Hemingway House and the Key West Lighthouse. 6/2013

Ross, Teri and Robert Koren, Arlene and Doug Powell and myself eating breakfast at the Blue Heaven.

 Ernest Hemingway's house was a very interesting tour that told the story about Ernest Hemingway.  He had four wives, and was a very charismatic man who wrote stories about his life.

 This is the Key West lighthouse from one of the rooms at the house of Ernest Hemingway.

 They have 45 cats at the Hemingway house and they are all named after important people of actors.  This one is Harry Truman.  They are Polydactyl cats which are cats with 6 toes. This is some information I found on the internet about Polydactyl cats at the Hemingway house:

The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum is home to approximately 40-50 polydactyl (six-toed) cats. Cats normally have five front toes and four back toes. About half of the cats at the museum have the physical polydactyl trait but they all carry the polydactyl gene in their DNA, which means that the ones that have 4 and 5 toes can still mother or father six-toed kittens. Most cats have extra toes on their front feet and sometimes on their back feet as well. Sometimes it looks as if they are wearing mittens because they appear to have a thumb on their paw.

Ernest Hemingway was given a white six-toed cat by a ship's captain and some of the cats who live on the museum grounds are descendants of that original cat, named Snowball. Key West is a small island and it is possible that many of the cats on the island are related. The polydactyl cats are not a particular breed. The trait can appear in any breed, Calicos, Tabbies, Tortoise Shell. White, Black, etc. They vary in shapes, sizes, colors and personalities.

 Harry Truman looks like he has a baseball mitt on.

 Ernest Hemingways house was bought for $8000 and one of his wives had this pool built which cost $20,000 because of the type of limestone they had to dig it out.  Ernest was away when his wife had the pool built.

 Ernest Hemingway has a pet cematary where his cats are buried.  Below are the names of some of the cats.
Marilyn Monroe, Mark Twain, Bubba,  Roofer, US1,Jimmy Stewart, Ingrid 1, Simone, De Beavoiur, Snow Shoes, Ava Gardner, Susan Hayward, Amadea, Gremlin, Azra Pound, Jake Barnes, Margauex Hemingway, Hadley Richardson, James Joyce, this is to name a few.  Very interesting that is for sure.

 Here was a separate cat's grave, Zsa sa Gabor.

We made our way up to the top of the Key West Lighthouse with over 80 steps to the top.  There was a great breeze up there.  You could see all around Key West, what a great sight that is for sure.

Here is a pretty church from the view from the top of the Lighthouse.

They had some cute statues at the Lighthouse and this one reminded me of my "Stitches of Faith" group.

This is a Banyon tree that was near the Lighthouse.

Here is poor Doug by the pool RIP Doug. 

Looes Key 6/2013

We are doing a snorkel here at Looes Key, This was a boat called the Jolly Rover that was carrying some snorkelers.

 Teri Koren getting ready to snorkel

Here is Ross going under to investigate something interesting.

A nice purple fan coral.

Ross checking out this ledge to see what is underneath it.

 Here is a school of Damsel fish.  

 Here is an Angel fish