The female cheerleaders are Conchetts. Popcorn Bennett, who sells popcorn, ran for City Council and made it a close race. Duval, a main street that stretches from the Gulf to the Atlantic ocean, is jammed with museums, historic buildings, restaurants, bars, live music, and enough t-shirt shops to dress an army. Duval is always crowded with pedestrians, bicycles, open-air trolley bus tours and folks walking around with everything from parrots to lizards perched on their tanned shoulders. This is because we once had a flight from Key West to Cuba.
Pilots say the sign is eight feet longer than the runway.
For all the zaniness, the other side of Key West can be experienced on a Nature Bicycle Tour through the back streets and paths of Old Town led by transplanted Lloyd Mager. We cycle by a brightly painted house owned by a Conch. Mager explains that a Conch is a unique blend of Bahamians, West Indians and Cubans whose relatives brought to Key West their love for conch chowder and fritters. Reportedly there are only 18 two-story eyebrows in the world, and they are all in Key West. Many of the houses were moved intact in the 1930's by barges from the Bahamas and Cuba while others were built by the ship's carpenters.