Many palm trees grow here. Colorful flowers grow in front of many of the little houses. You can stay in a room in one of these houses for the night. You can smell the ocean on the soft warm wind that blows across the island.

We drive past several streets and then come to Whitehead Street. We turn left. Very soon we come to the end of the street. There is a monument here. The sign says this is the southernmost part of the United States. The sign says “America Begins Here.” Beyond the sign is the ocean.

STEVE EMBER:

After taking a few photographs of the sign, we turn the car around and follow Whitehead Street to number nine-oh-seven. This house belonged to the famous American writer Ernest Hemingway. For a few dollars, you can see the inside of the house. Hemingway had many cats when he lived here. He is gone, but the cats remain. Many are asleep on the beds or chairs. They are used to seeing people walking through the old house.

MARY TILLOTSON:

After we leave the Hemingway house, we travel a little way to Green Street. There is a private museum here we want to visit. It is the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society Museum. The museum is named after treasure hunter Mel Fisher. He discovered an old sunken Spanish treasure ship near Key West more than twenty years ago.

That ship was the Nuestra Senora de Atocha. Visitors can see some of the ship’s treasure at the museum. You can hold a huge, solid bar of gold worth many thousands of dollars. You can put your hands through a hole in a clear, plastic box and hold the huge piece of gold. But the box is built so you can not turn the bar toward the hole. You can not take the gold with you!