fatherhood

Nothing Safe

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

This past weekend was Albertville Friendly City Days, our little town’s version of an annual summer festival, featuring  a softball tournament, a pedal-power tractor pull, the Miss Albertville competition, live music, carnival rides and games, fireworks, clowns, and more. The highlight for our family each year is the parade — one of the biggest and best in Wright County, with more than 100 entries including several marching bands. The past few years we’ve enjoyed the spectacle from a beautiful old home on Main Street, right next to the announcer and judges booth, so everyone is looking and performing their best, and candy is tossed by the handful. This year we enjoyed the additional treat of Trevor’s debut as a percussionist in the STMA Middle School Marching Band, playing quads (technically quints, I suppose, since his drum harness has a tiny fifth tom, not just four).

19095554_10211398666936902_6245668699463826280_o

Trevor and bandmates marching

Earlier we had been discussing what we love and don’t love about Friendly City Days. Lily was strongly urging that we walk down to the carnival and at least check out the rides; Jodi and I weren’t anxious to do so. A friend agreed with us: Traveling carnival rides especially made her nervous, she said — so much so that she has been known to pay her children not to go, still spending less for peace of mind than she would have for ride tickets. She even shared a story about a girl who was scalped when her hair got caught during a ride on a classic old Tilt-a-Whirl.

13413740_10208066541475848_7740465260764804086_n

Jodi and Lily sliding

Although we rode the Ferris wheel, the carousel, and the giant Fun Slide last year, by and large, we agree. Anything that’s moves and spins and is not bolted down is just asking for someone to get hurt. Or throw up. Or both.

On the other hand…

What is it about a Tilt-a-Whirl, anyway? I used to love that ride: the unsteady motion of the platform, the off-kilter slide into your friends as your car tilted and spun sideways, first one way, then the other. Yeah, sometimes people puked (I never did), but that was part of the excitement — the sense that anything could happen, at any moment. You felt alive.

Dead people don’t barf.

I think I’ve discovered that ride was so appealing — and why I don’t care to do it anymore. Think about it: what else do we experience that is tilted, spinning, unstable, and potentially dangerous; that sends us careening into the people closest to us; that makes us laugh, cry,  and hurl?

We don’t need some old carnival clunker. We spend all day, every day, on a massive, unhinged Tilt-a-World. As a kid, the simulating is stimulating. As adults, it’s too real, like when you’re watching The Office and can’t laugh because you actually lived through that particular episode.

And it’s not safe. This world is broken, grimy and off-balance, hurtling through the cosmos, and run by grubbing scoundrels, leering ne’er-do-wells and lazing doofuses. We’ll never make it out alive — and yet, here we are: leaning, laughing, spinning…

So let go. Whatever you’re clinging to can’t keep you safe anyway. Let’s throw our hands up and enjoy this ride — together!

Featured photo at the top of the post: Abandoned Tilt-A-Whirl By Derrick Mealiffe from Toronto, Canada (Wet n Wild) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

 

Road Trip Review, Part 5: What We Learned and Why We Laughed

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

Emma, Trevor, and I spent a lot of time together last week — time enough to have learned a thing or two in common and to have developed a few “in-jokes.” We learned, for example, that when you’re playing Score! (a road-trip game in which you count yellow cars for points*), the game gets faster and more furious as you travel south, as sunshine-colored muscle cars, Love’s fuel tankers, and Penske rental trucks take over the highways. Do rental car companies in Florida stock higher numbers of brightly-hued, late-model Mustangs and Camaros? They were everywhere, and more than half were bright yellow!

We learned that, south of Tennessee, drivers have  little regard for posted speed limits, unless it’s to add at least 15. In Georgia, especially Atlanta, and on the return trip through Alabama, I generally drove five or 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, even in reduced speed zones, to keep from being killed. We laughed to think that, if I got pulled over, it would be because the police figured they could actually catch up to me.

We learned that Florida drivers are the craziest I’ve ever seen. At least in Georgia and Alabama, the need for speed did not come with rage, impatience, or homicidal or suicidal tendencies. In Florida, I was passed by a car at such a high rate of speed (while I was driving 10 over) that the air around us seemed to split and our own car shook. As I regained my bowels and watched that car shrink toward the horizon, a crotch-rocket motorcycle zipped by even more quickly — like someone removing my left ear in one motion, with a Dremel — and vanished into the distance! I also watched two or three drivers, stopped at red lights, who began inching (or rather, jerking) forward into the intersection mere seconds after coming to a stop; one arrived in the center of the intersection while cross traffic was still advancing and made them steer around him!

But the worst example was a driver who rode my bumper as we were entering a construction zone. I was decelerating, but still over the posted limit; he or she was behind me mere moments before deciding to pass…at freeway speeds…on the right…using a rapidly diminishing merge lane lined with orange barrels and Increased Fines signs!

Of course, I always try to oblige the locals, so I added to the chaos, emerging from behind a left-turning semi in a non-freeway construction zone to wind up headed the wrong way into oncoming traffic in a dusty, narrow lane lined both sides with orange pylons. We laughed in retrospect, once I quickly backed between pylons and pointed us back the way we came, and the kids learned that I am, in fact, prone to frightened expletives in times of stress.

We learned that deputies in the Keys will pull you over for a burned-out headlight (“Do you know why I pulled you over?” “No, sir, I do not.”), but the one we encountered was very friendly, even when out proof of insurance was set to expire at midnight that very night! He let us go with a verbal warning and the admonition to get the light fixed ASAP.

We learned that gators can, indeed, be spied along the highways in rural south Florida. We speculated that the panther and bear crossing signs were posted to drum up intrigue rather than to warn of any actual wildlife present, and again, that the bears were escaped polar bears (judging from the shape of the black silhouette on the signs) from an apparently flooded zoo. This odd thought led to further speculation that behind the high fences and tall grasses, Floridians were breeding armadillos and releasing them along the highways of Tennessee — or at least littering that unfortunate state with their carcasses.

The prevalence of roadside armadillo carcasses made roadkill-watching something of an activity, in addition to license-plate hunting (45 states, all but one from passenger vehicles, not trucks or trailers; five provinces; and the U.S. Government) and the Score! game. We laughed at a term I made up as we passed a particularly unidentifiable critter on the pavement: inside-out-opus. Indeed, inside-out-opus may have been the second most prevalent creature we saw along I-75, armadillos being the first, and easily identified by their disjointed but intact bands of so-called armor.

We learned (or rather, confirmed) that Trevor and Emma have the same dark, though nonsensical, edge to their humor as I sometimes have, as when we passed a dead deer that had been clearly blitzed by a large truck. “There’s a semi deer,” I observed to pass the time. Trevor replied, “That’s exactly what it was: a semi-deer…half a deer!”

Another example: After being pepper by no-see-um bites the first night in the Keys**, we discussed now and again the possibility of chewing off our own limbs to rid ourselves of the itch. Emma was in a particularly bad state the evening we were in Memphis — relieved only by the distraction of eating those exquisite Rendezvous ribs. She railed at Trevor his seeming inability to get the bones clean of pork to her exacting standards, which led to the best joke of the trip: as we left Memphis and my own numerous red spots began to itch with a fury, I asked Trevor to gnaw off my feet (since I was driving and unable to do it myself). Without hesitation, Emma said, “He won’t be able to finish.”

In addition to inside-out-opus, we learned two new words, courtesy of Trevor: froth-tips (he meant whitecaps) and crane-truck (he meant tow truck). We laughed to recall Randy telling us of his late Airedale Sandy, who rode with him everywhere and became something of a celebrity in Wetumpka, Alabama — how, if something caused Randy to say an angry word, Sandy would jump in the back of the vehicle until he said, “I’m sorry, Sandy, I didn’t mean it!” We learned that a manatee on a mission can swim more than 20 miles per hour, and that Hemingway’s then wife, Martha Gellhorn, stowed away on a Naval vessel to be the sole woman to land at Normandy on D-Day.

We learned many other things, and laughed a lot — though much of the humor was born of 60-plus hours together in a car. I won’t share more. You had to be there!

————

* As my kids play Score!, when you spy a yellow vehicle moving under its own power, you get two points; a yellow vehicle parked (on land or a trailer) is worth one point. Yellow Hummers are 15; yellow construction vehicles, school buses, and vehicles with fewer than four wheels don’t count at all. It gets a little touchy at times: designating which shades of chartreuse are too green, or which of signal yellow are too orange, or which bucket trucks, dump trucks, or semis are sufficiently vehicular to not be considered construction equipment, or how to handle a Penske rental lot. After many hundreds of points combined, the final score and victory came down to the last two miles of the trip: Emma spied the last two yellow vehicles and beat Trevor by a mere three points. (She also “scored” multiple Hummers, while Trevor saw none — controversially, the first one came with an accompanying gasp from me, which was followed by Rose saying, “Is that a Hummer? Yeah, it’s a Hummer!” Trevor claimed she didn’t know for sure, so it should have counted. That 30-point swing would have made him the victor by a sizable margin.

** We learned that no-see-ums are a plague on humanity that make mosquitoes and ticks seem quaint and tolerable; the sheer volume of tiny red blistery, burny, itchy bites, couples with the intensity of the itch and the week-plus duration of inflammation (not to mention the sheer madness of a bug you can hardly see carving chunks from your living flesh) make it no competition. Emma got it worst; they loved her, and her bites swelled to pea size early on, like mosquito bites. I was bitten second worst, and Trevor least of all, but still plenty badly — his also seemed to take root and flare up later than ours. Wicked. I won’t make the same mistake and trust the breeze and tent screens to keep the bugs off!

Road Trip Review, Part 4: What We Ate!

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

As I mentioned, one of the top priorities of the trip to Keys — perhaps the top priority for the kids! — was to eat good food along the way. We started right off the bat, stopping at a family favorite, Mancino’s Pizza and Grinders in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, part of a smallish Midwestern chain of pizza and sandwich shops that was a go-to for Jodi and me during our Michigan years. I don’t recall ever eating the pizza; the grinders are second-to-none: stacks of deli meat, cheese, and veggies on toasted, homemade Italian bread that is nothing particularly unusual and yet is unique to Mancino’s somehow. I get the Italian, without fail, and am never disappointed.

Breakfasts, with just three exceptions, were complimentary hotel affairs, and as long as there’s a waffle maker and coffee, how can you complain? Most of our lunches were from the cooler: ham and cheese wraps, hard-boiled eggs, fruit and nuts, granola bars, and Emma’s chocolate-chip cookies.

That leaves three exceptional breakfasts, dinners, and desserts. I’ll try to cover them in the order they happened, which requires me to retrace the road trip.

After Mancino’s on Sunday, we continued down the freeway toward Rockford, Illinois, where we battled a blinding rainstorm before stopping. Biscuits and gravy at the hotel, then headed south. Road lunch. Near as we can recall, we ate dinner on the road that night, too, trying to get as far along as we could to make the Keys in time to set up camp before sunset on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning, we hit Waffle House in Valdosta, Georgia — a ubiquitous chain of restaurants in the South, with some freeway exits boasting a franchise on each side of the road! It struck me as equal parts Denny’s, roadside drive-in diner, and small-town Southern cafe. The signature waffles look like Eggos, but taste like heaven (Rose and Trev added chocolate chips to theirs); the orange juice was cold and sweet; the coffee, strong and black; the bacon crisp; the eggs cooked perfectly.

“What’s not to like?” a friend asked. “A typical WH meal covers the main food groups: fat and salt.”

She forgot sugar. It was delicious!

Our goal being Big Pine Key Fishing Lodge in time for set-up and supper, we pressed on with another road lunch. We arrived at Big Pine, checked in, set up camp, and on the manager’s recommendation, sought out a relatively new restaurant called Bucktooth Rooster, which had, among other things, the coolest ceiling fans I’d ever seen: regular electric fans on motorized, rotating arms.

I had determined before we set out that I wanted to eat local seafood in the Keys, whereas the kids ate whatever struck their fancy. In this case, Trevor had an deep dish of rigatoni and meatballs, which he enjoyed but was unable to finish. Emma had steak soft tacos, which smelled and looked delicious. I had one of the house specialties: the “famous” seafood pasta, with fresh lobster, scallops, shrimp, and the local “catch of the day” fish, which I forget, in a lobster cream sauce. I also had a solid local lager to wash it down. Our server was friendly and helpful, and locals were eating there, too. All in all, a great first meal in the Keys.

Next morning, we drove 45 minutes to Key West for breakfast, arriving at Cuban Coffee Queen just as the morning rush was starting. A fearless rooster was crowing in the street; locals, tourists, and camo-clad service men and women from the nearby Naval installation were lining up for strong coffee and home-cooked, Cuban-inspired breakfast sandwiches and breakfast burritos.

Emma and Trevor each got a Key Wester: two eggs, American cheese, and bacon on pressed, toasted Cuban bread — it came piping hot, with a side of rice and black beans. I had the Cuban Breakfast Burrito — three eggs, American cheese, chorizo, rice, and black beans in a tortilla — perhaps the best breakfast burrito I’ve ever enjoyed — along with their Cuban American coffee: “gringo” coffee with a shot of bucci, or Cuban espresso. It was strong, black, flavorful, and had the strange quality of making you feel, at least temporarily, superhuman! (I understood immediately where the slogan on their t-shirts comes from: Drink More Cuban Coffee and Do Stupid Things Faster!

Three or four people staffed the little shop. About halfway through our breakfast, which we ate seated on a bench nearby, a lovely woman rode up on a bicycle to deliver supplies; she kissed the man who had taken our order, and for all the world, the little joint appeared to be a family affair. Indeed, later the same woman returned with a toddler in tow, and I found myself hoping this Key West landmark was, in fact, the love and livelihood of this young family. I may have to order a t-shirt!

We walked a ton that day, in part due to the fact that the tourist map I was given had no scale, and nothing to indicate that the streets shown were only “major” streets, with numerous lesser avenues and alleys between. Everything that appeared​ to be four or five blocks away turned out to be a mile or more, and the kids (against my advice) wore flip-flops instead of sneakers — plus we left the sunscreen in the car. As a result, by late morning we were seeking shelter, and found a gelato shop in which to cool ourselves. Emma, Trevor, and I enjoyed mango sorbet, cherry gelato, and strawberry gelato, respectively — and agreed to skip lunch in favor of finding Blue Heaven and enjoying some of its famous, towering Key lime pie in the afternoon.

We walked and walked. As previously mentioned, we visited the Basilica, the Hemingway House, the Southernmost Point marker, and a stretch of beach that required miles of walking and no end to twisting and turning to locate. Finally a beach-clad local on a bicycle saw me looking at a map and pointed us in the right direction, then rode make from whence he came to rejoin a group of bikers — apparently he had seen us from a few blocks away and stopped to approach us and help!

Finally, late in the afternoon (knowing supper would not come until well after the Key West sunset), we walked to Blue Heaven for desserts. We had all planned on the Key lime pie, with its towering, toasted meringue, but I glimpsed “Banana Heaven” on the menu and ordered it to share. The pie was a triumph of refreshing lime flavor and airy architecture, perfect for the long, hot day we had experienced, and just as good as everyone said. Banana Heaven lived up to its name: flambéed bananas and warm banana bread with homemade vanilla ice cream slowly melting on top. It was rich, decadent — almost too much to handle on so hot a day. Almost.


We drove back to the beach for sunset, then trekked to Stock Island in search of Hogfish Bar and Grill for supper. Hogfish Bar boasts of its signature fish and of being a glimpse of the Keys of yesterday. The menu says “A Great Place If You Can Find It” — I was grateful for GPS, and even so, nearly turned back. We drove down a side street, then turned down another, and another — each darker than the one before, with no signs of business and little of life. We drove through a trailer park and past a sign that said “Public road ends here” or some such thing — past stacks of crates and darkened windows — and up to a crowded parking lot and well-lit saloon on the docks of Stock Island!


They seated us a picnic table right on the docks, where we watched a local fisherman fleshing what appeared to be the gaping jaws of a medium-size shark. I had heard nothing but good things about hogfish, though I had no clear idea what it was — so Emma and I ordered the hogfish tacos (mine with jalapenos; hers without). Trevor ordered Cuban spiced pork, and I added a local brew to wash it down. Hogfish, it turns out, is delicious — light, flavorful, reminiscent of shellfish. This may be my favorite meal the entire trip, edging out the others by reason of my complete inability to to replicate it in any way!

We slept in a bit (not much) the next morning, then ate ham and boiled eggs on the beach near our tent before tearing down. Our goal was a late brunch at Mangrove Mike’s Cafe on Islamorada on our way back to the mainland. Their website promotes their catering business well — the cafe itself appears as a typical small-town family restaurant, tucked into a little strip mall between two art galleries: one stocking high-end wood carvings; the other, brightly colored island photos, arts, and crafts, as well as frames made from the weathered wood of crab traps. 

Mangrove Mike’s boasts a assortment of delicious French toasts made from breads, rolls, and cakes. Emma and I opted for cinnamon-roll French toast; Trevor, for the apple cake version. Both were sweet and delicious — well worth the wait and drive — but I give the edge to Trevor’s choice. By his estimation, it may be the best thing he ate the whole trip!

We headed north, first to Everglades City for our mangrove adventure, then to Fort Myers. We had all agreed that one of our goals was to say we tried alligator. Capt. Kent of Allure Adventures departs from a dockside eatery and market called Triad Seafood — known for stone crabs, but serving gator bites, as well. Similar to Hogfish Bar, getting to Triad involved side streets, alleys, and stacks of crates and seemingly abandoned gear — which, based on the previous evening’s meal, boded well for us! Unfortunately, we were all suffering from no-see-um bites, and Emma particularly badly, so we tracked down Benadryl for her and took a drive while she dozed. I lost track of time, and returned to Triad just as the restaurant closed. (I have no doubt it would have been good: while we waited for our Everglades cruise, a carload of well-dressed women from Miami arrived to purchase a couple hundred dollars worth of stone crab for dinner that night — they marched straight back to the kitchen and refused to take “we’re closed” for an answer!)
So we ate our own snacks, and then, after our cruise, drove to Ft. Myers for the night — where we found a gator-themed sports bar called Gatorbites. We ordered the sampler, and ate five flavors of deep-fried gator tail tenders — in texture, like slightly chewy calamari; in flavor, two parts chicken, one part shellfish. It was tasty, and we’re glad we tried it — but we wouldn’t drive extra miles to try it again.
The next day, after a hotel breakfast, we pushed for Alabama. We finished our road lunches en route, and as we approach Montgomery, I asked the kids what they wanted for supper. We all had a craving for pizza, so I had Trev google “best pizza in montgomery” and “best woodfired pizza.” One pizza place showed up near the top of both searches: Midtown Pizza Kitchen. Again, hard-to-find: tucked in behind a maze of businesses, parking lots, and strip malls; again, packed with locals. It was nearly full when we arrived, and people were standing in the doorway when we left. We ordered the Cheese Bread and the 5-Meat Pizza — plenty of food for the three of us, and exactly what we had hoped for in well-crafted, wood-fired pizza!

We stayed the night outside Mongomery, then met our new friends, Randy and Pat, and their Airedales after our motel breakfast. Our goal was to grab lunch at a hole-in-the-wall soul food restaurant in Wetumpka called the Chicken Shack (good things are said online!) but unfortunately, it was closed, with no indication of opening soon. (Maybe when we go after a pup…)

So we stopped at Chic-fil-a on the road, pushing hard to get to Memphis for Mass at St. Peter Catholic Church, then dinner at a barbecue landmark: Rendezvous!

St. Peter is a beautiful downtown church within walking distance of Rendezvous, and with free parking — perfect. Eucharist first, then barbecue. Rendezvous is down an alley in downtown Memphis; you can smell the smoke before you ever see the signs, and we walked past it before seeing a sidewalk sign directing us to the side street we had just crossed, and the alley off that.

Rendezvous is an institution, introduced to me when I worked for Hanley Wood and wrote for FedEx, headquartered in Memphis. They boast a wonderful dry rub and famous ribs. We opted for a full order of ribs and a ribs/brisket combo plate to share, along with slaw, beans, and bread. Smoke, spice, vinegar, char, succulent pork and tender beef. Perfection. This was Emma’s favorite meal, and a close second for me!

That was last Saturday. Sunday morning, after another motel breakfast, we drove hard for home — stopping at Wendy’s for lunch. We were home in time for supper…but strangely, not hungry!
All in all, I think the goal of eating good food in interesting places was satisfied.


Road Trip Review, Part 3: What We Saw

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

We saw 12 states on our road trip to and from the Keys: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas. Missouri, and Iowa. We saw mile after mile of beautiful woodlands, farmlands, and ranch lands that grew greener and greener as we travel south, and one long strip of hard gray asphalt littered with local fauna.

Most prevalent among the roadkill corpses were armadillos: we began to see them in Tennessee on the downward trip, and left off again in Missouri, I believe. Scores of dead armadillos, and nary a live one — when they venture out and whether they are overconfident in their armor or just that thickheaded, I’ll never know.

The armadillos appear to be substantially less bright than even iguanas: in the Keys we saw countless big green lizards along the highway, and only one dead: a brilliant green juvenile hit by the car in front of us. (We also saw one run across a dusty parking lot in front of a car, and if you ever see an iguana running full-tilt, its four legs windmilling from its sides, you won’t forget it!)

As a former lizard lover — I had an iguana named Ike as a teen — this was a thrill, but although we saw a couple up close, either we didn’t have a camera in hand or they were too hidden for decent shot. We also saw numerous brown anole lizards (my first lizard, Zeke, was of this variety; a family member brought him home, probably illegally, from Florida when I was in middle school) and a couple of curly-tails (my second lizard, Max, was a captive-bred curly tail) — and the kids spied a green anole outside the the Basilica of St. Mary, Star of the Sea, on Key West. (Click photos to enlarge.)

We saw countless species of palm trees. We saw the Key deer mentioned yesterday, of course, including a little velvet-antlered buck, and an endless variety of birds, from the ever-present grackles, crows, and buzzards, to a crowing parade of roosters and clucking chickens on Key West, to black-headed gulls, brown pelicans, American white ibises, and countless other sea birds. We saw endless horizons of grass and water, and signs warning us of bears and panthers crossing. We saw great everglades turtles sunning themselves on the road’s edge.

Our Everglades boat tour warrants special mention for wildlife, of course. We discussed the typical airboat tour, but the kids wanted to go whale-watching, too. Airboat rides are noisy affairs, and gators being relatively prevalent (we saw a half-dozen in the canals along the highway to Everglades City), we opted for a sunset tour with Allure Adventures through the maze of mangrove islands and out to the Gulf. It was just the three of us and Kent, our guide and captain, and before we even left the dock, he spied a manatee surfacing in the river beyond. We got three brief glimpses of the great sea cow as it moved quickly down the river — they move surprisingly fast for their bulk! As we set out on the boat, we saw an osprey eating a fish, and shortly after we emerged into the mangroves, we saw a pair of dolphins hunting in the shallows among the mangroves — again, only fleeting glimpses, as they were too focused on food to jump and play in our wake. (And again, it was amazing how quickly they could move, in this case, in water only a few feet deep.)

Captain Kent then took us to a stretch of Everglades National Park beach accessible only by boat, with the most amazing powdered white sand (a luxury for tired feet) and the rattle of thousands of seashells with every wave that touched the shore. This island was essentially a sand bar built up along a knot of mangroves, trees with aerial roots that reach down into the water, so that most such islands have no soil at all, except the sea bottom. We saw raccoon tracks in the sand: the only land animal that lives on these mangrove islands, the raccoons down there are not nocturnal, but tidal, according to Kent — they feed at low tide, whatever time of day. We also saw conch shells large and small (illegal to harvest), a horseshoe crab carapace (likely the raccoon’s meal at some point), and a couple dead starfish awash among the seashells. I stepped barefoot among the grasses growing on the island and discovered sand burs grow there, as well.

We boarded the boat again and took a winding and at times treacherous route through the channels among the mangroves, in search of more dolphins. Alas, it was not to be. Finally, toward sunset, Captain Kent followed the egrets and pelicans to their evening roosts: a squawking, croaking, clicking rookery of sea birds awaiting nightfall. Countless pelicans, cormorants, and egrets, and two roseate spoonbills made an appearance as we watched the sun drop behind a clouded horizon. On the boat ride back to the dock, we saw two osprey darkly eyeing the water. Captain Kent was a delight — knowledgeable and entertaining — and his obvious love and concern for the wildlife and ability to navigate the maze of mangroves at speed were impressive!

What else did we see? We saw Hemingway’s House on Key West, with countless artifacts and his office just as he used it — and a sun-tanned, silver-haired Hemingway lookalike on the beach before sunset. We saw the Basilica mentioned above, with doors along both sides where windows ought to be, open to the sunshine and breezes — a welcome haven from the sun and pavement of bustling Key West. We saw schooners and yachts and fishing boats, and a crew making a show of unloading their catch for the cameras of tourists. We saw kitschy souvenir shops, high-end art and fashion shops, and a funky clothing and music store called Good Day on a Happy Planet, in which a boisterous bohemian woman sold us coconut and bamboo wind chimes (for Jodi) and a nice cigar-box ukulele (for the family) — we stopped through in the morning, and when we returned for the uke in the afternoon, she actually cheered and sang to us in front of her other customers!

We saw the long and short bridges connecting the islands to the mainland. We saw people fishing, biking, tanning, swimming, and sailing. We saw glimpses of Miami and Atlanta from the freeway; the headquarters of Jodi’s former employer, Randstad, nearly overlooking the Chatahoochee; and St. Peter Catholic Church in the heart of Memphis. We saw the highest concentration of Baptist churches I could imagine in rural Alabama, and met Randy and Pat, the breeders of handsome hunting and working Airedales, distant cousins to our late Boomer. We can’t wait to get back down and come home with a pup, hopefully before snow flies!

I’m sure we saw other things — and I haven’t even touched on the food yet! — but that’s enough for today’s recollection!

Road Trip Review, Part 2: What We Did and Didn’t Do

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

Before we left for the Keys, I sought the advice of people I knew had been down that way, as well as the wisdom of the Web. I quickly ascertained that the further one travels toward Mile Marker 0, the more “local color” we would be likely to encounter as far as bohemian eccentricities go, and the more the spirit of carnival would take over after dark.

So despite the tradition of watching the sun got down en masse on Key West and applauding the light show as it ended, we avoided the crowds at sunset, finding a quiet strip of beach with one or two other families and lots of crabs and​ seabirds among the rocks. (Click the photos for a better view.)

To save money, we spent our two nights in the Keys in a screen tent on the beach at Big Pine Key Fishing Lodge at Mile Marker 33 ($180 a night for a motel versus $50 for a tent). The weather was pleasant enough when we arrived Tuesday night, and we set up the tent in sunshine with a cooling breeze coming off the channel. We checked the weather forecast, and tossed the rain fly in the corner. 
We went to supper, and when we came back to the camp site to turn in for the night, the breeze has freshened to a steady wind, causing our dome tent (n) to lean away from the water in the fashion demonstrated below:
before dinner: n
after dinner: n
This tent, mind you, is more than 20 years old, with flexible, fiberglass poles that have split before in inclement weather and have been repaired. Yet it appeared to be holding its own, and we turned in to enjoy nature’s air conditioning and try to sleep. We lay on our cots looking through the screened portion of the dome roof at the moon and stars above. It was beautiful.
Sometime before midnight, the moon darkened behind the edge of advancing clouds. The neighbors, two sites down, had come back to their tents late and were joking and laughing. It was after “quiet time,” but the sounds were joyous, not overloud and not obscene, so I lay back and listened and smiled. Then the sound of wind changed, enough that Trevor sat up to look outside. I rose, too, to see a wall of cloud advancing across the channel and to smell rain in the air.
I checked the weather on my phone: 12 mph winds predicted, and a chance of rain. One of the neighbors had brought forth a guitar and had begun to sing. I lay back to listen.
Within about 15 minutes the wind freshened even more, pulling a stake near Emma’s cot, allowing the tent to flap noisily and rousing her. Tiny raindrops pattered against the seaward side of the tent. (Thankfully we had chosen to face the front toward the water, so the screen was on the lee of the tent, away from the wind.) I began to feel a light misting from the droplets hitting the door screen, so I zipped shut the window flap on the door. This, of course, caused the tent to catch still more wind, and I have no doubt that from the outside our tent looked like a comma, or a overfilled sail!
From the inside, we had the sensation of sailing the skies in a lightly built box kite. Nevertheless, there were no storms in sight and no perceptible danger aside from a tent collapse, so I lay down to try to sleep and urged the kids to do the same.
And we did. The wind and rain pelted the front of the tent, but never the screened-in back, and the poles bowed but did not break. Ultimately we drifted off, and the rain ceased, and the stars reappeared. In the hours before sunrise the breezes died almost completely, and we were introduced to no-see-ums. But that is another story.
We stayed at a fishing lodge, but due to time and money constraints, did not fish. We saw the endangered Key deer (a knee-high subspecies of whitetail for which Big Pine Key is famous), but did not pet them, although they were not shy. We visited Hemingway’s House and the Basilica of St. Mary, Star of the Sea. We saw the southernmost point marker (just 90 miles to Cuba), but did not wait in line for a photo. We ate great food and passed a brewery or two, but they did yet offer bottles, cans, or growlers, so we brought none back. We went on an Everglades boat tour, but not an airboat into the gator-filled grasslands.  In short, we did what you do in south Florida and the Keys, but in our own way. More to come!