Back From Florida
Well, we are back from Florida, and have survived to tell the tale. There were moments when I wasn’t sure we would.
Mrs Outdoorsman said She wanted to "...go somewhere warm..." without specifying exactly where. I suggested Cozumel, which we visited in 1991, and at which we briefly stopped on our last cruise a couple of months ago. Somehow Cozumel got transmuted into Florida: I found out later that it was because She was concerned we'd be in an area of military/naval activity. As preposterous as the idea of a US invasion of Cozumel might seem, it put that lovely island right out of consideration in Her mind.
I was subsequently informed that we were going to the Florida Keys, specifically Key Largo, the largest island in that archipelago. We had discussed this as a possibility, even going to the extent of watching the 1949 movie with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart (cleverly titled "Key Largo"). I hasten to add that the Key Largo of 2026 is nothing at all like that of 1949.
The worst aspect of this trip in my mind was that we would have to fly to Miami. I hate flying: I hate airplanes, I hate airports, I hate the people who work for the airlines, I hate anything to do with the airline industry, and most especially I hate the Transport Sturmabteilung. But there were no other options. Last time we went to Florida (to catch a cruise ship in Fort Lauderdale) we drove thanks to the so-called "government shutdown" which canceled our flight out of Roanoke. That took 3 days (and 3 more coming back) so flying it was to be, take it or leave it. I took it.
We went on Delta Airlines. As anyone who has ever traveled on Delta knows, you must always, without fail, change planes in Atlanta. If you fly from Bangor, Maine to Boston on Delta, you go through Atlanta; if you fly from New York City to New Jersey on Delta, you go through Atlanta. It's the law. Delta's law. Take it or leave it. We took it.
But wait, there's more...because of an impending snowstorm that the Weather Channel (a subsidiary of Paranoia Enterprises) insisted on calling "Winter Storm Fern" we left three days early. Had to do it, no arguments, the world was going to end from the effects of "Winter Storm Fern" so She changed our tickets and booked three extra days in Miami. Plus three more days for the car rental once we got there. This added something on the order of an extra $2000 to the original already obscene price, but that was the way it was going to be, take it or leave it. I took it.
One thing She did that was very clever was to ask Delta for assistance at the airports. Her knee is tricky and my sciatica makes it hard for me to walk long distances. This meant that when we got to Atlanta we were met with WHEELCHAIRS and rushed from our puddle-jumping Roanoke-to-Atlanta airplane to a real one. We had a tight connection: Atlanta's airport is colossal, big enough that there’s actually a train that gets you from one concourse to another. The wheelchair people popped us into our seats and wheee....we were off at a lively sprint, into the train to the proper concourse and gate. Better yet, at the gate we got to board the plane before anyone else who wasn't a Certified Gimp like us.
All the flights were on time. I'll give credit where credit is due: Delta has the reputation of being on time, most of the time. So we arrived in Miami as scheduled, picking up our rental car from Enterprise's airport site. It was a Mitsubishi "Mirage" made out of aluminum foil and plastic that reminded me of those tin toys I used to get in my childhood, the ones that were made in Japan from old flattened beer cans. The Mirage engine has three, count 'em three cylinders, not 4. As cheap and as sluggish as it was, it got us around, so I will not criticize it any longer.
She had booked us into a "resort" of sorts on the Florida Bay side of Key Largo. But because we were three days early we needed somewhere else to stay until such time as the resort could house us. This turned out to be the "Marina del Mar," a down-at-heels older place that was very conveniently located. It had thoroughly inadequate parking but the room was large. It would work for three days. There was a kitchenette whose stove had two of its four burners non-functional; a real refrigerator, two bowls, two small plates (no large ones) and all of four drinking glasses. A couple of spoons completed the inventory.
Key Largo must be the longest strip mall in the world. US Highway 1 runs down its spine (all the way to Key West, of which more below) with insane levels of traffic. This is because it's pretty much the only road there is. Oh, yes, there are side streets leading to residential areas, but US 1 is where the action is. It’s lined on both side with various retail establishments, including restaurants, companies that do plumbing, innumerable businesses related to boats and chandlery, entrances to other resorts, souvenir shops, boat sellers, and so forth. One or two places to buy groceries, which we’d need because we were staying in places with kitchenettes.
Marina del Mar is indeed on a marina. From our window we could look out to see boats, none of which ever moved from their moorings except for a couple of commercial ones. It had a nice little outdoor sitting area with some of the best Astroturf I’ve ever seen, really realistic. I wondered how much it would cost to get it to cover my yard. We actually got to sit there a couple of times.
One boat moored at the marina was African Queen, the actual steam launch used by Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in the movie based on C.S. Forester's novel. (Bogie keeps coming up...) It is no longer steam powered: there was an outboard motor on the stern. (I hasten to add that the movie ending is NOT the same as the book ending. You'll just have to read the book if you want to know how the story really turned out. Forester was pretty upset about this but having been a Hollywood script writer himself he no doubt wasn't surprised.) I have no idea why this vessel is now home-ported in Key Largo.
Another commercial vessel was a glass-bottomed boat which would take us out to view the wonders of the local coral reef. Florida’s reef system is as far north as coral grows; we booked a passage on this boat for our first full day at the Marina del Mar. This did not work out well. Mrs Outdoorsman is prone to motion sickness. This hasn’t been much of a problem in our transatlantic crossings nor in our cruises with Viking, but that glass bottom boat was a whole—if you will pardon the pun—different kettle of (reef) fish. The sea was moderately rough, the boat (actually a decent sized vessel for the purpose) was heading into the wind. It bounced around and rolled on its way to and from the reef (7 nautical miles each way). She succumbed rapidly, to the extent of needing a barf bag. The vessel—Key Largo Princess II—kindly provided these. Gratis, just keep it off the decks, please.
I don’t get seasick (at least so far I've never been motion sick) so I watched the reef glide by. There wasn’t much to see. You see these Nature Films of the wondrous life on a coral reef, blazingly colorful fish, waving sea fans, yada, yada, yada, but there was nothing of the kind. It was all pretty mud-colored: the coral, the vegetation, the fish all blended together. Plus the boat was moving pretty rapidly so if the commentator said, for example, “Look! There’s a __________ (fill in the species)!” everything was over so quickly I missed it. The return trip was smoother than going out, because then we had a following wind. That trip was a real disappointment for both of us. The next day we decided to go to see Key West. This involved driving. For reasons incomprehensible to me there is no way to take a boat from Key Largo to Key West unless it’s your own boat. You can do it from Miami, but not Key Largo. US 1 (called the “Overseas Highway” in the Keys) runs all the way, crossing something like 40+ bridges to do it. In fact US 1 ends in Key West.
We made the drive without incident, including the so-called “Seven Mile Bridge” span. Key West is an interesting place: had it not been so prohibitively expensive to do so we might have stayed there rather than Key Largo. Mrs Outdoorsman’s desire for “someplace warm” was not satisfied in Key West: temperatures were in the 40’s and the wind blew incessantly and strongly. When we left Virginia I’d worn some warm clothes but they were inadequate for Key West on that day.
Then there was the parking. Key West must make a fortune on parking: I paid FIFTY-SEVEN DOLLARS in a municipal parking lot for the day. That was a comparative bargain, too: commercial private lots were getting more. Key West was once a haven for pirates: it still is.
Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West for a while: naturally we had to visit the home of The Greatest Writer Who Ever Lived (move over, William Shakespeare). I have tried to read Hemingway's stuff but always get a few pages into it and stop. There’s only so much I can take. So I can't really comment on his ability as a writer, nor would I dream of contradicting the miscellaneous literary "experts" who sing hosannas of praise for Hemingway. I can only say that if even half of what Ken Burns’ hagiographic documentary says about The Greatest Writer Who Ever Lived is true, he was an alcoholic, sadistic, narcissistic mentally ill monster and the world is—pardon the play on words—"A Cleaner Better-Lighted Place" without him in it. His prose may or may not be deathless but on the whole I think I can live with The Legend quite adequately, I don't need The Man himself. Nevertheless we took a guided tour through the house—his second or third wife owned it after she threw him out—where the docent told us all we needed to know. We saw his study, his living room, etc. plus many pictures of The Greatest Writer Who Ever Lived on the walls, posing with dead fish, dead birds, dead mammals, and so forth. We also saw his toilet.
He was nuts about cats. It seems he had a six-toed cat (“Snow White”). As he said, “One cat leads to another” so that today there are sixty-one cats on the property, allegedly all descended from Snow White, some of whom have six toes. There are little boxes (a different form of “cathouse” than what we usually mean by that term) scattered around the gardens. The cats take the presence of mere humans lightly. On entering there is a sign that says “Do not pick up the cats” and warns that the property is not responsible for scratches, bites, claw marks, holes in your clothes, etc. There was in fact a cat sitting in the front of the admission booth, steadfastly ignoring all mere humans. Not that I would pick up a cat, I’m violently allergic to them. There’s an entire staff whose sole job is to look after the cats: feed, clean up after them, get the vet in periodically to check them out, etc. What a job!
Another, far more interesting place was Harry Truman’s “Little White House.” This was a Presidential retreat on a former Navy base. Harry was a pretty informal guy when not meeting dignitaries or ending major wars, so there are plenty of pictures of him, including some life-sized cardboard ones, wearing Hawaiian shirts. The piano he played is there. Our docent, a very jovial and expert guy, told us many stories bout Harry, including his threat to punch a critic in the nose for lambasting his daughter Margaret’s musical ability.
Everyone who goes to Key West has to pose with the marker that says “Southernmost Point Of The Continental United States,” which we dutifully did. You stand in line; when your turn comes someone behind you in the line will snap a picture. It’s just one of those things 
that all tourists have to do. At least it was free. (By the way, that is the southernmost point in the continental US, not THE southernmost point in the US. That's in Hawaii. Don't take my word for it, look it up.) Then, having “done” Key West we paid the ransom for our car and headed back to Key Largo.
The weather remained cold, so cold we couldn’t really sit out. Instead we went to a couple of indoor attractions. These included movies about the building of the Key West Railway before World War One; about the massive 1935 hurricane that utterly destroyed the railway; and one about wondrous coral reef life, where we did get to see colorful reef fish from the comfort of a padded seat firmly anchored to the ground. We might have walked around Key Largo but there really isn’t anywhere to walk. Certainly not on US 1. The Overseas Highway is dangerous enough to drive; walking requires a desire to commit suicide. Once or twice we sat out at the resort we’d moved to (they have a little beach) but it was so cold and windy we were quickly driven back inside. I had hoped to go out on one of those boats that take numbers of people for half-day fishing trips but the weather precluded that, too.
We did buy stuff in the biggest local grocery store, Publix. Mostly for breakfast, because we went out for dinner. The prices were far higher than what we pay here, but Publix had everything we needed.
If you like to eat fish go to The Keys. We went to several local restaurants, all of which served seafood. Common species of “eating” fish were mahi-mahi, grouper, yellow jack, hogfish, cobia, and one or two 
others I forget. There is also conch (which is pronounced “conk”). Conch is usually served fried or in conch fritters (balls of stuff with conch embedded in it) or as conch chowder. The best of these places was “The Fish House” at which we dined three times. I like shellfish better than finfish. The Keys have an abundance of shellfish including those tiny "Florida Lobsters" that have itsy-bitsy claws, unlike the real lobsters you get in Maine. One of the interesting things about the Keys is the relative lack of fast-food places. They’re there but not to the extent you might think they’d be in a major tourist destination. Most of the local places are just that. We used the Chamber of Commerce guide to find them.
Then it was back to Miami for the trip home. Driving on the Overseas Highway was nerve-wracking until I figured it out: you can’t turn left, you have to make a “Florida Left Turn,” i.e., you turn right, then find a crossing site and make a U-turn. After a few days we got it sorted out. Thank God for our GPS unit, which we’d brought with us. Without it we’d never have found anything, especially on return to Miami.
As tense as it was driving in the Keys, Miami was a nightmare, worse than Fort Lauderdale. The drivers aren’t as aggressive as in Fort Lauderdale, but the traffic is far heavier, the roads seem to have been laid out by squirrels, and it seems that a turn signal to change lanes is an insult to people behind you, who will never let you move over. Forty-plus years in small towns have spoiled me. I can drive anywhere I have to; I’ve driven in worse places than Miami (not many) but I’ll never drive there again. Our GPS directed us safely to the rental car return, where I was greatly relieved to hand over our tin-plate chariot, with 509 additional miles on it, to its rightful owner.
We spent one more night in a hotel, then took their shuttle to the airport. We got the same special treatment going home as we had on the way out. Our flights were on time; when we got to Roanoke I was hit with the bill for parking our car ($130!!) knocked the ice off it, then headed to the Outback steak house in Christiansburg so I could, finally, after 10 days of eating fish, have a steak.