Conch Republic Bed Races

YEA - I was in my first PARADE on Duval Street. I got to help push the "Pace Bed" for AIDS Help at the front of the Bed Race Preview.....

Conch Republic Days are our celebration of our session and Independence from the United States - A little history...

It happened in 1982 that the Federal Government had one it's periodic crack downs and the Border Patrol as was set up a check point on Highway One to make sure "illegal aliens" weren't using the Keys as a back door entry to the US. This unaccustomed heavy handedness caused tourist operators to fear the worst for their income and they did the all American thing and took the Immigration and Naturalization Service (as was) to court.


The story goes that pressed by reporters on what he was going to do next, Mayor Dennis Wardlow, in consultation with his advisers huddled for a moment in the courthouse lobby sought and found the inspiration that sometimes strikes the desperate. So he announced that he was going to secede from the United States. A declaration that made headlines. And so it was that the Border Patrol (as was) found itself shamed into taking down the check point and restored easy travel between the US and the Conch Republic, which in the meantime, having got into the spirit of the moment pressed the US government to fork over some "foreign aid," seeing as how the islands were blockaded from the mainland. And so people gather under cloudless blue skies to watch other people make gentle asses of themselves in public:


In an effort to keep the revenue up for the "hospitality industry" the latter part of April is a time set aside for celebrations in Key West to mark the ever popular act of secession. Much of it involves the usual drinking, parading, and bikini contests with the addition of a "sea battle" which the Coastguard joins with local boats, and the whole thing wraps up with a bed race up Duval Street.

"Where else but Key West," would you find the cops escorting beds down the street?"