To the end

As I am sitting here typing this out on the deck overlooking the water I see a cruise ship coming into port, it’s surreal.

Sunday Gladys wanted to take me all the way to the top of the island which is a pretty lengthy drive, somewhere around an hour one way.  Along the way we made a few stops, including another visit to the hardware store.

There was also an amazing coincidence along the way.  Gladys got a text telling her that some friends of hers were unexpectedly in town and that we would be hanging out with them last night.  She was very surprised and excited by the news.  We stopped for coffee at some surprisingly modern looking “mall”.  As we walk in the door of the coffee shop, her friends are sitting there….. Wow, I could hardly believe the timing.  We sat and talked to them for a bit before we all headed out, knowing we would see them again in a few hours.

The drive was memorable for sure.  The last third of it or so is on a dirt road with many challenges.  One was unexpected, getting stuck in a cattle traffic jam.  Some man was walking at least 25 cattle up this dirt road.  He tried to get them to move out of the way for the car but some of the animals were not very interested in yielding the right of way.

Gladys was trying to get to a lookout area up a steep hill.  The recent rains had created massive gulleys in the road where water had washed out the surface.  She carefully zig zagged back and forth to avoid getting the SUV stuck, it was impressive.

We stopped at two places in the east end.  The first was this ragged looking bar out on a dock.  As soon as I stepped inside I loved it.  The inside bar area was small with a hummingbird feeder on one of the tables.  There were at least a half dozen hummingbirds feeding on and off while we were there.  Sitting there enjoying a beer was one of those moments I will look back fondly on for years to come.

The second stop was in a place called Punta Gorda.  There was a place that served fish that Gladys was very excited for me to try, two dishes in particular.  The first was a fish soup that has a cooked fish in the middle of a creamy broth.  The second was an entire fish that was fried.  Neither of these entrees are anything I would seek out myself but in the spirit of the trip where I have been trying to open myself up to pretty much anything, I dug in.

Gladys and I shared both dishes.  The soup came with some mashed plantain biscuit that is used in conjunction with the soup.  The fried whole fish was best eaten with your hands mostly.  The visual was not great but it tasted good as well.  In addition Gladys ordered a shot of some local liquor that I can’t recall the name of.  It’s contains the root of some tree.  We split that as well.

After the meal we needed to get back to meet up with Gladys’s friends.  On the way out we got stuck in some sort of parade that is part of a night time celebration in Punta Gorda.  It was pretty hilarious.  We had a wall of cars coming at us.  Somehow Gladys managed to get us through it.  The long drive back was pretty hilarious.  Both Gladys and I were being pretty silly, cracking each other up over random things.  I also had my GoPro along so I have some funny footage to throw together at some point.

We got back just in time to clean up and meet up with Glady’s friends as well as Dustin and Kat.  The couple we met earlier were celebrating their one year wedding anniversary.  Kat had kept the top of their wedding cake for them per tradition which I thought was really sweet. We drank champagne and each shared a piece of cake as well.

The celebration was not over, we headed over to one of the main hang outs of the group called Popa Bones.  Along the way we picked up another friend of Gladys named Maxine.  I was already mildly drunk from the few beers during the day followed by the champagne.  I chased it with another three beers there.  I didn’t really need/want any food.  The alcohol helped me flow from conversation to conversation with a ton of other friends of Gladys that were hanging there as well.

At one point the skies opened up, dumping buckets of rain onto the partially open seating area.  Being drunk I stayed out in the rain a bit and walked through a temporary waterfall of rain pouring down off the roof.  They had live music there as well.  I had met one of the guys playing the day before.  He played a mean harmonica as well as sung a bit.  The lead guitarist however was amazing, his riffs were so clean.  It was a real pleasure to see him play.  We stayed there till damn close to closing.

I woke up today feeling less than fantastic which isn’t surprising based on the amount and diversity of alcohol I consumed.  That doesn’t take away from yesterday being great.  I really appreciated Gladys going out of her way to show me things that I would never see/do otherwise in my normal existence.  I’ll always be grateful for that.