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Adventures with Kate, part eight

Hey, that rhymes!

It was Monday, August 16, and we had just decided to go to Key West after all. We spent some time packing all of our things; the next time I would be back, it would be without Kate. The end of her visit was drawing near.

Conveniently, there was no city bus stop at the Greyhound bus station, and we wouldn’t have even had time to take the bus anyway, so we had to call a cab. Even though our Greyhound bus wouldn’t be setting off for Key West till 10:30 PM, we had to get to the station while it was still open so we could print our tickets.

The taxi was extremely late, and I made several calls to the cab agency to make sure it would be on its way soon. Finally, a van pulled up. The driver was a lively middle-aged man with an English accent. He knew we were in danger of being late and wasted no time helping us put our stuff (including Kate’s friend’s guitar) in the back. I told him there would be extra in it for him if he got us to our destination on time. (Besides a regular tip, I mean. Come on, I’m not that cheap.)

It was a long way to the bus station in spite of the rush, so pretty soon there was some chit-chat going on, mainly between the driver and me. He asked how we knew each other, and I explained it well enough to avoid further questions. He said he was from Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, and I said I had heard of it. We talked about the guitar in its oddly-shaped case, and he revealed that he had been in a band for many years. He said he had also played guitar for the likes of Willie Nelson and Roger McGuinn.

He somehow managed to take us to the station with enough time to spare, so, true to my word, I tipped him generously. We got our tickets as the station closed and then needed to kill a few hours somewhere. I had looked up some restaurants in the immediate area, hoping to find one where we could linger and use Wi-Fi. We ended up at an inexpensive Italian restaurant where they said they might have Wi-Fi. Fortunately, they did. We were about the only people there, and we ordered from the buffet, each of us going up for a plate occasionally.

After what seemed like an eternity in the restaurant, they were getting ready to close, and it was almost time for our bus to arrive. It picked us up at the station, and we headed to Orlando and then to Miami. We also had a rest stop in the Treasure Coast area. Surprisingly, I actually seemed to sleep a little bit on the bus.

In the morning, we arrived at the Greyhound station in Miami. We had a few hours to kill and some shopping to do. Kate had collected money from family, friends, and acquaintances who wanted her to buy them stuff in the USA. Unfortunately, even though we were near the airport, there didn’t seem to be any buses going where we wanted to go. So we resolved to go shopping at the end of Kate’s trip and decided to eat breakfast.

We went inside a gas station where they actually had a small restaurant-type place that even had some tables with vases of flowers on them. It was a classy gas station restaurant. Besides having some food, we got coffee from one of those nifty Kreurig machines with the ground coffee beans in little cups. I also bought a map of the Florida Keys so I could see where we were on the long drive to Key West.

After a long wait at the bus station (which was very small for such a large city), the bus came, and we were headed to the Keys. Eventually, blue seas came into view on both sides, and endless fields of grass gave way to necessarily tiny communities with almost as many boats as people.

We had a very short lunch break at a Burger King in the Middle Keys. It seemed to be an official Greyhound stop since there was a Greyhound sign near the premises. Inside, a section of the seating area was designed to look like the inside of a boat. The bus driver chatted it up with the employees behind the counter, who knew him by name. Kate and I didn’t have a long time to eat, but we managed. It’s easier when you work as a team.

Not long after crossing the famous Seven-Mile Bridge, the bus dropped us off at Key West International Airport. We had made it. I was excited but tired. Kate was just tired. I took a picture of us that I’m not sure she’d let me post on Facebook. I’m grinning ear-to-ear, and she looks like she wants to kill me. We had just been on a bus for most of the last 17 hours. I would have killed me too if I were her.

Kate had already secured accommodations for us with CouchSurfing. Our host had said she would take a few minutes off work to pick us up and take us to her place, so we called her to say we had arrived. As we sat waiting outside the airport, I started thinking about how we could spend a precious few days in my favorite place in the world.

Here’s a video of a bunch of guys called the Fab Faux performing a fantastic cover of the medley from Abbey Road. (Via waxy.org)