Keywest recap, cat, more
Well if I am able to accurately relay the events that went down during the 4 day vacation to Key West, it should be one of my more entertaining blog entries ever.
We left around 9:30 am Thursday morning, we figured somewhere between 5-6 hours for the 270 mile trip. As Ali has reminded me multiple times, we hadn’t been on a “vacation” that didn’t involve family issues or playing volleyball more than a handful of times during our marriage. Ali planned this trip and it was a “family” vacation, meaning we were bringing our black, furry child along as well. We were staying in a dog friendly place and Ali had her dog book in hand that mapped out all the dog friendly food establishments along the way. Nicki is good in the car, spending most of her time either sitting quietly or with her head out the window. We stopped for lunch at a place called Hog Heaven near Islamorada. Dogs were allowed in the outdoor seating area. It was a great place, on the water with a cool dock and it’s own little beach. Right by the dock was a 3 foot long barracuda that hung out waiting for food scraps. I never saw a barracuda before, it was a mean looking fish. The water had an interesting bright bluish green color to it. We had a nice lunch and then walked out to the beach for a few minutes and snapped a few pictures.
Shortly after leaving the restaurant, Ali found another attraction in the book where you could feed tarpon. I never saw tarpon before so it sounded like fun to me. It was only a few miles down the road. It was an old rickety place that looked like it has been unchanged for 30 years. I grabbed my bucket of fish and went out to the dock. I was amazed at the amount of fish. Tarpon are huge fish and the docks were just teeming with them. There also was a large amount of pelicans trying to jump in on the fish action. It was cool watching the feeding frenzy. I threw the pelicans a few fish as well, although after the fact, Ali pointed out that there was a DON’T FEED THE PELICANS sign. Oops. Nicki was intrigued by the action.
The rest of the drive to Key West was fine but lengthy. We saw various things of interest like vast stretches of wilderness, crocodile crossing signs, key deer protected habitat, the 7 mile bridge and small town after town that seemed more or less unaffected by the huge building boom in the majority of Florida. Once you get on Route 1, the majority of it is one lane in each direction so you are at the mercy of the the slowest vehicle in the line of traffic for prolonged periods of time. We pulled into Key West around 4pm and promptly went on a mini-detour as we missed the turn to get to the place we were staying. The first thing you notice is all of the 2 wheeled traffic in KW. Scooters and bikes outnumber the amount of cars on the streets. The streets are congested and narrow. You need to be very, very focused on your driving as there are constant possible hazards everywhere.
When we found the place we turned onto what looked to be an alley that was more narrow than my driveway. I had no idea where we would park but then thankfully spotted a small parking area just past the entrance. I asked very few questions beforehand and didn’t know we were staying at a bed and breakfast. I was a bit taken back but then when we went inside we were greeted by a very quaint and pretty entranceway with a small pool and a permanently open door to the common dining/kitchen area.
The owner was there and directed us back to the room. The first adjective that came to mind was “small”. 18 inches inside the door was the bed. Bringing luggage in required you to lug it over the bed as there was no way to navigate on the floor. The floor was covered in a natural looking tile. The bathroom was small as well. The microwave, fridge and coffee maker were out on the small covered porch. However small, the room was clean enough and definitely quaint. I think Ali was more displeased with it than I was.
The first order was to take Nicki for a walk. Not a big deal, right? Wrong. One thing we found out in a hurry was something that was not plentiful in KW was open areas of grass where you can walk a dog. The tiny old houses are packed in shoulder to shoulder with no lawns. Nicki is used to having a 3 acre bathroom at home, the little 4 foot by 4 foot squares of grass and sand just did not work for her. Finally after a lot of walking around we found some open grass on a corner where a church resided. I felt uneasy about using holy ground as a dog toilet but it was big enough for Nicki to do her thing and it wasn’t like we weren’t going to pick up after her. The bad part was this church was close to a half mile away from the room, so every trip to walk her was lengthy.
Thursday night we went to a a semi-upscale place called Mango’s that had outdoor seating and allowed dogs. Nicki laid down like a good girl. However when Ali petted her she noticed she felt sticky. Evidently where she laid was also the spot where a drink or something was spilled recently that was a sticky mess. Her lower half was basically covered in it. For the rest of the meal we tried to keep her away from that area but weren’t very successful in doing so. During the meal we heard “We are Family” blaring from the street. We look out and see a big flat bed truck filled with gay men dressed as women dancing and carrying on. KW has a huge gay population so although I stopped and stared in amazement for a few seconds, I wasn’t all that surprised. We had a good dinner, walked up and down Duval for a bit. Having Nicki with was definitely a restriction as we couldn’t go into a store at the same time so we bascially chose to not go into any. We saw the first of many street people during that time. I guess if you are going to be homeless, you can’t pick a better spot than Key West. I had one guy flat out ask me for a buck to buy a beer. I’ve had many homeless ask for handouts over the years, but never one that admitted to using the handout to partake in the problem that likely cause his homelessness in the first place. I slapped my pockets, said I didn’t have my wallet on me (it was in a bag) and moved on.
Our first night of sleep was less than solid. The queen sized bed seemed tiny in comparison to our king at home. It was very squishy and resulted in us waking up at regular intervals to reposition ourselves due to being uncomfortable. I woke up early, without a clock or prodding from Nicki. I went out and partaked in the generous breakfast offerings. Even though our room accomodations were less than ideal, it was almost negated in my mind by the quiet, beautiful setting as I ate my breakfast on the porch, next to the tiny pool, in front of the 2 cockatiels that were making happy sounds.
KW has a large outdoor cat population as well, several called the B&B home. Evidently Nicki’s episode with our friends cat has now made her more or less afraid of ALL cats. (except ours) The one cat looked a lot like our friend’s and caused Nicki the most fear. We literally had to shield her from it and she would scurry by with her tail between her legs. It was unreal. Her fear was so great at that point that when I took her to walk that evening we walked by two lion statues that she ran from, no exagerration.
On Friday we sorta had a lax day, no specific agenda. One of the things we wanted to do was go to the dog beach. We followed the directions in the book and did a bit of a doubletake when we saw the “beach”. It was an empty postage stamp size of sand and dried seaweed, wedged between 2 pieces of private property. We didn’t stay very long. Instead we decided to walk down to the southern point marker. Ironically this isn’t the actual southern most point in the US, the actual spot is on navy property but I guess this is the next best thing. The area is full of tourists. People take turns posing in pictures and then manning other people’s cameras to take pictures for them. We then decided to just hop in the car and drive around a bit to explore. When you get a mile or so out you hit “new” Key West which looks like most any coastline area complete with strip malls. We grabbed a couple sandwiches and went to a dog friendly park to eat them. The park had more street people hanging out. I took a picture of a weird old car that didn’t appear to move over the 3 day span that we saw it. During my time in the keys I took various pictures of things that struck me as odd, like the ping pong table in the yard, the wall with 2 legs on it, the car with a shower curtain back window and the unforgettable truck tailgate.
On Friday evening we went to a place called Awful Arthur’s. In contrast to last night’s upscale dining, AA’s was several picnic benches on sand under a canopy. It had loud party music and the bar was right next to us. We were a bit hesitant upon arrival but the patrons that were there seemed to be enjoying themselves so we decided to stay. The bartender seemed to be drunk of his ass. Our waitress seemed to have thrown back a few as well. They had 2 for one beers and my mode of transportation was by foot so I decided to throw back a few. After a few I found that I was enjoying the “restaurant” much more. The food was surprisingly good. Late in the meal I had to use the bathroom. I came back and found a rather large guy sitting at our table across from Ali. Ok here we go, I thought. This is going to be interesting. I sat down and greeted the man. Evidently he loved dogs and came over to see Nicki. Immediately I could tell this guy was blasted drunk. He was talking very slow and deliberately to avoid slurring. I was mellow myself from having a few drinks so I engaged him in conversation while Ali shot me look after look. Shortly it came out that this guy has been arrested many times but never for a felony. He relayed a story about how he was arrested by Collier County police last new year’s eve for public drunkeness. He claimed he wasn’t drunk as he had only drank a quart of beer. The officer was a young kid. Evidently the guy argued with the officer and resisted arrest. Somehow he wound up running and then was tazered. He said the tazering wasn’t that bad. Both of our eyes got wider as he continued. He said the resisting arrest was a felony charge but he was lucky and got it down to a misdemeanor. He continued to ramble about things. He hates Bush, believes in God……. Thankfully he had to hit the bathroom. As he got up and stumbled inside, we asked for the check. As he came out we told him we were ready to head out. He said his drunken goodbyes and thanked us for listening to him. We felt relieived to escape the situation. The scary thing is there were a bunch of people like that wandering KW.
On Saturday we had a fuller day planned. We first went to the KW aquarium. It is a small little place but had some interesting indoor and outdoor exhibits. One of the most interesting were the indoor, knee high open tanks that housed sting rays and sharks. Nicki was particularly interested in the sting ray tank because they kept hopping up, trying to get out of the tank. During the walk thru, Nicki had her first experience with more than 2 or 3 stairs. She never had to climb or descend a staircase before so it was funny to see her navigate it. Even with going as slow as we could and taking the time to see everything, it only took us barely an hour to get through the aquarium.
After walking around a bit we went down to the KW lighthouse. It is old and was renovated 20 years ago for public access after being closed for years. It was cool to go up into it, 87 iron steps lead to the top where you get a very scenic but windy view of the island. Even though you are caged in, looking over the edge was a bit daunting. Originally we thought we could coax Nicki up the steps but they were too narrow and steep for her to attempt, so Ali and I went up individually. Here is a pic from the top, looking down on Ali and Nicki.
Again for lunch we grabbed sandwiches and ate at the park. At the park and throughout our time at KW we took time to snag various seeds from the different trees in the hopes of recreating some of the beauty on our property. We have had some limited success growing stuff from seed so we loaded up on any sort of tree or bush that caught our eye.
Saturday afternoon we were tired, me especially so. We went back to the room and Ali read while I took a nap ( a near miracle) I really gave little thought to the idea that we were heading back home the following morning, something I used to dwell on incessantly when I went on vacation. That evening we decided to go up to Mallory Square for the sunset celebration. Everyone gathers to watch the sun go down and they have all sorts of vendors, food stands and entertainment acts. We wandered around and found a place to eat on the boat docks. They told us it would be a 15-30 minute wait. No problem, at least they take dogs. 30 seconds later, the buzzer goes off. What the hell, tables ready. I have heard of under promising but damn…
After dinner we walked around a bit and actually missed the sunset. We didn’t really care cause we can see awesome sunsets here anyday we want. I sat with Nicki for awhile outside a gift shop while Ali looked for stuff. She sat there like a good girl with me. Ali took a cute picture. (except for my shaggy mane) We then went to the square and caught the tail end of the festivities. It was still quite crowded and a bit difficult to manage with a dog. Still, we saw some fun stuff and had a good time. We headed back for our last night in the room.
Nicki and I embarked on our last, late night potty run. Everytime we went to this church yard I felt guilty. If there were people around, I would act like I was just casually walking by and pulled Nicki along. If the coast was clear, I would covertly jump onto the grass with her and try to enthusiastically encourage her do her thing so we could get the hell out of there. Of course she didn’t cooperate and the neverending distractions made every bathroom break a pain in the ass. Well the last nighttime potty run was the most memorable. As we turned onto the street where the church was, there was a black guy on a bike wearing a reflective vest. A car passed him and evidently it was a bit too close because he went off. “Can’t you read or write?” he yells “Share the road! You dumb mother f’r!” He was quite angry. I smirked and continued on. Next, I come across a puddle on the sidewalk. Since it was dark, I couldn’t tell what it was until I got on top of it. It was a big vomit omlette. I pull Nicki away and keep walking, making a note to come back on the other side of the street. We get to the grass area and Nicki is farting around as usual. I am getting quite frustrated cause she won’t take a shit. As I am getting angry I hear a sound across the street. I look up and there is a bike on it’s side in some brush and a man lying on his back with his leg propped up on a bush. I immediately assumed this guy was shit faced and crashed his bike. I wasn’t overly concerned and decided I would go check on him AFTER Nicki does her business. Well a good 5-10 minutes goes by and he is still laying there. Finally Nicki goes and as I am walking towards the corner, the guy struggles to his feet, climbs on his bike and wobbles across the street towards me. He looks very unsteady and the bike is making various noises from the impact. I simply ask him. “Are you ok?” His simple answer of “Yea” was an obvious lie. He was a middle aged white guy with a baseball hat on. I watch him swerve down the street away from me, as I wonder if I should do more to intervene. I decided that this was probably a very common thing here and decided to go back to the room. He was off the main road so worst case he would just crash into another bush or parked car.
More to come….son of a bitch I had the rest done and then lost it in some internet f up.
Oh well see if I can recant it again.
On Sunday morning I woke up early, anxious to get home. I went out to the kitchen area and was pouring my first coffee. Just as I finished, a man came running out of the one unit yelling “Fuego, fuego!” (fire in spanish) At first I kinda dismissed it. Then another guy runs out yelling FIRE! and pulls the fire alarm. The piercing alarm sounded throughout all the buildings. The panic was real. The only employee there was a spanish girl who spoke little english. I asked her about a fire extinguisher. She said yes but didn’t know where it was and she ran off. I looked around frantically and found one mounted on a post no more than 4 feet from where I was. I pull it off the hook and as I am running toward the door I break the tie wrap and pull the pin. I had no idea if the fire was big or small but I was ready to blast the hell out of it no matter what. I got in the door and it was filled with smoke. I asked the guy where it was and he said it was the ceiling fan. I saw no flames but I shot it with the extinguisher a few times just in case, coating the room in powder. Evidently the motor shorted out and caught on fire. The power switch had been turned off which effictively ended the threat. However the smoke was very thick and after performing my duties I quickly exited, coughing from the smoke. The siren continued to wail, awaking everyone. They all wanted to know if there was an actual fire and when they found out there was, they were more than a little freaked out. Old wooden construction like that would go up like a match stick. IT probably took about 15 minutes for the fire department to arrive. Shortly afterward the paramedics showed up as well. Everyone was fine, just a little frazzled. I told Ali of my attempt at firefighting. Needless to say, we were more than ready to get out of there after that. A wacky end to our stay.
The drive back sucked, at least the first half of it did. Most of the way up route 1 was stop and go. We thought there was an accident. Nope just lots of people pulling boats, going slow. Finally we hit an area where you could pass. I hit the gas and shoot by some cars that were annoying me. As I am cruising along, relieving some frustration, I notice some movement out of the corner of my eye. Then in the bottom left corner of the windshield I see a face. Within moments we have a full sized adult rat holding on for dear life on the windshield. Ali and I were speechless. I didn’t want the rat to fly off into traffic and become instant roadkill so I decelerated quickly and pulled off onto the grassy bumpy road bed. As I did the rat went to the passenger side and hopped off. We were a good hour and a half to two hours out of Key West. It had to have been there the entire time. Unreal. After we stopped for lunch, I popped the hood to make sure we had no other unwanted passengers along.
We pulled into home around 3:30. I helped Ali unpack inside and then I was outside, on the tractor , knocking down the grass, it looked like shit. As I was on the tractor I had one of those moments when you think about the weirdness of being in Key West playing firefighter a few hours ago to mowing the grass just like any other day. It always gives me pause.
A few numbers from the trip:
Over under on the amount of homeless we saw – 20
Gas mileage for the trip – 32mpg (with AC on entire time)
Number of tolls we had to pay for the total trip – 10
Most expensive price for unleaded regular gas – $2.49 (on key west)
Least expensive price for unleaded regular gas – $2.12 (one of the northern keys)
All of the pictures from the trip can be seen here.
On Tuesday night, before we left, Buttons had that low blood sugar seizure but seemed to recover somewhat before we left. The neighbors said they didn’t see any vomit while we were gone which is amazing. However shortly after we got home Buttons greeted us with more vomit. Then at 5am in the morning I am awakened by the sound of her vomiting at the foot of our bed. Furious, I shoot out of bed, grab her and throw her out into the living room onto the sofa. I am wishing death on the cat as I am trying to clean up 4 piles of puke in the dark at 5am. I didn’t bother going back to sleep. Once daylight struck, the cat didn’t look good. She didn’t want to eat, still threw up (even though it was only water) and looked odd in the face. She was very weak and worsened throughout the day. By the time Ali got home I didn’t know how long Buds had. We agreed we would give it the night and if she made it we would take her to the vet. Part of me is more than ready for her to pass on. Dealing with her diabetes for nearly 4 years has been tough on the cat and us and it’s been getting progressively worse. So I closed the bedroom door with the the knowledge that in the morning I could be coming out to a deceased cat.
Morning came and I cautiously opened the door. Buttons was laying on the kitchen floor, still alive but still looking like death. So we crated her up and Ali took her to the vet today. I am not looking for any heroic actions to prolong the cats life. If there is something simple that can be done to help her, fine but we are at the point when we are ready for it to be over with. It makes me very sad to make decisions about ending an animals life but I figure it has to happen sooner or later. She is staying at the vet overnight and we will have more news tomorrow.
After seeing the pictures of myself in key west and having a hard time distinguishing between the street people and myself due to my shaggy, unkept appearance, I begged Ali to cut my hair last night. I didn’t go extreme buzz like I used to but it still was like shearing a sheep. So much hair. My 8 month experiment has concluded.
I got my second character in WoW to level 40. It was something I was working towards for a couple weeks and now that I hit it I am going to cut back on my playing time. It has been extreme by any standard and all the hours at the computer probably have something to do with the chronically aching right wrist and shoulder I have been dealing with for a few months. Plus the lack of sleep does not do a body good.