The Babbling Conch: September 2013

Back in Key West

Saturday, we visited the only museum we had yet to see - the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum. You'll recall that last year, the Smithsonian Institute offered free tickets to visit museums nationwide. Well, they did it again, and we were excited to see Mel Fisher on the list.

There was a lot of reading involved, but it was all pretty interesting. We didn't really get the Harry Potter connection, but then again, we're probably the only people on the planet who haven't read any of the books and/or watched any of the movies (we haven't seen Breaking Bad either - !!).

The area dedicated to the Henrietta Marie slave ship was particularly disturbing. It's just so hard to imagine treating anyone that way (then or since).

Also Saturday, our departing pals helped us cut down some more avocados (we had tied a kitchen knife to a mop handle).

Tina even took a video should you want to see the whole process in action. The next batch will require a trip onto the roof. I'm up for it.

Monday, Michael had a job on the private island of Sunset Key, a 10-minute ferry ride away. People do live there, but anyone wanting to treat themselves to an expensive dinner, spa experience, wedding, or overnighter at The Westin are welcome too. Although the ferry is free, you have to have some kind of business on the island (or reservations) and aren't allowed to walk around without permission from the hotel. Figuring it was now or never, I decided to take advantage of Michael's good fortune and handed him the camera as he went off to work this morning. Say goodbye to Key West!

And hello to Sunset Key.

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Meanwhile, back in Key West, I was still on the job hunt. I ran across this today:

Needed door to door fart filter sales peolple [sic]

I'm not kidding. Let me know if you need a filter, and I'll see what I can do. I'll bet we all know people who could use one (not us, of course).

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Too bad I'm too old to help this guy out (and don't know how he defines "attractive"). I'm assuming his typos were deliberate:

This may sound a bit unusual but nun the less. I am looking for an attractive lady between 25-45 to join me on a nice cruise ship. You will be my companion and writer of my interesting life history. Salary will be all expenses paid and the adventure. I am an attractive interesting middle aged male with only a couple years to live. Please have a congenial personality, open mind and good witting skills. I can assure this will be a memorable chapter in your own life.

I'll bet. I don't know if anyone actually finds real jobs on CraigsList, but it comes in handy for comic relief when I need it. My job search continues...

Road Trip Part Deux - The Interview

So we woke up, re-donned our socks, and I added a sweatshirt. It was in the low 70s and felt good, but a teeny bit nippy. Michael hit the road, and I hit the beach.

There were only a handful of people out there (and it wasn't even that early, around 8:30am) - no bikes, no loud cars/trucks, no planes, no stinky seaweed, no airport. Just me, the sound of the surf, and ospreys flying overhead. I had forgotten my mp3 player but was happy to just listen to the waves.

Those horny bugs were out there in full force by 9:30am, with the orgy continuing until about 7:30pm. Impressive. Locals are saying they've never seen anything like it (apparently the infestation started the day before we got there).

Since my barely-used GPS watch went kapoot, I couldn't track my distance, so I decided to run 30 minutes in each direction. That, coincidentally, ended up taking me exactly in front of the building where we'd be checking out an apartment later. It was a bit sad looking (built in 1984) and very far from the main tourist area - which was bad in some ways (we couldn't walk there) and good in others (it would be quieter and cheaper).

Done with the hour run, I ended up walking to the pier and back for good measure, basically pacing until I thought Michael would be coming back. We both got to the hotel at the same time., so he rolled down the window as he passed me, told me he had a great interview, and.............drum roll please....

We won't know for another couple of weeks. %$#*@! The interviewer has another two people to chat with. So we wait. Again. We had no idea if we should look at apartments, buy a car, nothing. This has been our life for a very long time.

We spent the next couple of hours online looking for wheels and came up empty. Discouraged and somewhat numb, we headed to the apartment building to take a look at the unit on the beach. Positives: It was on the beach and had garage parking. Negatives: It was like being in the movie The Shining, only shot in a dorm-like nursing home instead of a hotel. Lest you think I exaggerate, that was Michael's description, not mine (although I whole-heartedly agree). The garage, a sauna, an ancient gym, the pool table - were all down in a white, concrete-block basement. The hallways were long and dank. No one in there was under age 80. Yes, the place had shuffleboard.

I would so have stories to tell if we moved in there, but our bed won't fit in the apartment's bedroom, so I think this one is out. We drove around for awhile looking at housing in-general and got further discouraged - there's a lot of bad mixed in with the good. We did find one possibility on the ICW, which would be much quieter than on the oceanfront, but probably hotter too (it's not near downtown either). The question is, will it still be available should the job be a yes?

We had nachos too. We didn't drink
$17.68 worth of beer.

Frustrated, we took our bleh selves to a nearby restaurant to mull things over and had a great conversation with the server and the owner (they couldn't believe we were sitting outside with all the bugs - shrug). Although they confirmed housing would be hard to find up there, our mood was lifted when we got the bill and realized our beers were only a buck fifty. Now that's a happy hour.

The drive back was great until we made a mistake we will never make again - taking I-95 to Route 1, which goes through Miami and its suburbs. We added over an hour to our trip going from light to light, around disabled vehicle to the next disabled vehicle. I'd felt like I'd been transplanted to Los Angeles for awhile there (Michael said hell). And then we were back.

Now we wait.

Road Trip Part Deux - The Drive Up

I would have updated this sooner, but I couldn't get my photos offloaded. We had another long drive up to Flagler Beach, with a bit of drama around Ft. Pierce that I'm pretty happy to put behind me (seriously, we seem to be a bit jinxed lately), stopped at the supermarket for dinner ingredients, and pulled up to the Flagler Beach Hotel 7 1/2 hours later. They had pretty decent rates ($75 for a small), were close to the beach, and were convenient to where Michael had to interview (down HWY 100 for 20 minutes). Peggy, the manager, has been there for over a decade and has the process down. You even know your room and door-lock code before you get there.

Note if you're coming to Flagler Beach, a # of h/motels (including this one) show you staring at the beach from your room. Yeah, no. When you step outside your room, you can look down toward the beach and see it, but it's not quite as advertised. This if fine, though, because in Flagler you can't build directly on the beach. That means there's beach, busy road (A1A), and then houses/businesses. Who wants to be directly on the busy road? So all was good.

Once we pulled in and got out of the car, we were inundated by flying, black insects. Hey! These weren't here last time! They're called love bugs, or kissing bugs, because they're always getting busy. Yep.

He got caught in a downpour too.

They don't bite, so it wasn't really a big deal, but they were inches thick in some places. Once in the room, we turned into ice cubes (our sunglasses fogged up), so we immediately turned off the a/c (it had been set to 76, and it made us realize how incredibly inefficient our Key West a/c is, particularly in an uninsulated, 1940s home). We also opened the window to let the cold air out (I put on a pair of socks, and Michael borrowed my second pair). Don't you shake your heads at us; the floor tile was freezing!

While we waited for the room to heat up, we headed down to the beach and were surprised to see orangish sand. Again - it was not like that just a couple of weeks ago. Weird!

I haven't thought of a tide in eons, but Flagler certainly has one. If we end up there, I'm going to have to start keeping track again so I can get a good run on the beach (I like this source). We had a few waves too, although the surfers were a little too optimistic. As I stood there, I felt an overwhelming feeling of space!

Speaking of stretching out, what a great temp overnight. We went to bed embarrassingly early, but we had no a/c, no ceiling fan, and a sheet. We were able to touch pinkies and not break out into a sweat. Over the pool pump, we were even able to hear the waves hitting the beach. And rain. Zzzzzzzzzz.

A funny side note - the place has the exact same platform bed we have at home (even with drawers underneath), only queen sized. I'm so used to the space of the king, that I almost fell off the bed a few times.

Next up - the whole reason we were there: The interview...