Sparky's Landing

Continuing education is part of being a modern dispatcher and so off I've toddled every day this week including today, to Marathon to study Emergency Medical Dispatch. The idea is that when you ask for help in 43 countries around the world a protocol developed in Salt Lake City of all places, will provide you with the same life saving service. Modern dispatching is treated as the first responder in a medical crisis which is quite stressful when you aren't medically trained. Hence the protocol and a fair bit of studying. This is my third refresher on this stuff and I'm still learning new techniques.

When I"m not studying stuff I like to explore and as my explorer wife is currently teaching in Marathon we decided to visit Key Colony Beach for lunch on Monday. I'd been before, she hadn't, because I have also explored the tiny enclave of Key Colony Beach before: Key West Diary: The Mouse That Squeaked. So we met on the causeway at Sparky's Landing.

This is not the place to order meatballs me thinks but I was tempted by the cobia wrap. It was a lovely day and perfect for eating on the water so I was quite pleased with myself for picking this spot.

It's dark and woody inside but the deck was perfect for a sunny eighty degree day. We ordered fish on salad, my wife's blackened and mine grilled, in proper low carb form.

The view was lovely...

...the food came promptly and was fresh and delicious...

...and we weren't the only ones looking for good grub.

The meal came to about twenty five bucks tax and tip included.

I think our neighbors were speaking Portuguese which confirmed this is the eclectic tourist season in the Keys.

We really enjoyed our little break on the water. Being in class can have its pleasant breaks.

My wife scooted back to her adult education classroom in her Fiat, which she continues to enjoy greatly with 4,000 miles on the clock.

I rode back to fill my head with knowledge, wondering if a biplane ride ought to be in my future.

My Key West Police colleagues had lunch at Taco Bell, a fast food joint that pulled out of Key West a few years ago to much lamentation. I think I got the better end of the deal, but they are young and sometimes feel deprived by the lack of mainland amenities.

Key West Diary: Sparky's

Key Colony Beach is a little over an hour from Key West. Plan your road trip accordingly.

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Lunch In Marathon

I had lunch with Webb Chiles yesterday and we had a good old natter, the mesomorph and endomorph sitting at a table in the sun together. Rusty was perfectly behaved coiled up at my feet watching the other people having lunch. Webb thinks Rusty won the lottery when I found him; I think it may be the other way round.

Check his (Webb's not Rusty's)  Amazon page - he says his life's work is art and he may be right but to someone stuck in an office it's high adventure too and eminently readable.

Webb's boat, the diminutive Gannet is docked in Marathon after surviving Hurricane Irma while propped up on land and is now ready to take off as soon as strong winds shift and seas calm down a bit. As he is busy completing his sixth circumnavigation I am not at all sure when I shall see him next but I will follow his progress on Gannet's satellite plotter on Webb's own page: inthepreseantsea 

My first attempt at lunch went badly. We drove to Key Colony Beach to sit on the water at Sparky's Landing. We found the classic hole in the ground on our second pass looking for the place. I never thought to check ahead; this place is an institution. 

Gone...I didn't come here often, maybe once or twice a year but I liked Sparky's with outside dog friendly seating, also overlooking the water with  a simple fresh fish and sandwiches menu. 

   

So I deployed the back up plan and we went to Burdines, the other "overlooking the water" restaurant that I like. This is a picture, below, from a previous visit with Rusty (and not Webb):

We got to see a few boats come and go, as the hostess, a part time resident told us about the downstairs damage caused by the hurricane and we ordered our sandwiches. I took this picture below, ten years ago and while the personnel has all changed the place itself has stayed the same through hurricanes and floods:

I want to go back and comb through Marathon a  bit more. The city is running okay but there is still clean up underway, and a new Marathon is coming out of the Hurricane Irma fiasco. Including I was surprised to see, a Courtyard by Marriott hotel. Marathon maybe transitioning from Keys fishing village to chain store stop on the Overseas Highway.

No Name Pub

Shannon asked me Saturday night where did I suggest she might want to go with her parents when they visit next week. I thought about it and because she wanted to take them on a road trip, which is to say drive them well outside the city limits of Key West, I started by suggesting Sparky's Landing in Key Colony Beach, well out of range for people who think 50 miles is beyond the pale...No Name Pub? Been there... Square Grouper? Done that...Kiki's Sandbar? Huh? Well I said it's new so its clean, as her mother is germ-phobic, but it has a nice Keys atmosphere and pleasant water views...Whatever she decides I wish her luck.  I hate giving advice so I wish her well on her trip. 

As it happened we had a lunch date Sunday at No Name Pub where we haven't been for a while, but it isn't far  from our house so it was a short drive with the roof open on the wife's Fiat 500 convertible. This is the first convertible I really like so the drive at 10 minutes was rather too short and as I had to work that evening I couldn't order Yuengling draft to wile away the time we had in hand waiting for our key West friends who got hammered by the gruesome winter traffic on Highway One. I drank a lot of iced tea instead.

I guess it really has been a while since we visited No Name Pub as I had never previously seen the outdoor seating, and very nice it was too. We got the last table open when we walked in; the place was packed as usual. Stacey and Steve made it in good order, complaining as my wife and I frequently do that traffic on the Overseas Highway all too often just crawls along. 

 It was a perfect day for an outdoor lunch, sunny bright but not too hot and with plenty of shade both human made and from the many trees. I always wondered why eating here was not allowed. That era has ended, I guess.

Three of us got fish and chips which  included the dollar fries, round slices of potato instead of the usual French fried contraptions while Stacey got a calzone that appealed to her native New York nature. A lifetime spent in Syracuse was rewarded by a giant football of pastry filled with molten cheese. 

This sort of life is why people move to the Keys and Steve has retired after a life of teaching law at the university in Syracuse, a life he enjoyed but whose famously harsh winters tired him. However they are neither of them willing or able to leave New York behind completely. This summer they will return back north leaving those of us that live here to enjoy the tranquility of low season.

We dawdled over lunch for a couple of hours I think and eventually we dragged ourselves away from the wreckage, fifteen dollars apiece with drinks and tax etc...and made our way back through the inner sanctum of the venerable pub. In summer when its not packed on hot humid weekdays the dark cool interior will be welcome but Sunday was not the day to be packed indoors like a sardine. 

 A pleasant change for us to come here, even as we read of continuous never ending snow and storms Up North.

 No Name Pub is not high class eating or innovative food or spectacular beer lists. Its just a nice place to hang out and enjoy the weather and the relative peace of distant Big Pine Key. Its really not that hard to find. 

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