7AM...My daughter Alexandra and I head off to...one of my favorite places in the world...

The Fort!  Oh how I love the fort, and how I love the way I can sleep on a boat on the way there, like no other sleep in the world.  After the great Continental Breakfast the Yankee Freedom provided first of course.  Did I ever tell you my Mom and Dad used to secure my crib on our charter boat with rope so that the crib wouldn't slide across the deck?  And so I slept like a baby on the way out...(and in =)

Made it and ready for a beautiful day.  Well rested and ready to go....

This was the spot we picked as our home for the day.  It was a campers table and campers get first pick, but lucky us this one wasn't taken...just look at that natural green canopy, we already didn't want to leave and we just got there...the perfect spot to take our buffet lunch that's included with the trip.

The site was very close to the beach...

And what a beach..beautiful sand, with great snorkeling just off shore.  Unfortunately being Conchs, it was a little too nippy for getting in the water for us, 73 degrees? No Way! 

So we took a walk on the moat instead, it surrounds the whole Fort, all 16 million bricks, and there is a lot to see by looking right down into the water without having to dip so much as a toe in...

This is neighboring Loggerhead Key, where I used to go alot when I was younger, even climbing the lighthouse on several occasions.  It isn't open to the public anymore, but I have some very fond memories

This is a beautiful example of the grounds inside the Fort, looks like a lovely spot to have a Sunday service, or some sort of concert doesn't it?

Inside...

One of the many, many windows that make taking great pictures so easy...

I used to commercial fish out here, and was lucky enough to anchor just off the island every night.  This bench was a favorite place to sit, and read, and comtemplate the Fort and just what an amazing, hard backbreaking  job it must have been to build it, back in the day...

Work is always ongoing at the Fort, this is a pile of bricks, to be discarded or reused.  Which reminded me of a funny story.  I always seem to have a 'story' don't I? Oh Well, I'm sure you are used to me by now.  Many years ago, when my daughter in these pictures was just a little thing, in maybe 5th or 6th grade she had to do a 3 dimensional project for school.  And since I spent so much time out there, and she was familiar with the Fort as well including a camping trip with her uncle TJ, we all agreed that the Fort would be perfect.  She worked very hard, and made a great 3D Fort out of cardboard which she painted to look brick like, and did a really good paper to go along with it. She thought (and we all agreed) the only thing that was missing was an actual - authentic brick from the Fort.  And so I went to this pile and grabbed her one to take home.  Fine right?  Wrong!

One of the rangers stopped me.  He was a friend, but made it very clear that the bricks were Federal Property.  In answer to my "but they will probably just be thrown away" he said that it didn't matter.  Federal property made it a Federal Offence to remove a brick from a National Park.  Wow.  Even for Alexandra, whom he loved, there were no exceptions.  I went back to the boat empty handed, and when asked why, I told Alexandra's sad tale.  And wouldn't you know it, one Captain got on the marine radio, spread the message and within 2 weeks I had over two dozen bricks mysteriously show up in our yard at home during the strangest times!  How those fishermen all loved my Alexandra, we still laugh about it to this day, so here she is holding one for "Old Times Sake" - Oh, and she got an A+ on her project.

Another beautiful view....

The Dry Tortugas are also world famous for birders, not only fishermen...

In addition to the pelican and gull, this is the elusive lime green snow bird...whose covering will be mysteriously bright pinkish/red by the end of the day...

We loved the hairpieces on these gentlemen, kind of look like my exes....

And Alexandra made a couple of new friends....

They were quite noisy actually, it's so quiet out there and you could hear them crunching thier way around under the trees...

And watching the seaplane take off and land is always fun..and then it was time to go....

All in all it was a really really good day.  I made a pact with myself to not let so much time go by till the next time.  I highly recommend the Dry Tortugas - AKA the Fort to everyone.  If you want to learn more you can read about it on this websites PLAN YOUR VACATION page..I would be happy to make reservations or recommendations, because I think everyone needs a Fort to play in sometimes....... no matter what your age.

XO
Smiles,
Toni

I love Sculpture Key West!  It is the 17th annual exhibition this year. It includes local, national and intrnational contemporary sculptors that use every material imaginable that are displayed in our unique setting of land, air, sea, parks and beaches. They are fun whether they blend in or are in stark contrast to thier surroundings and  they are always a great addition to the beauty of the island.  This post will focus on Ft. Zach and I'll try to get to West Martello and Higgs in the next week or so..and altho' this isn't all of the sculptures from Ft. Zach it is the majority!  It's such a great way to enjoy the outdoors, the weather is beautiful this time of year!

Three Sheets to the Wind - (good title for Key West)   by Christopher Newman

Starfish - by Thea Lanzisero

I love this!  The artist was my teacher in Junior High and a huge influence on me,
Steel Blooms - by the very talented Jacquelyn Sanchez

What do you think?  Seagrapes?

One more, couldn't resist...

Flotilla - by Tebelio Diaz - reminds me of my Chugs post...

Loomings (Moby Dick) - by William Bennett - this one is really cool, with moving parts.....

Home - by Jiwan Noah Singh

Dense Pack Park - Bill Wood - This one was hard to capture, the disks take up about half a football field, close up below...

See, they are made up of polished aluminum disks...

Down the Drain - Bonnie Rychlak - cast wax manhole covers, this one from Havana...

And Please forgive me if I'm wrong ... but I BELIEVE - this one is called Cat's Cradle - by Richard Brachman

Jewels from Wilma - by Jennifer Martin - This is broken safety glass from the infamous storm...

So come out and play!  For more info you can go to www.sculpturekeywest.org

XO
Smiles,
Toni

Today I would like to pay tribute to the Bougainvillea, a beautiful plant that grows all over our island, showing up everywhere, with great bursts of color.  And who's name I just found out I have been SPELLING WRONG my whole life...Ouch. Oh well, I know now....

The actual flower part of the plant is small and white, barely noticable because of the shock of color provided by the leaves that surround it. The leaves feel like paper if you rub one between your fingers...

The leaves are fairly heart shaped

The branches long and woody. And armed with thorns!  This one is almost scary, like a purple people eater...

And they can grow to almost 40 feet high...

They come in all sorts of colors...

Including White.  Sorry about that chain link fence in the background but I had trouble tracking down white, it became almost a mission. And I doubt if I will ever learn photoshop, if I do that is probably about 10 years off.....the baby palm tree on the left should help make up for it....

They are wonderful decorative borders with or with out a wall to color coordinate them with

And they play well with others .......

They can even be trained!

They can provide ALOT of privacy, and possibly a pretty good barrier for intruders.  I have been told by boys that grew up here that they hated trimming these, the thorns are very very sharp. Even mowing a lawn could become dangerous....

I love these colorful plants, but I think what I love most about them the most is that they are everywhere, a happy reminder that no matter how stately they may be presented....

Or if they just add beauty to a fence....casually.....

Or they just have ALWAYS been there for you, growing all crazy looking, like this one on the corner of Eaton and Elizabeth that I always look for while racing around and running errands....it never fails to make me smile, even when it's not at it's best, or most flowery.  They are all different yet they all survive here, thorns and all.   Just like us.
 
XO
Smiles,
Toni

Something really wonderful happened to me in the middle of December and to tell you about it I have to go into a little bit of backstory. Please keep in mind while reading this that it had never occurred to me to have a blog myself, but tha's a whole different story. This post is a little long for me, but worth it I'm certain.

I am a reader, a VORACIOUS reader, a bookworm, or so I've been called. My retention is very good, and I'm curious about all sorts of things so I can always find something that interests me.  Several years ago I was looking for a recipe online, and stumbled accross what I considered to be some of the most beautiful pictures I had ever seen. You see I had clicked myself onto the website for Pioneer Woman. I had never seen anything like it, being from Key West, the scenery and horses(!) and cows(!) and her family's lifestyle was like going to the moon, I loved it! She is quite famous now, and rightly so...she always makes you feel like a friend.

So, to make a long story a little shorter I read ALL of her entries (years worth) and then said "now what?" and discovered that she had blogs that SHE recommends, and I checked those out.  And among a few others I fell in love with this one www.momofali.com  and began to follow it.  Please check it out, she is smart, she is funny, and well, just see for yourself.  Let's just say her family has been through more than I think most could survive, and thrive, and with love, humor and grace.

Then last year she posted this...

Thirst
posted by Momo Fali on February 28, 2012 

In roughly nine hours my family and I were going to embark on a family
vacation.

My kids have had a lot of things happen in their lives that most kids don’t
have to deal with, and right now they have an aunt and a grandmother fighting
cancer. Things have been kind of heavy around here. We planned a trip around
fun life experiences to show them that things don’t always have to be a
bummer.

We were going to go to Key Largo with trips to the Everglades and Key West . We were going to go
parasailing, swimming with dolphins, and tour the islands on wave-runners. We were going to have a picnic on the beach.

My nine year old son, who has a map of the world on his bedroom wall and who sleeps with
an airplane, was so excited for his first plane ride. He has been counting down the days.

But, irony? It bites hard! Because the kid with all of the medical problems is now too sick to go.

Sigh.

This afternoon, I had to make massive, last-minute cancellations through my tears as my son slept fitfully on the couch. I cried for an hour straight. When my son woke and found out we weren’t going, he shed tears of his own.

We may not be headed to the beach, but there is certainly no shortage of salt water around here.

And so... for the first time EVER, I posted a comment on someones blog, and it was this....

 ·Toni Tarracino Friday, 2 March, 2012 at 10:56 

So sorry about your trip, etc. etc. etc. 

BUT…I am a CONCIERGE in KEY WEST!!! You have my e-mail now, let me know when you reschedule and I will try to see if I can be helpful to you and your family…I feel like I know ya’ll anyway…XO Toni


 

So I bet you can guess what happens from there...here they are at Mallory Square in December! Momo describes the trip so much better than me, because of course it's from thier viewpoint, and she's a writer.  Here are her posts on Key West.. in the order that they were done...On Not Wasting Time  and Florida Family Vacation - What to do in Key West.

And me?  Well, I will try to explain just a little what this experience did for me.  It was right before Christmas, and I talked to several  friends and before I knew it all of these people got more excited than I was almost, and went out of thier way to show this wonderful family a wonderful time. 

The parents were great, the kids were just a joy!  They were just SO happy to be in Key West and threw themselves whole heartedly into every single thing that they saw, did, experienced.  It was a chance for me to look through fresh eyes at my island and the beauty I can sometimes take for granted. And they reminded me WHY I want to be a concierge, because sometimes, believe it or not it can be hard.  Oh, and by the way, everyone they met along the way impressed them, and it did not matter if I had sent them or not.  I was so proud to hear them talk about how friendly and helpful everyone was, and so I Thank You Key West, and that's why I love you!  And I can't wait till you get back, Momo and Family. Or, as I affectionately called them, The Momocinos!

XO
Smiles,
Toni