New Year's 2007

We have been fortunate to spend many New Years' Eve's in Key West. This year, Enes and Bill joined us for the weekend celebrations. We headed for Key West, 38 miles from our campground in the afternoon, anticipating the usual major crowd downtown. Parking is usually a major problem in Key West, especially on New Years' Eve.

We found a space and walked Duvall Street, wandering in and out of the shops on the way. My personal favorite stop was "Fast Buck Freddie's" which has furniture, clothing, gag gifts and lots of other things. I found a mate to the Christmas gift Enes and Bill bought Gene (Redneck Horn), this was a Redneck Nag Horn. The original has a series of loud, obnoxious comments such as "What the H... was that maneuver?", "Are you freakin'blind?", "Slow down dumbass, Wallmart's open all night", all in Larry the Cable Guy's voice. The Nag Horn has such goodies as "Stop the damn car moron, Walmart's havin' a sale!" and my personal favorite, "Put down that cell phone this ain't no phone booth!

The crowd at Mallory Square for sunset was much slimmer this year than ever before, but there were a number of entertainers including jugglers, wire walkers, mimes, the cat trainer, and Houdini wanna bees. The sunset from the southernmost point, however, was spectacular as usual. The Disney cruise was docked in the harbor.

After sunset we had dinner and wandered back up Duvall Street to watch the New Years' festivities. The street was blocked off from traffic completely to allow partiers to wander freely. We passed The Bull bar and others where the balconies were lined with people throwing strings of beads to people below.

Near the top of Duvall Street was the famous red shoe which was raised to the second floor balcony to await the midnight hour. CNN was standing by to film the dropping of the shoe which would be occupied by a stunning transvestite at the appointed moment. In preparation, a major crowd had gathered to witness the event. Male entertainers, (dressed minimally),were dancing on a stage set up in the street to keep the crowd interested. At the stroke of midnight, all sang Auld Lang Syne and the stiletto shoe gracefully dropped to the street with it's occupant.