March 11, 1989, Leslie and I were married. Tuesday, we celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary.

A few months back I decided that she and I would travel somewhere, just the two of us. I chose Key West, Florida. The pictures you see on this post are from that trip. We left from Houston on Saturday, the 8th, and returned on the 12th.

I chose Key West for the following reasons:

1. It was a warm place. It seemed to me that a place advertised as the "Southernmost point of the United States" would be warm. By the way, I was wrong about this. Seems they were experiencing an unprecedented cooling spell. The warm place was an important criteria because Leslie is cold - all of the time - everywhere.

2. We had never been there. This is a consideration in all trips as far as I am concerned. There are so many places to see, things to do.

3. Key West has some history. Truman spent many of his days as president at the "southern White House." We visited there and found that many other presidents spent time there.

4. Tied to literary figures. Robert Frost, a favorite, spent most of the winters from 1945 until 1960 there. Ernest Hemingway lived there and is everywhere - they make a big deal of it. Others like Tennessee Williams and Shel Silverstein lived there.

5. It wouldn't tax my travel expertise.

6. I didn't need a passport.

7. There were many things to do there. Sights to see, snorkeling, beach, etc.

Now to the grading of the above mentioned criteria:

1. D-. It was cooler than expected. We didn't pack for that. It rained most of our last day there. The weather on our snorkeling day was rough. Cold with a storm blowing in.

2. A. We hadn't been there before so this was an easy criteria item to fulfill.

3. B. History was good, but it gets a 'B' because some of the history lies still 70 miles west of Key West at Fort Jefferson, at the Dry Tortugas. We didn't get there.

4. A. Leslie and I like books. We left thinking that we need to read more Hemingway and maybe a biography. Seems like an interesting guy.

5. A+. Easy to navigate. The plane flight, rental car, car travel, booking of the place to stay all went very well.

6. A. Didn't need a passport. However, there were many foreigners there. Seems to be a favorite of the European crowd.

7. A. Snorkeling, biking, history tours, ghost tours, relaxing, great eating places, walking, visiting museums, strolling on the beaches or on waterfront, seeing interesting characters - these things and more made it a great locale in our opinion.

Other things:

1. There are roosters roaming wild everywhere. No one has a real explanation.

2. Charles Kuralt in his book titled "America" spent the month of February in Key West. The premise of the book is that he took a year and spent one whole month of the year in twelve different places and chose the month for each based on what he thought would be the best month to be there. He mentioned in his book a place to eat called....

3. Blue Heaven. We ate there on the night of the 11th. Usually, food doesn't play a big part in our trips. We aren't food people and usually don't spend much time thinking of where to eat or spend much time at any one place, but this trip was different. We relaxed and took our time and visited. Blue Heaven was great, but not as great as....

4. Cafe Sole'. I had a grouper sandwich and some salad. Leslie had something different. This was our lunch on the 11th. It was raining and we hung out there about 1 1/2 hours talking. We had a desert here - something we rarely do, and it was made up of small portions of four different things. A sampler. We sampled it. I think Leslie licked the final contents of three of the four.