This Week on the Island 11/01/2009

'This week on the Island' is written by Doug Bennett and is an update to friends about happenings in Key West last week. Everything is true except for those parts that are lies.----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The picture this week (click to enlarge) is ‘Halloween in Key West’.

Weather: Sunny, mid to upper 80’s in the day and low 80’s at night.

This week I continued ‘Spyder Web’ by Tom Grace.

Things Tourist should know: ‘The Stingray Shuffle’. The stingray covers itself with a light coat of sand and lies on the bottom in calm areas. I you step on it, it will attack. If you bump it, it will swim away. When walking in sand in the ocean you should shuffle your feet in order to bump the stingray. Most of the beaches in Key West have rocky bottoms and therefore no stingrays in the sand.

We normally see helicopters when we have refugees coming in and escaping Cuba. Lately we have a helicopter spraying for mosquitoes because of the H1N1. We don’t have it here and we don’t want it to scare the tourist away.

My neighbor’s large dead mango tree fell Monday night into my yard. It has been a ‘bitch’ cleaning up the mess and fixing the property. You also cannot pile stuff on the side of the road, it must be in cans or trash bags.

This Week: Fantasy Fest: What if you gave a party and 50,000 – 70,000 of your closest friends came? Every Restaurant/bar with a party every night to try to get as much of the tourist dollar as possible. Lots of people everywhere. Lots of costumes, or lack of costumes everywhere. Everybody having a great time. Locals are the only ones that look normal. Fantasy Fest comes at the end of summer when the people in the tourist industry need income. Most of them have struggled thru the summer months when we have few tourists. It is good to see lots of tourist spending lots of money. You may want to Google ‘Fantasy Fest’ and check out the pictures.

Another tourist walking in the street. Another tourist hit by a passing vehicle. This time in front of my house. Why do tourists walk in the street? It really doesn’t matter ‘Who had the right of way’ when they are planting you in the ground.

We have friends from the Tampa Bay area visiting us. It is good to see people that enjoy coming to spend time in the place I live.

For those of you that stopped by to say ‘hi’, I hope I was friendly enough. I know I was in the middle of something a few times and I hope I wasn’t rude.


Key West, You have got to love it
'Living the life that others dream'
Doug Bennett
Lat 24.55967N, Long 81.80169W

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Sassi dancing to Schooner Wharf Bar Dog. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow_l9kgPmuQ