Another Long Walk: Bumming around Key West

Amanda and I pose at the so-called southernmost point
of the contiguous United States. Check out the wave
crashing in the background!

So I'm currently here in the Florida Keys working on a new route for Walking4Fun.com. I walked the length of the Florida Keys once before, five years ago, then kept going up to the Florida Trail, the ill-fated Alabama Trail, and eventually hooking up with the Appalachian Trail. This hike is a bit less ambitious--I only plan to do the Florida Keys. I like the idea of adding this route since it's so different than the first three routes--walking through a tropical climate, in a part of a country without any supported trails, a relatively short route that barely passes 100 miles.... it's quite different than the PCT and Camino de Santiago! And that really appeals to me. =)

So I started at the so-called southernmost point of the contiguous United States. I'm still convinced it's a giant scam--just look at a map and tell me how you can possibly orient it to make that point the southernmost one. It just can't be done! But it's a cute little tourist trap, even if it is a scam, and I decided the walk would begin there.

From there, I headed past Hemingway's old house, took a tour of the Little White House that President Truman was so fond of visiting, walked through Mallory Square, and headed out of Key West on the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage State Trail. (Which, for brevity's sake, I'm going to call the "Florida Keys Trail" from here on out. Which is just as well since I technically didn't follow that trail through much of Key West and I'll probably hike well beyond it's far end before I'm done.)

I walked 5.2 miles through Key West, managing to burn through the batteries in my camera and took a whopping 25 photos per mile along the way. I won't be using all of these photos for the website, but here are a sampling of some you'll see if you later decide to "virtually" walk the Florida Keys Trail.

As a note, the Florida Keys Trail is not currently listed as an option on Walking4Fun.com--I'm still walking the trail and I have a lot of photos to process, upload, caption and map before it becomes a selection. I'll announce when the route is available--this is just a taste of what's to come! =)


The Little White House. President Truman's room is the one on the second floor, at the rightmost window with the red, white and blue thingy under the window.