No Commercial Potential: Till human voices wake us and we drown.

Travel Log 1 August 2007

Completely Random Reminiscences About My Trip to Key West in No Particular Order Despite the Fact that They are in Numbered List Form

1. It takes for-fucking-ever to get there. Especially if your plane is two hours late. Because when you show up in Miami airport (more on this later) all tired and crabby, you still have to deal with the fucktards at Alamo to get your rental car, and when you’ve done that, you still have to drive three hours in the dark.
2. I can’t imagine being one of the orthodox Jews (including huge beard, wool hat, overcoat, etc.) we saw in Florida. I would convert to anything else before I would wear an overcoat there.
3. Key West has no squirrels and only a few pigeons. Instead they have wild chickens who brawl in the street, crow for no particular reason, and beg for french fries. I found them decorative and amusing.
4. Also they have tons of wee bitty lizards everywhere which I found even more entertaining than the chickens with their little territorial displays of aggressive pushups and neck flap unfurling.
5. If you leave a pile of dirty clothes on the floor of your ground-level room for the length of your stay, it is entirely possible you will find an especially tiny lizard living in them when you go to pack up.
6. Also, there will be millipedes.
7. A Dark and Stormy is dark rum and ginger beer and it is lovely stuff. Ideal ratio is at least 1:1. Better still to skew this in favor the rum. Black Seal rum is ideal, but Conch Republic rum from the liquor store behind your hotel is too cheap to pass up.
8. Key West refers to itself as The Conch Republic but I’m pretty sure no one asked the conchs their opinion on this. Their involvement in civic affairs is limited mostly to being eaten and sold for souvenirs. But I guess it’s their own fault for being so damn tasty. Goddamn, I want some conch fritters.
9. The Speakeasy Inn is a lovely place to stay on the quiet end of Duval Street and it is run by a 14-year-old tomcat named Bob.
10. We ultimately decided not to go to the Hemingway Home. simply because it cost $11 and all we really wanted to do was talk to the cats. There are cats all over the island, and they don’t charge you anything.
11. Even though it rained like a bastard the night before and morning of the wedding, it cut out just in time for the beach-based ceremony and gave all of us taking photos (which was nearly all of us in attendance) some crazy post-storm light and the dark blue clouds moving out to sea for a backdrop. Pictures will be posted in due course.
12. It was the very best kind of wedding: moving and meaningful but also small, unpretentious, short and to the point. And also fun. And then we all changed out the nice clothes we’d all already sweated through and got lunch at B.O.‘s Fish Wagon. Goddamn it. Now I want a cracked conch sandwich.
13. Getting around the island on fat-tired, single-speed beach cruiser bikes is the only way to go. Electric golf carts are for dorks.
14. But the people in electric golf carts are still better than the guy we saw who smashed in the back corner of a parked car doing about 45mph and then drive off. You just don’t go that fast in Key West, ever.
15. It seemed like a lot of money to spend going in, but the sunset cruise we took on a sailing schooner was actually a lot of fun and not everyone on it was senior citizens. In fact, we talked to a very pleasant couple from Manchester who were in the States for their honeymoon and we explained to them that, yes, even Americans think Bud Light is awful.
16. Even tho it’s a roughly identical sort of hot and humid every day there, with sporadic instances of downpour, I just didn’t really give a damn. Whereas the same weather in Chicago causes me existential despair. Like today.
17. I went in the ocean one time. You couldn’t call what I did swimming precisely, because the water was never above my waist, but I was still in it. It was as warm and calm as a bathtub. Not terribly dramatic, really. But I saw a trumpetfish.
18. I didn’t exactly realize that what I’ve only ever heard referred to as mahi-mahi is also known as dolphin. So I was kind of freaked out and repulsed when I saw dolphin on a menu, and later I figured it out.
19. I saw a mammal-type dolphin out on our cruise. But I did not see any manatees. Shame, really.
20. Chocolate-dipped frozen key lime pie on a stick.
21. If there is a more disorganized, cramped, unwelcoming, surly, and all-around shitty airport than Miami International, please tell me so I can never, ever go there.
22. There is a Flickr set developing.

And a single item referring to still more traveling.

On Friday we are going north to visit America’s funny gay neighbor, Canada. I have a shiny new passport and everything. We’ll be in Toronto just sort of winging it. Anyone with suggestions for stuff to do in Toronto should feel free to speak up now.

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