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Adventures with Kate, part nine

Sun Oct 17, 2010 23:42 (UTC -5)

On Tuesday, August 17, Kate and I had just arrived outside the Greyhound station at Key West International Airport after a long, long bus ride. Kate called the woman we’d be CouchSurfing with to let her know we had arrived. She came right from work to drive us to her apartment, which wasn’t very far. (Nothing is very far away in Key West, I guess.) She said she had to go back to work and that she’d return in a few hours.

We were free to go out and explore the town if we wanted, but we stayed in the guest room, which had a bunkbed and its own bathroom. Kate spent the rest of the day getting some much-needed sleep while I surfed around on her netbook. I sank a good deal of time into my CouchSurfing profile, hoping that my roommates would allow CouchSurfers to stay with us.

A few hours later, our host came home. After she offered me a serving of the dinner she was making for herself, I woke up Kate to keep her from missing out on another night’s sleep. We talked to our host, who said she hadn’t lived in Key West very long but had CouchSurfers over all the time, about tourist attractions in the area. I had been to Key West five times (1999, 2000, 2003, 2005, and 2007) but never for very long, and I always sort of did the same things. After our host gave us some suggestions, we called it a night.

The next day, we set out for the historic part of the city by bus. I didn’t know Key West even had a bus system, to be honest, but sometime between hugging the ocean and zigzagging through neighborhoods, I could see why it was necessary. Yes, Key West is a relatively small island, but it seems like it would be pretty big if you’re walking. It’s not big enough that there are a lot of buses, though.

We got off near the famous Mile Marker 0, the end of mighty US 1, from which distances are measured in the Florida Keys. To Kate it was just a sign, but to me it more than that. To me it was the symbol of a lifestyle—a state of mind, even. Okay, not really. To me it was a sign, and I get a bang out of signs.

Next, we went to the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center. It was a sort of small museum with information about the ecology of the area as well as a few fish. There was also a theater, where Kate and I watched a short movie about eco-discovery or something like that, told from a first-person perspective. Clearly, it was very memorable. Maybe Kate remembers exactly what it was about.

After that, we went to Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park. Our host had told us that there was a good beach there, and was she right. It was gorgeous and not extremely crowded. Kate and I swam around for a little while before drying off and moving on. We hadn’t eaten lunch yet.

We walked up lively Duval Street to a restaurant that our host recommended: Caroline’s, appropriately located near Caroline Street. As soon as I got there I realized I had been there before, when I visited Key West with my family five years ago. We had eaten outside then, and I wondered if they had inside seating since it was pretty dang hot. Fortunately, they had a couple of tables inside, so we sat at one of them. At the other were seated some people about our age who were speaking a foreign language. Kate recognized it as Russian and said that they were talking about stupid things.

In a break from restaurant tradition, I didn’t order an enormous hamburger, but Kate did. Instead I got a pasta dish, but of course, we shared our food with each other. Even though we were stuffed, the dessert menu looked too good to pass up. Kate got what I believe was a giant cookie with ice cream on top of it, and I got a slice of the Florida Keys’ most famous dessert, Key lime pie. I’m not sure if anyone outside Florida has heard of it, hence the Wikipedia link.

Kate had mentioned that she wanted to go parasailing, so we found a place on the street that was offering parasailing… sessions?… and signed up there. Soon after, we walked to a nearby marina and found where we had to be. We signed something, handed over some money, and got onto the boat that was waiting there.

With us were a young couple and a mom and dad with a kid. Our captains were a couple of young dudes who coolly disregarded the “No Smoking” sign near the steering wheel, which made me wonder how much stock they put into the one that said “It Is Customary to Tip the Crew.” They put on some dude music and took us out west of the island. The young couple parasailed for a few minutes; next the mom and the kid went up.

Kate and I were last. I was sure I would have a problem with the harness or something since I always have problems with those kinds of things, but I ended up being secured pretty tight. The boat sped up, and up we went.

I was sure it was going to be really windy up there, but there was only a gentle breeze. Instead I felt like I was sitting on a cloud. Kate and I, sitting on a cloud, side by side. We were really high up, and we could see probably half of the city. Maybe all of the city, I don’t know. I was pretty psyched. Meanwhile, in the boat, one of the dudes was taking pictures and recording a video of us for our possible purchasing pleasure.

Finally, the boat slowed down, and we came back to earth. Kate had requested that we be skipped along the water like stones, so the driver dude obliged. That was when I kind of fell out of my harness and got a wedgie, the memory of which I can now enjoy forever on a mini CD that I paid $20 for. (It was $30, but they secretly knocked it down for me since I didn’t want to spend the money.)

After our parasailing adventure, we walked around the marina some more until I noticed that the sun was setting fast. I was determined for us to take part in the tradition (maybe it’s only a tourists’ tradition, I don’t know) of watching the sun set in Mallory Square. We made it just in time… as far as I could tell. I forgot that you can’t really see the sunset from Mallory Square. There’s an island in the way. An artificial island. Rich people live on it. It’s called Sunset Key. Kate was not amused.

Now it was getting dark and there wasn’t much else to do, so we took the bus back to our host’s place. It was around that time that I discovered that federal regulations prohibit making more than six withdrawals from a savings account in 30 days. I had been paying for bus tickets with my debit card, so I would regularly move money from my savings account to my checking account. Now, I was about to be out of money.

The next day, Kate wanted to go kayaking, so in the morning we walked to a marina on nearby Stock Island, where we rented a ‘yak for a few hours. They gave us life jackets, paddles, and a copy of a hand-drawn map showing the navigable waterways in the immediate area. With those, we set out, Kate in the front, me in the back.

Kate first wanted to a go to a salt pond that was only reachable from a canal. The canal wasn’t far away. On one side were houses, and on the other side were mangroves. The map showed an opening among the mangroves that would lead us to the salt pond. We found the opening and started to make our way through. The passage was barely navigable and seemed to be way too long. Eventually, it was clear that we had taken a wrong turn, but we couldn’t turn around. Finally, we got stuck and had to try. I don’t even know how we managed.

After paddling the whole way backwards, we made it out to the canal and looked again for the actual opening. This time, we found it, and before us was an enclosed area of very shallow water. It was a good place to relax after that ordeal.

Next, we decided to paddle out to the ocean. Along the way, we passed some anchored boats, some of which were clearly abandoned. Soon, the water was getting choppier, and we could say that we were pretty much out in the ocean, even though it was extremely shallow in places (we had to try not to run aground). Once we realized what time it was, we hurried back to the marina, hoping to catch a bus that would take us back downtown. I’d never paddled so hard in my life. During the home stretch, it started raining. We hung out at the marina for a few minutes until it stopped.

Next, we walked to the nearest bus stop. While we were waiting, I called my parents and asked if they could give me an advance of five weeks on my allowance and deposit it into my checking account. The bus didn’t show up, and it would be a long time before the next one, so I called for a taxi. The taxi didn’t show up either. Then the next bus didn’t show up. Finally, a couple of guys who were walking by said (in Spanish) that the bus didn’t stop there. That stop was on the bus schedule, but they had to be right.

Dejected, we walked back to the apartment and had lunch. If we wanted to go back downtown, we would only have about an hour before we’d have to be back to catch our bus out of Key West. We decided to go for it.

After getting off the bus, we walked down toward the Southernmost Point marker, passing the Ernest Hemingway House on the way. After getting our picture taken with the buoy-shaped monument, we had a few minutes to swim at a tiny beach called South Beach. At the beach was a sign that said:

Tennessee Williams, who swam at this beach every morning, said, “I work everywhere, but I work best here.”

After a brief swim, we had to hurry to catch our only bus back to the apartment. I thought we weren’t going to make it, but fortunately, we were a few minutes early. We were still wet when we got on the bus, but it was Key West, so I bet nobody cared. Actually, they were probably like, “Damn tourists.”

We headed back to the apartment and got our things together. Then, our host dropped us off at the Greyhound station at the airport, where she had picked us up two days before. We thanked her and exchanged goodbyes. Our bus was waiting. The final part of Kate’s visit was about to begin.

Actors read actual quotations from online Christian fundamentalist forums while somehow managing to keep a straight face: If Atheists Ruled the World (language NSFW).