Is That Guy Wearing Pants?

 

Cudjoe Key, Florida (high 85, low 78)

 

Not surprisingly, Al picked up my cold, and now we’re both under the weather. We always take Echinacea at the first sign of illness, or if we are exposed to anyone who is sick.  Usually we can avoid getting sick, or at not get as sick for as long.  Not this time.  We changed brands of Echinacea and are wondering if that is the problem.  Anyway…… I’m feeling much better and Al is feeling a little better. 

This morning, we decided we felt good enough to get up early and drive down to Key West to watch the sunrise at the White Street pier.  We got on the road while it was still dark and in a few minutes we were parked and walking across the street to the pier.

There is a beautiful and sad AIDS Memorial before you get to the pier.  It was beautifully done, and very touching. Sorry about the garbage cans behind the sign.

 

The names are written on the panels on the ground, not on the wall behind.  I’m not sure what those black swirly things were supposed to represent.

There are about 1000 names here.  All from the Florida Keys.  The Keys had one of the highest rates of AIDS in the United States, but partly because a lot of people diagnosed came down to the Keys where they were not judged and there were people to help them.

 

 

 

The pier is pretty and the perfect place to watch the sunrise.

There was a pretty thick cloud bank and we didn’t think we would see much sun, but them shortly it started to peek through.

There were a few people with dogs and this guy was softly playing his guitar.  It was quite beautiful.

Enough clouds to make it interesting.

 

Afterwards, we took a walk along the beach and there were quite a few Key West chickens out pecking for breakfast.

This would have been a nice spot to watch the sun come up.  Maybe next time.

We walked around for a while, then headed up to Geiger Key Road.  It’s right next to the runway for the Naval Air Station and if you’re very lucky, you can watch some F-18’s take off or land.

We weren’t lucky this morning, but we did have a little scare.

As we were walking along the path with the NAS runway on the right and the ocean on the left, we heard this whistling sound, which sounded like a dud bomb getting ready to explode.  We stopped to listen and then Al noticed two Egrets there and figured they were just making a whistling noise.  Then all of a sudden there was a “pop.”  It wasn’t vey loud, but it came from the runway on the NAS side of the fence. We were sure it was some sort of explosive and it was a bit unnerving.  As we walked along, we heard the whistling noise twice more and we then decided it was some sort of device they used to scare birds from the runway.  

 

SO…that mystery solved, we soon had another dilemma.  There was a guy coming down the path towards us with a long sleeved green shirt, which was came down to the top of his bare legs.  We whispered to each other, “is he wearing pants?”     As he passed by us, we still didn’t have our answer, but were afraid to look too close.

After he got down the road a few yards, I readied my camera and turned around just in time to see him peeling off his shirt.   I got the answer to my question.

He wasn’t exactly wearing pants.

Or was he?

 

Like I’ve said before.  You never know what you’ll see in Key West.