[JRTJH]

Those pictures of the Key Deer are very nice. As a child, my dad was in the Navy on submarines and we were stationed at Key West. I remember the Key Deer around the beginning of the keys. There was a rest stop just as the Key Bridges started from the mainland that had concrete picnic tables, and grills. We used to stop there to eat Mom's fried chicken and potato salad on the way back home from the big hospital at Homestead AFB. Those little deer aren't much bigger than a medium size dog. Once I remember 5 or 6 deer right by the edge of the water and a couple of alligators laying there in the water watching them very closely. Mom wouldn't let us go down any closer than the tables, Hmmmm I wonder why? LOL

If you've never been, you'll love the keys. When we're there, I often wonder why anyone would leave once they see the beauty that's there. Then I get home, listen to the weather channel during the hurricane season and remember well the times we'd lose water and electricity when they would shut down power and close the water pipeline along the bridges when the winds would blow.

That was so many years ago that it's hard to imagine that we used to live there permanently, and so very little of Key West and the NAS/submarine base are still there as I remember them. Of course airplanes back then all had propellers. About the only thing that remains the same in Key West is the downtown area, the mangrove swamps and the smell of burned Cuban coffee in the mornings.

If you haven't been there, it's a "go at least once in your lifetime" kind of place for sure.