FLORIDA: U.S. Highway 1 - "Key West, Florida to Fort Kent, Maine".

U.S. 1 (also called U.S. Highway 1, and abbreviated U.S. 1) is a United States highway which parallels the east coast of the United States.
It runs 2,390 miles (3,846 km) from Key West, Florida in the south, to Fort Kent, Maine at the Canadian border in the north.

U.S. 1 generally parallels Interstate 95, which is significantly farther inland (west) between Jacksonville, Florida and Petersburg, Virginia. It connects the major cities of the east coast of Florida, including: Miami, Florida; Jacksonville, Florida; Columbia, South Carolina; Raleigh, North Carolina; Richmond, Virginia; Washington, DC; Baltimore,Maryland; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New York, New York; New Haven, Connecticut; Providence, Rhode Island; Boston, Massachusetts, Portland, Maine, and onward north to Fort Kent, Maine.

In Florida, where signs for U.S. Highways formerly had different colors for each highway, the "shield" for U.S. 1 was red.
Florida began using the colored shields in 1956, but during the 1980s the MUTCD was revised to specify only a black and white color scheme for U.S. Highway shields.
As such, Federal funds were no longer available to maintain the colored signs.
On August 27, 1993, the decision was made to no longer produce colored signs.
Since then, the remaining colored signs have gradually been replaced by black-and-white signs; at present, there are a few rare colored ones still in place.

Since I was born and raised in Key West, Florida, I had past this sign along the bay side of the island numerous times and I have always wanted to see the "end of that rainbow" Aka - "Fort Kent, Maine", and in September of 2006, I was finally able to travel to Maine and view the U.S. 1 sign that read; "U.S. 1 - Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida".

I was quite pleased, and I found Fort Kent, Maine to be quite charming!

FLORIDA: KEY WEST - The Southernmost House - Grand Hotel & Museum.

The Southernmost House was built in 1896 for a cost of $250,000 (approximately $6 million today) by Judge J. Vining Harris, who married into the prominent Curry family. In 1939 the Ramos family purchased the property, which had been converted into a Cuban nightclub called Café Cayo Hueso (Bone Island Café), for $49,000. In 1954 it was converted back into a residence and remained so until 1996 when a $3 million restoration began to turn it into a 13-room hotel, with a museum on the first floor.
Today 43 U.S. presidential signatures are on display including William Henry Harrison's, which is a rare piece of historic memorabilia, as is President Johnson's original swearing-in statement.
The Ernest Hemingway room boasts a large collection of written memorabilia including letters to friends, relatives, and professional acquaintances.
Artifacts and treasure salvaged by Whitey Keevan from the shipwreck of a Spanish galleon are also on display and for sale.
Exterior paint colors are authentic, as are elegant crown moldings, ceiling medallions, ornamental woodwork and friezes, which were originally painted white, but have been redone in splashy shades reminiscent of its days as a Cuban nightclub.

KEY WEST, FLORIDA : Hemingway Days - 2007

"Hemingway Days" - KEY WEST, Florida Keys - 2007.

The legacy of Ernest Hemingway, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author who lived and wrote in Key West for almost a decade, is to be recognized during the annual Hemingway Days celebration. Now in its 27th year, the festival celebrates the accomplishments of the man who fished for big game in local waters, embraced Key West's unpretentious lifestyle and wrote American literary masterpieces in a small studio behind his Whitehead Street home.

The 2007 festival is expected to draw participants including stocky white-bearded Hemingway look-alikes, anglers pursuing blue marlin like those the author once fought and aspiring writers hoping for recognition of their work.

Events are to include a look-alike contest for erstwhile Ernests, readings and book signings by nationally acclaimed authors, an awards ceremony that caps a leading American literary competition, and a commemoration of the 108th anniversary of Hemingway's July 21 birth.

FLORIDA : Giant Squid Found off of the waters of Key West, Florida.

Scientists are trying to figure out the identity of a large squid found off the Florida Keys by a charter captain earlier this week.

Charter Boat Capt. Clint Moore, was fishing in 850 feet of water near the Gulf Stream southwest of Key West Tuesday when he saw a large mass floating at the surface. He realized it was a squid and took it aboard; at the dock, he estimated the length at 13 feet, but was not fully intact — the giant squid, genus Architeuthis, can reach lengths of 30 feet.

The animal was taken to Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida where Debi Ingrao performed a necropsy — post-mortem examination — Thursday “The tail section was gone; it had no tentacles, so I can’t speculate what the overall length was,” Ingrao said. “What we have is 6.5 feet long. It weighed 13.2 pounds, but it may have been more than that. ”The squid is definitely not Architeuthis .“It’s much different, very, very different,” Ingrao said. “I don’t know the genus. That could be my lack of knowledge. Someone who’s seen 50 million squid might know what it is.” So it might be a new species or even a new genus. “The thing is, I don’t think people realize how many things we don’t know about the ocean,” Ingrao said. “We’re discovering hundreds of species a day.”

A researcher from the Smithsonian Institution is expected at Mote on Tuesday for an attempt to identify the squid.