In Key West everything is labeled "Southernmost", like "Southernnmost Laundry", "Southernmost Dead End" and "Southernmost Asbestos Factory". The south end of Key West is so close to Cuba you can spit there.
The first morning there I woke around 7:20 and by 7:25 I was laced up & ready to run. From sleeping to running, just by adding a vacation. My run-tour was cramped though by a lack of time and lack of physical fitness, since breakfast was at 8:30 and the heart of Key West lay some 3-4 miles away (meaning a 6 to 8 mile rounder, tough by my standards). Still there is nothing quite as magical as the virgin run on a vacation when the feeling of freedom is the most obvious.
We went to Sunday Mass at "Mary by the Sea" while Steph went to a difficult-to-find newly planted Vineyard. Before Mass I trotted over to the spooky cemetery where no one is six feet under since the island's at sea level. All the graves are above ground, with many beautiful striking statues of Mary and angels with words I found heartening like, "I cling to His Cross".
Key West looks a lot like Ft. Myers which looks a lot like Sanibel which looks a lot like Hilton Head. I have difficulty distinguishing between the flora and fauna and beaches because they are all warm and sunny with sugar sand beaches and green palms. Our first giddy steps in Key West were abruptly halted, by an older lady trying to give us $50. Since none of us believe in free money we weren't interested, but we didn't stop her spiel because the weather was too nice to be rude. We then walked by the famous bar Sloppy Joes followed by a quick tour of a tacky old bar papered with thousands of business cards and brazierres, two different kinds of advertising indeed.
Jimmy Buffet sings a song about a woman going crazy on Caroline Street. Mark and Sandy wanted a picture re-creating this, so Sandy 'went crazy' in front of the Caroline Street sign but Mark was having camera difficulties and so Sandy had to re-create craziness several times, each time a bit less crazy, until she was just smiling with her arms spread, proving that it's hard to be crazy on cue. Our first real stop was the Truman summer White House, where Harry S. spent 178 days of his life spread out over about 14 trips. Truman's house had a poker room with a large bar, and outside his bedroom were several large pieces of luggage, which we were told were there because he always used to bring tons of books to read - sound familiar? We viewed old film clips of him there, and it kind of reminded me of Aunt Mary's house, a real 1940s feel to it and very homey.
Our next stop was a museum of the treasures of a Spanish galleon, the contents of a ship (the Atocha) that went down neary the Keys in the 1600s and was only recently discovered. It was like an open treasure chest, a time capsule. There were hundreds of gold and 80-lb silver bars, stored in the broken hull, and at least 150,000 silver coins called "Pieces of Eight". There were also "gold fingers" - gold configured for smuggling, gold that can be slid into your sock. There were many emeralds including one on display worth about $500,000. An exquisite gold cross studed with emeralds hung in a display case. The emeralds shone like liquid green, as if (ha) Palmolive was poured into gem-sized amulets.
We spent the sundown on Mallory Square where the best entertainment was the sunset but there were also interesting "people" like a tight-rope walking dog named Mo, and his shaggy owner. We spent the night hours at a karokee bar called "Two Friends". Karokee is the Japenese word meaning "those missing the embarassment gene", and rarely has one seen so many diverse humans. There was the ice princess in the short skirt singing cool, ironic songs like "Black Velvet" and "Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz". She accepted applause as her birthright. There was Bunny, the scared little girl who gripped the microphone like a lifeline and stood rigid as a statuette. There was the tall and angular-faced Ric Ricardo, still possessing boy-next-door-looks despite grazing the northern pastures of his 40s. He sang standards so old they're coming back in style, and he also sang some I hadn't heard in years like "Song, sung blue". The emcee for the evening was friendly and wore his poker face even during the worse song fractures. Many of the singers didn't let the notes get in the way, but that can be refreshing too. That Karokee can be a narcotic was news to me; the older husband and wife team who sang "I've Got You Babe" in a variety of keys apparently spend vacations karokeeing every night. It's not a beach vacation for them so much as a Karokee one.
We said our goodbyes to Amy, she of the quick retort, and left Key West for a marathon trip past Marathon, Key Largo and on up into the Everglades. We stopped for a very enjoyable hike through the medowlands of the Cypress Nature Preserve. The openness was bracing and I recalled the Dixie Chicks song that describes a longing to be where there are no tall buildings and to be the only one for miles and miles.
Tuesday was our first full day at the Ft. Myers beach and the suprisingly pleasant Tropical Inn. We would spend the next two days in complete vegetation mode, i.e. moving about as fast as your basic vegetable does. The second night there began uneventually enough at a beach bar & grill with cheaper and lower quality food. The surroundings were a bit low rent, spritzed by the aroma of urinal cakes and second-hand smoke. There was live music though, and the regulars around the bar were downing drinks just waiting for something to happen. Which it did. But to us!
Sandy dragged a chair over to use as a foot rest in order to get more comfortable, but then promptly passed out, which was just way too comfortable for our tastes. Steph noticed first, and alerted Mark to help her. Mark and I went over to her and she took on the pale of death, and not at the sight of us either. Her body became rigid and seemed to mimic the beginning of a seizure. It all got very scary, very quick. Steph immediately ran to tell the bartender to call 911 but he bolted out the door to get the cops. (They were across the street eating donuts at a convenience shop - so that's why the call them convenience shops!). Mark and I managed to extricate her from her chairs and lay her down flat. The drunks and near drunks flocked to her rescue with comments like, "Is she dead?", "How much did she have to drink?", and our favorite, "is she pregnant?". There was an EMT on the scene who asked for and got a cold compress to hold to her forehead and seemed very competent. Sandy had had only one Rum Runner and then had a full meal, so low blood sugar seemed an inadequate answer as to why this happened. Meanwhile, nearly hysterical women came by screaming things like, "put sugar on her tongue" and "the eye of newt will cure her!" (Just kidding about the latter). One was convinced that Sandy was a diabetic and wanted to give her insulin or sugar or both. It became almost comic to hear Mark and I saying she was not diabetic, to exactly no effect. It just wasn't registering.
Sandy came to and sat up and thus the immediate danger lessened. Steph had the presence of mind to pay the bill and, in general, (pardon the pun) general the situation. I grabbed Sandy's purse thinking it possible that a looter might take advantage of the chaos. The cops were on the scene fast but the paramedics less so. The burly, thick-armed ambulancers took Sandy in a stretcher after she threw up, but she refused to go to the hospital, thus forfeiting Steph's shotgun ambulance drive. Needless to say, we all went back to our hotel and did a couple-three (okay seven or eight) post-mortems. We decided Thursday would be a beach day instead of the Edison museum/Corskscrew day.
Thursday was nearly perfect, a picture-postcard sunshine day. After Mass at the Church of the Ascension and a picture of the beautiful Blessed Virgin statue, I wandered into the nearby Monastery of the St. Claire nuns and checked out their chapel before hopping back to pick up Steph for a nice breakfast at the "Munch Box". The hot coffee, bacon, eggs and raspberry danish set me up for a wonderfully long bike ride and the intoxicating freedom of the open road and ready camera. I explored a small key with white sandy beach heads and long hard-sand bike trails. The sun was too hot and too generous though and I came back with blisters, but little can make you feel so kid-like as a bike on the twin yellow lines, a water tower in the watery distance and the feeling of limitless time.
One of my first impressions while riding my bike down the bay-ending streets of Ft. Myers was that every block has the "Block Watch Association" sign. I'm thinking they may be crying wolf too much. What's a criminal to do if every block says they are watched? It may be time for the residential block to add lines like, "Rated AAA - Best Block Watch in the Medium-sized Town category of the Criminal's Guide to Challenging Places to Rob." These were the kind of deep thoughts I came up with.
After the bike, it was on to the beach. I tried to atone during this trip for my Columbus temperance by enjoying a few beers each day. You can't go wrong with the three S's: Sand, Sun and Swill (beer that is). Two Mexican beers showed up like magic outside our room on morning, which I quickly refrigerated, considering it a sign God wanted me to have more beer down here. Catholicism has its privileges and one is its non-allergic reaction to alcohol.
Friday: In mostly cloudy conditions we set out for an elongated walk through the the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, an unusual nature preserve an hour away from Ft. Myers. Their sceptic system is a bit unusual, all the waste products are recycled naturally, via tanks and growing things. I did my part for conservation and went to the toilet.
I am more convinced than ever that the eastern forests we enjoy at Hocking Hills and more spectacularly in the Great Smokies is the premiere type of forest in the nation. Corkscrew did nothing to disabuse me of this notion. Although the wildlife at Corkscrew was more obvious than back home, I enjoy the plants and trees more than animals. So we headed out though the pace of the walk was one that Amy would find a bit slow, so I gin'd it up by going on ahead but this was seen only as heretical, as if one couldn't enjoy the woods unless it was observed with the proper rubrics and so I was tarred "a Mary" (after Mary Wessel, who is to the group as Bill Clinton is to Republicans), and then patronizingly told "well you got to see your aligators". Of course taking one for the team is something that goes on in vacations so I shan't complain, except that it did take most of the day (does that count?)
Friday's last event before the Decline and Fall of our Vacation was parasailing. Parasailing involves getting into a harness and getting tied to the end of a very long rope while a boat pulls you at fast speeds. You have a parachute behind you, so you are lifted up a hundred or more feet in the sky. Seconds before we were to "fly", I had to sign a distasteful waiver saying I would accept broken bones, paralysis and possible death without holding them liable. Then the instructor tells us that the cracking sound we would hear is normal and that it is not the rope breaking. Fortunately there was little time to brood about paralysis because we were quickly air-lifted into the sky and rode what felt like an ocean Ferris Wheel. I rarely thought about the cracking rope, though the sound was unnerving. It was exhilarating and I managed to peel my hands from their death-grip on the bar above me in order to snap some pictures. The ride was over very quickly, but for a moment or two we had a hot air ballonist's view. The water under us was a crinkly green, like a dull green aluminum foil.
Oh vacation - to borrow the old phrase - it's the triumph of hope over experience; it's the feeling that things will be different now, though experience proves that after two days things look the same. My theory of travel is that eventually everywhere will be the same because of television, for that it is the great homogenizing force. I enjoyed the strict fast on this vacation from news, news shows, politics and even movies. I didn't miss 'em. Nature is different, and the ocean is special. I love the messiness of the sand and the sloppy, irregularity of the waves - the ocean appears spontaneous and anti-machine, with odd things strewn randomly in it like fish and shells and sandpipers. The seashore gives you an excuse not to care about getting messy.
Saturday morning came abruptly fast, and so after Mass and a quick how-dee-do to "Mother, Mother, Ocean" it was back to the airport and grim reality. Steph's first trip was a great success, and even now, after talking for seven days straight, she's still full of the gift of gab with her neighbor lady beside her. God bless 'er!
