Fort Zach Beach is entirely man-made. Crazy.

If you go north-east up the coast a little from the point here, you’ll run into “Truman Beach”, it’s a tiny little stretch of sand abutting the sea wall for the Naval Port you passed coming into the park. The secret service had this small beach built for Henry Truman so he could enjoy the beach out of the way of the public eye. He visited it once, but returned to the public beach on the other side of the point, stating that he liked the public beach better. I’m not sure if it’s frowned upon to visit this little stretch or not, I’ve seen a couple folks hanging out there, but who knows.. I’ll have to try it myself some time.

This beach and park is so very cool, that I couldn’t see ever visiting the public beaches in Key West, I guess I should be happy that it seems not very many tourists know about it, either that or that they aren’t willing to pay to get onto a beach. I like it just the way it is, uncrowded, clean, and supremely relaxing.

I think I’ll go there now…

Schooner Wharf Bar

202 William Street – Ph: (305) 292-3302 – www.schoonerwharf.com

So far this is my all-time favorite bar on the island. Schooner Wharf is the first place we stumbled upon on our very first visit to Key West years ago, and it remained the first stop on all subsequent visits.

It sits right on the marina and is full of a wonderfully eclectic hodge-podge of detritus no doubt scavanged from many a tall ship or reeled in on the end of a fishing line.

It’s a great place to go have a couple of cold beers while waiting for a sunset cruise (and of course after the sunset cruise), do some tourist (or local) watching, and listen to some of the ever-present live entertainment.

I haven’t been to anywhere near even a quarter of the bars in KW yet, so I can’t say for certain, but my guess is this is one of the true local hangouts, and if you want to get a real taste of what life is like in KW, you absolutely must come here and strike up aconversation with one of the old salty dogs sitting around the bar. Locals might look scary sometimes, but my experience has been they’re mostly pretty harmless.

The staff is friendly and quick, and the food is not too shabby. I absolutely LOVE the clam chowder here. Clam chowder is one of those things I order everywhere I go to see who has the best. I can say with certainty that Schooner Wharf has the lead where the chowder is concerned. I don’t know if they make it from scratch or buy it straight from the devil himself, but I wish I could buy it in bulk from them.

Personally Oysters are something I’ve yet to gain an appreciation for, but Christina loves them, as do some of my other friends we’ve brought here. The verdict is super-yummy.

The only issue I’ve ever had with the food has been the last couple times I’ve visited. The fried shrimp was overcooked. I ordered them again the second visit to see if it had been an anomaly the first time, because usually the food is so good. I still believe it was probably a case of someone falling asleep at the fryer, and will give it another shot next time around to decide for good. Barring that small gripe, everything else we’ve had here has been fantastic. Schooner Wharf  is after all a bar, and not a fine dining establishment, so judging by that standard, I’d say the food is better than average.

There is an upstairs ‘poop deck’ that gives a better view of the marina, this is by far my favorite hangout at Schooner Wharf… unless it’s raining. The live music in the courtyard on the ground floor can get a little loud for me sometimes. Of course a trip to the bathroom from here requires a walk down some stairs, so plan accordingly…. nothing more embarrassing than tumbling down some stairs in front of a group of people eating. Trust me.

Speaking of bathrooms. I hear the Women’s restroom isn’t bad (Can’t say for myself), and while I guess the mens room isn’t as bad as many I’ve seen, the journey to reach it is an interesting one.

Also, no visit would be complete without a trip to Frank Everhart’s Magic Bar in the back corner of the ground floor. Frank is a true sleight of hand aficionado.  He’s a very entertaining guy, I highly recommend you spend some time at his bar. He gets there around 9:00 nightly.

Schooner Wharf has a webcam that looks out over the courtyard toward the stage. We spent many an evening in Orlando watching this while we were trying to dream up ways to move to Key West. It was like a little bit of heaven right there in our living room. Check it out, you’ll probably see me sitting at the bar quaffing draft Key West Ale!

Cheers!
Mike

Mike Needs a Life Blog Reposts – Part 27

August 19, 2009
Started a new Blog

I decided out of sheer boredom and a desire to learn more about ‘real’ blogging, to start up a new blog. It’s called Conch Tales and it’s here: www.conchtales.com.

I really have no idea what I’m doing, but it fills my days. I’ve decided that I’m going to visit every single bar on the Island and write a little blurb about it. Also I have a section to write about day to day things that happen because I don’t think I can realistically go out to 5 bars a week.. haha. Anyways, check it out.. it could be fun.

Other than that, I’m still searching for a job. Not much new on the horizon there. It’s beginning to get a little old, not working. I’m going to have to start visualizing better….

2010 edit: And the rest is as they say… history.

Mike Needs a Life Blog Reposts – Part 26

August 17, 2009
Holy CRAP

OK, so I just realized that It’s my one year anniversary of getting laid off !!!

I’ve pretty much (Except for the short stint at Millenia) been out of work for a year! I remember telling everyone when I got laid off that I was going to move to the Caribbean and disappear… I didn’t have any idea how in the hell I could pull that off, but I was saying it anyways. Well, I’m a lot closer to that goal now than I was then.. I guess the power of positive thinking really does effect your life even if you don’t know how the hell it’s going to work!

I have to attribute a lot of this to Christina’s strength and capacity for positive visualization, without her I’d probably be sleeping in that alley between Cleo’s and Cairo downtown Orlando.. haha. You rock Christina. (It’s OK for me to say that here, she doesn’t ready my blog)

I went back and read my first couple of posts in this blog from back when I was set free, and I can’t believe the difference in the way I feel about life now vs. then. Back then I was slogging through my days and weeks just moving along aimlessly… like walking with my eyes focused on the ground.. just waiting for the next day of the same old same old. When you get to that place in life where you’re just floating in the murky stream of some job you really could care less about only to have it abruptly taken away from you, it’s a real shock to the system. You kind of have to learn how to breathe again. I look back on it now and liken it to that scene in the matrix when Neo wakes up in the pod and finally has a look around himself at the real world. The only difference is that in my instance, I woke up in reverse of that.. I left the real-world battery pod for the matrix world.

Now I feel like I have so much going on and there are so many possibilities of cool things to do and be involved in, I don’t know how to prioritize. Of course I’m not making any MONEY, but I am certainly much happier being poor and enlivened than rich and rudderless.

Let’s hope that in another year, I’ll look back at this post and be in an even better place! Keep climbing out of the muck into the fantasy!

Mike Needs a Life Blog Reposts – Part 25

August 16, 2009
Hurricane season starts!

Well, I guess we’ll be having some hurricane parties on the porch here pretty soon.. looks like there are a few storms coming our way. Gotta make sure the freezer is stocked with lots of rum!

Connor went back last week on Wednesday after 4 weeks vegging out at Fort Zach beach, snorkeling, and playing video games. Funny story about that. Last Tuesday night Tina called to talk to Connor and said how happy she was that he was “coming home tomorrow”. Huh? No, I said, he’s flying out Saturday!! Um, no.. she said, look at the itinerary.. so I did.. and sure enough.. plane leaves at 2:00 on WEDNESDAY.

From Sanford.

Panic set in… It’s 9:00 at night, and it’s a 7 hour drive to Sanford with no traffic.. ug. Needless to say, we packed and went to bed early so we could get up at 3:30 AM.. Left at 4:30 and hit Downtown O-Town in 6 and a half hours flat.. not bad time at all.. We had some Chik-Fil-A (a necessary stop since they have none of that fancy gourmet food where he lives) and headed out to Sanford. Made it there with plenty of time to spare.. a Sam Adams and a 4 dollar DR. Pepper later (I drank the Sam Adams), he boarded the plane and was off. 3 Hours later he landed in NY and had another hour or so drive to get back home.. talk about a long day of travel. Next time I’m looking for flights into some airport a little closer to the keys!

I spent the remainder of the week visiting some friends and such.. then drove home Sunday.

So it’s Monday, and its now time to seriously start looking for a job. UG! I’m updating my web page, and my linkedin page, and hoping something cool will present itself. I don’t have any experience to speak of in any service or sales-based industry so that pretty much wipes out about 95% of the open positions down here – every ad I’ve seen states very explicitly that you MUST have experience to even get a foot in the door. Right now I’m kind of leaning toward going after some handyman/maintenance positions. That seems like something I’d really enjoy, especially if it’s for some old bed and breakfast kinda thing.. who knows. Graphics jobs are very few and far between, and there is a steep local vs. outsider curve to get over around here before people will even look at you for an open position.. I’m trying to maintain a positive attitude!

A couple of weeks ago I got in touch with Frank Everhart who coordinates the “Haunting of Fort Zach” every year for Fantasy Fest. They basically turn the old fort into a haunted house for the week.. cool stuff! I told him I had had a yearly party and now that I was in KW, I needed an outlet for some halloween creativity, and I’d like to volunteer for the event. He told me to come on down to Schooner Wharf some evening so we could meet. He runs the “Magic Bar” there.. a little bar tucked into the back corner where he entertains folks with some really astoundingly cool sleight of hand card shows. I’ve never been into magic much, but I was very impressed.. he’s definitely an interesting guy, and I look forward to working on the haunted fort and hopefully getting to meet some more cool folks. I only have 9 years and 10 months to go before I can call myself a conch… I need all the local contact I can get. I’ll be updating their web page here pretty soon, it definitely needs the help! No offense Frank, you rule at magic, but web pages…. … Granted it’s done in Word Press which is notoriously difficult to format, so I’ll cut slack for that haha. Check it out here: http://hauntedkeywestfort.com/

I took my first finished steampunk sculpture up to Jeff League when I went up to Orlando to get Connor a month ago. He’s taken some cool photos of it and placed it in the Gallery! He tells me everyone likes it quite a bit, and are wondering when I can send them more.. guess I’d better get busy! I’ll post pix when he sends them to me.

Anyways.. that’s what I got goin’ on..