What’s good enough for Ernest Hemingway is good enough for me. He’s the one who got me to my first bullfight in Pamplona, Spain, years ago and he was on my mind today as I made the three-hour drive from Miami along US 1 through a spectacular series of keys to my final destination – Hemingway country – Key West. Hemingway may have been the inspiration, but he wasn’t really the purpose. You’d be the other side of crazy to drive that distance just to see where some dead white guy used to fish and drink his life away. Nope, I’m here to rendezvous with Bridget. Three weeks ago, the two of us were in Raleigh, North Carolina, and from there she flew down here, while I picked my way along.
US 1 takes you right into the heart of downtown Key West, and through the miracle of cell phone relay, there was Bridget standing on the street corner as I drove by. Within a few minutes, she and I met up with Jeff, Britt and Jake, and the five of us headed down to Duval Street toward Mallory Square for some conch fritters as we watched the sun set. Along with hundreds of others who do the same thing every day from this, the southernmost tip in the continental United States.