I’m typing this afternoon from the kitchen counter in our lovely rental home in sunny downtown Key West, Florida, mere blocks from the southernmost point in the (continental) United States. Key West seems doggedly determined to ignore the fact that Hawaii is actually a good deal further south, and continues to label all sorts of things “Southernmost” without applying that “continental” caveat.

But, really, that’s okay, because Key West is Southern in ways that Hawaii is not. For instance: this morning I had breakfast at what I must assume is the Southernmost Waffle House in the United States, if not the world, because Google Maps tells me that there are no Waffle Houses in Hawaii. I’ve written about Waffle House here before, and I feel compelled to visit the Awful Waffle anytime I’m near one in the South, so to actually have a pecan waffle with a side of grits in the most Southern of all Waffle Houses was a moving treat, for sure. I had to wipe aside a tear as I read my sports page while pouring heated syrup atop my dense, flat waffle. I truly do believe that the world would be a better (if fatter) place if we all ate breakfast at Waffle House every day.

We also have done some cultural stuff, visiting the Hemingway House and its thumbed cats (just like ours), as well as tootling up and down Duval Street numerous times. We’ll be here for New Year’s Eve, which is a hoot hereabouts, and I’ll provide the usual post-travel photo essay when I return home next week. It’s been a lovely, relaxing vacation thus far, and I’ve enjoyed seeing Key West again, some 24 years since the last time I was down here. It’s a great town, highly recommended.