Ernest Hemingway's Florida

Above, Sloppy Joe's Bar, Ernest Hemingway's favorite Key West watering hole. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

During our stop in Key West, Florida during our cruise to Cuba, I went to the Hemingway House to see where Ernest Hemingway lived in the late 1930s.

I also toured Key West aboard a trolley bus that meandered around the town. Some of the places we drove past, such as Sloppy Joe's, are Hemingway-related.

Above, Hemingway House in Key West. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

InsideHook has an article on some of the haunts in Florida Hemingway used to frequent.

They begin it with:

Sparse of prose and generous with Martinis, Ernest Hemingway was nothing if not a literary and lifestyle legend. The iconic writer’s alpha male appeal has paved the way for no shortage of stories about his exploits — some canonical, like the three-month safari that resulted in a lion as a trophy, and others anecdotal, like his claim that he liberated the Ritz bar in Paris from the Nazis, or that he contributed to the invention of the Bloody Mary.

Hemingway lived just shy of 62 years, and he crammed more than most into those six decades. After his military service, he embarked on four marriages and countless adventures, from Paris to Madrid, Havana to Key West. And there’s nowhere quite like Miami to live large in his image.

To read more, go here. 

Number of Tribal National Parks Is Growing

Above, Monument Valley Tribal Park is operated by and is a part of the Navajo Nation. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The National Park Service isn't the only body (government or otherwise) that administers national parks and monuments in the U.S.

Several Native American tribes have created Tribal National Parks around the country. A new one has just been created.

According to InsideHook:

This week brought with it the announcement of a new national park, one which will eventually encompass 444 acres on the border of Nebraska and Kansas. The governing body setting this new park up isn’t the National Park Service, however; instead, it’s being established by the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.

A report from the Associated Press notes that the Ioway Tribal National Park “will overlook a historic trading village where the Ioway people bartered for buffalo hides and pipestones with other tribes during the 13th to 15th centuries.” When it’s completed, Ioway Tribal National Park will join a growing number of tribal national parks across North America.

It’s worth mentioning here that this isn’t an exclusively American phenomenon. Similar parks have been established in other countries where Indigenous populations faced warfare, oppression and relocation in the name of colonialism. Booderee National Park, located on the east coast of Australia, is owned by the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community and jointly managed by Parks Australia and the Indigenous community there. 

The Ioway Tribal National Park was made possible, in part, by a donation of land by the Nature Conservancy of Nebraska. That puts the park in line with two growing movements: One, of raising awareness of where Indigenous peoples have historically lived. The other involves donating land outright, which has taken place on governmental, institutional and personal levels.

To read more, go here.