The Crooked River Lighthouse, Straight-up

 Continuing eastward along the Florida panhandle, we're in the homestretch of Gulfapalooza 2011.  This is the Crooked River lighthouse, near Carrabelle.  The shot above is 35mm film, and includes the grounds of the light station, now a museum and park.

From the southwest corner.

 

 Going up...

Cupola!

 

 Another olde-fashioned film shot.

 Foot!

 From the southeast corner.

 Lizard!  Right on the foot of the lighthouse.

 Door!  Cool old hardware and trim.  Not sure whose star that is, as we are definitely NOT in Texas.

Another cool spot, and tough to leave, but leave we did.  One more light to go, plus some flora and fauna...

Oh La Mer... (Where to stay in Key West)

Whole-hearted plug time! La Mer Bed & Breakfast, part of the "Southernmost Collection of Hotels" in Key West. Go to there! It feels more like a little hotel-in-a-conch-house than a B&B. Quiet and beautiful, right on a tiny strip of sandy beach and featuring great service (or lack thereof, if you want to be left alone). Above is the fountain and garden path between La Mer and its sister inn, Dewey House.

Key West has lizards! They're still as tough to shoot as ever.

Flowers!

Bananas!

Dewdrops!

Awesome white noise generator at night.

Shot from our porch during one of those 15-minute rain showers, this is the beachside café, finally reopened 3 years after Hurricane Georges.

Our view. No wonder Hemingway loved this town. Sitting on a porch like this in the sweetly sticky breeze, how can you not want to just drink rum and write novels - after a nice nap, of course!

Lizards hate me!

Okay, maybe they can't actually hate, but they certainly do NOT care for having their pictures taken. They're skittish and shy and amazingly fast. Add the fact that I was still working with a manual-focus zoom, and you've got tough shooting. Since we don't have many lizards in Maryland, I was intrigued when I found that the Virgin Islands are literally crawling with the little buggers.

These five lucky shots were taken on St. Thomas at a friend's house in '85 & '86. In each case, the subject was stationary for a fraction of a second. (I have dozens of blurry pics of nothing but a tail, or in some cases, just a tree trunk.)

#5 is actually a young iguana, content to sun itself on the floating chlorine dispenser in the pool. Content, that is, until I showed an interest in photographing it. They don't so much run away, as simply vanish.

These adult iguanas were living in a giant cage at CoralWorld Ocean Park, Coki Point, St. Thomas and much more relaxed about being photographed than their little lizard cousins ever are.

This last shot comes from a 2007 visit to the Cape Lookout National Seashore, North Carolina. My wife and I were there to shoot the lighthouse, but I still love the challenge that lizards present.