Silver Chalet Sojourney: New Year's in Key Weird...Sushi, the Conch & the Wench! Oh My!

Key West is our favorite city in Florida, no ifs, ands, or buts about it!!!

Key West Lighthouse, just across the street from Hemingway's House, said to be his beacon home from Sloppy Joe's

We have visited there in the summer (not recommended), during Women's Week, during Christmas,

Hemingway's Home

during February (when I broke my right foot stepping off of Hemingway's front porch...ouch!),

Papa Hemingway

during Hemingway's birthday look-alike contest, and January.

Last January, we spend ten days at Boyd's Campground and decide that we are eager to return this year for New Year's! I say to Mike, look...we always just sit at home, sipping champagne, and watching everyone else on the planet ring in the New Year on TV.

Fast Buck Freddie's famous window dressing

Why don't we, just this once, get out there with all of the cRaZy folks and paint the town screamin' RED! And Key West is just the place to do it! They have three events at midnight:

the Conch drop over Sloppy Joe's,

lowering Sushi in her Red Slipper at the Bourbon Street Pub, and the lowering of the Wench on the mast of a sailboat at Schooner's.

My wonderful friend from high school, Larry and his wife, Kay, proud owners of a new travel trailer, decide to make the journey from Dallas to Key West to join us!

They arrive safe and sound on the 30th, and after a short rest, we are off to explore Key Weird, as Larry likes to call it!

We take the Old Town Trolley hop on/hop off tour for a couple of days to get our bearings.

Kay playing with a Horseshoe Crab at the Key West Aquarium

The Key West Aquarium,

President Truman and the Truman White House

Truman White House,

Hemingway House, and

Treasure hunter, Mel Fisher searched for the Atocha lost riches for 14 years....this was his motto.

Mel Fisher's Maritime Treasure Museum are on the list of must-sees.

Mike & I share a virtual feast of oysters, clams, shrimp and snow crab at Alonzo's Oyster Bar,

enjoy beers and nachos at Sloppy Joe's; a variety of fish at the Conch Republic Seafood Restaurant,

Larry & Kay at Blue Heaven

Free range chickens at Blue Heaven

Blue Heaven, our 2nd favorite eatery

and decadent lobster eggs Benedict with key lime hollandaise sauce at Blue Heaven, and

Mike let Larry sit in his favorite chair with the VIEW!!!

Lucky Larry! Poor Kay!

dine at our favorite, Pepe's Cafe, more than once!

Dinner at LaTeDa with Larry & Kay

Christopher Peterson is performing his Eyecons caberet show, so we treat Larry and Kay to dinner at LaTeDa, and then to an evening of uproarious laughter and fun, as Christopher morphs from

Marilyn to

Carole Channing,

then Reba,

Joan Rivers,

Tina Turner,

the Divine Ms. M,

Julie Andrews,

Lady Gaga,

Liza Minnelli, and finally a hauntingly realistic Judy Garland.

Such talent, Christopher never disappoints us!

New Year's Eve, we grab a cab and make our way to Duval Street. The crowds are diverse with families, kids on shoulders,

young people with crazy spiked hairdos and outlandish costumes, cuties in sparkly dresses and high, high heels, and then the rest of us just regular folks!

We watch the drag show and Sushi's Red Shoe with CNN broadcasting, then mosey over to Sloppy Joe's to check out the Conch.

Yep, it's still there waiting for the big drop! Getting there, we wind up in a crush of the crowd that eventually separates us from Larry and Kay! Wuh-oh...but miraculously we find one another just after Midnight!

The countdown at Sloppy Joe's in Key West amongst 70,000 fellow revelers...yes, we are glad we did it! We walk a few blocks before we are finally able to hail a cab back to Boyd's. The cabbie tells us that the reason he chose us over others to pick up, is that we were the only sober ones he had seen in a while!