On the afternoon of March 31, Justin and I left Northeast Wisconsin
and headed due south. I was denied the opportunity to drive first,
and I didn't get behind the wheel until somewhere around the bor-
der of Tennessee and Georgia. Justin really liked to fly. Pretty much,
Jay drove from about 3:00pm on Wednesday to sunrise on Thursday.
At that time I took over, drove through Atlanta, even though Jay said
that if he wasn't awake during city driving, he felt nervous (hah, if he
had witnessed my driving in Chicago on the way back, I'd probably
have definitely heard more about it -- probably a bit more dashboard
grippage as well... Hm. Oh well. Hah). Sometime in the late morning
we arrived in Florida. Good ol' Florida. And for reasons unbeknownst
to me, Jay took the wheel again and drove all the way to Homestead,
which is almost about as far as you can get before you hit the Keys.

We did try to stop in Daytona Beach, but couldn't really find the
beach. I think we were an incredibly short distance away, but neither
passenger nor driver was in much of a mood to care. We stopped
at a park and walked around for a minute, kept trying to get ahold
of Justin's friend in West Palm Beach, but no luck, and we kept going.
Somewhere around Titusville, north of West Palm, we stopped at a Crack-
er Barrel (a first for me) and it was a total bust. At least in my
unprofessional opinion. It's all about atmosphere, people...

The Travelodge we found was the last hotel for a while. Miami at
night wasn't too fun, either. After checking the rates at a HoJo, Jay
accidentally turned into oncoming traffic, going the wrong way. A
few high-speed idiots on the interstate were enough reason for some
frustration. I must just add that Jay has a knack for maintaining one
decent (and legal) speed even while chain smoking, suffering the pangs
of road rage, and telling Katie to keep looking for hotels; "Katie, are
you looking?!" But we made it all in one piece, at least to Homestead.

The Travelodge was your run-of-the-mill economy inn, but it was
pretty much what we could have expected for $50/night. And I wasn't
complaining -- a bed and a shower were all I wanted. I took advantage
of the latter immediately, and sat down to watch some cartoons on
the teevee with Justin, who was pretty much flipping channels. Co-
incidentally enough, an episode of Futurama that Justin had been ex-
plaining to me a few hours earlier in the car came on, so we watched
that. I was brought a Bacardi Raz, which caused a bit of silliness from
my perspective. I managed to spill Guinness all over the hotel pillows
on Justin's bed. I guess I sort of felt bad, but at the time it was funny.
He ended up not sleeping at all, but I don't believe much on account
of the fact that he was pillowless. I would have offered him one of
mine... :\

A bunch of overly civilized raccoons had a party outside our room, and
Justin [d'oh] fed them. I think that's breaking rule number one of po-
tentially rabid animals, but my interest waned quickly.

He met a guy next door who was living there after having been evicted
recently, or somehow or another losing his house/apartment/living space.
I didn't meeet him. They had a few drinks, I guess they tried to go to
a club, but they were closed, or closing. Maybe in my tipsiness I heard
everything a hundred times louder than normal, but I hardly slept at all
that night. For about four or five hours I woke up countless times, every
time the door opened, or a car door slammed, or someone said something too
loud... Then the ironing board fell down uber randomly and freaked the
shit out of me, but at that point I was too tired and it was too early to
give a damn. Stupid ironing boards.

We took off before 8am. I drove the last four hours to Key West. Jay
insisted that he wanted to be awake to set up the tent, and then he'd
go to sleep, but he inevitably dozed off somewhere in the middle of
the haul, which was fine. I played boring music that lulled him off, and
I got to enjoy the sunny drive pretty much myself.

Old Town Key West, I knew, was awesome the moment we got into
it. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a thing for architecture--
especially old architecture, so when I saw those funky little houses
and stuff, I got pretty excited. I guess maybe only my sister and dad
would understand, so it didn't do much good to hoot and holler about
it, but I was anxious to check it out.

We rolled into Jabour's camp and trailer park sometime in the early
afternoon. It was essentially a vacant lot covered with white gravel,
definitely very trailer-oriented. So we set our tent up on gravel and
drove no stakes. Justin put the grill inside just to keep it from blowing
away. We took a nap, hung out for a little bit... I still didn't sleep. And
then we decided to head to the main drag. Duval!

Duval Street is sweet. Those who have been there know how the
atmosphere changes as you walk west to east, known by some who
travel such, as the "Duval crawl." The west end of the street was much
more high-end with Banana Republic stores, jewelry and souvenir
shops galore. As one walked eastward, the souvenir shops became
gradually less attractive and more and more rainbow flags started to
appear outside buildings.

That evening Justin discovered Flying Monkeys, which was an outdoor
bar hooked onto a restaurant. They served a variety of "slushie drinks,"
which were, in essence, frozen alcoholic beverages. I can't even count
how many times we stopped there. But we walked up and down Duval,
admired the Celebrity Cruise line ship and sat at another outdoor frozen
drinks bar in an attempt to wait for the sunset at Mallory Square, which
was a nightly event. We didn't have the patience to wait it out, but saw
all the vendors and performers set up their things. We failed to catch
much of the sunset after the crowds drew, but we figured we'd have
three more nights to catch it.

I believe that night we pretty much just chilled. I was tired, so I went
right to sleep. I don't even remember if Justin went out that night or not,
but nothing particularly interesting happened, obviously, so at any rate,
at some point, we went to sleep.

After that, everything pretty much blurs together. We did a lot of sitting
around, walking around, usually down the same streets, checking out
the same things. Justin played a lot on his Gameboy, and I called home
sometimes. What I do know about the second day hasn't so much to do
with the day, but that Justin went out at night and came back around 2
in the morning to wake me up. When he woke me up, he said something
I fail to this day to understand, but I know that he later mentioned he
had to wake me up to tell me that on a scale of 1 to 10 in regard to how
drunk he was, he was about an 8. Earlier in the day I had asked him
to give me the scale in regard to how drunk he usually got.

Before we left, our neighbors who were camping next to us, who were
already drunk as well and getting ready to call it a night, began inquiring
as to whether we were married. When I said no, I was asked if we were
boyfriend and girlfriend. I said no, and was then asked if we were friends.
And as if it mattered anyway, we were told to, "try the showers, they're
fabulous." Justin started asking them if they were our neighbors and off-
ered to make apple pie the next morning for them, and proceeded to
tell the guy who was carrying blankets to the tent that he looked like he
was wearing a marshmallow.

For about an hour or so, we tromped around Duval street. He gave me
a slushie drink from a place called Fat Tuesday, which was pretty strong.
I admit I was a bit toasty after just that. Cheap date. But I also didn't
look so with-it in my Christmas pajama pants and Humboldt sweatshirt
with a lolling drunkard on my arm either. What fun! :) It was, though,
indeed, even though I was tired to the point of irritation. Justin bought
a hotdog and tried to force me to try some, but I refused. He ended up
dropping it on the ground for some reason when he put it down. I don't
actually know what happened to it then. We walked back to the camp-
site, sat down at a picnic table, and talked about depressing things. I
pretty much remember crying, laying down on my arm, but my head
spun violently when I got up and we were going to go lay down. And I'll
be the first to say that I did manage to fall down as a result of my tipsy
nature. Onto Justin, as a matter of fact. How graceful.

We kept talking for a long time, but I don't remember what about,
other than that one of the last things he said to me before he passed
out was that I need to open my mind, and free my soul. Hah. Anyway.
That night in his sleep he tried to get into my sleeping bag and in the
morning found himself on my pillow with my sleeping bag, while I slept
atop his, with my own blanket, with his pillow.

The next day we headed out ot the beach. It was a small beach, and
Jay wasn't particularly pleased with the quality of the sand, at least in
comparison to Fort Walton Beach's sand. But we lay out in the sun
for a time anyway. I took a small walk to the pier and took some photos.
Justin, too good for sunscreen, fell asleep in the sun and managed to
burn a bit. I escaped the sun's wrath that day. Afterward, we went to
find some groceries and Justin made hamburgers for dinner. :)

There were different neighbors at Jabour's for the rest of the trip, and
they were from Tampa. The guy was a police officer and his wife was
a nurse. She mixed me a few fruity drinks when I said that I didn't
care for beer. That night, Justin didn't go out, but things were pretty
quiet around the campground, save the nightly music from the bar
a block away on the dock.

The last full day we were there, we tried the beach one more time to
see about swimming, but it wasn't up to par. Apparently, it was mucky,
but I never got that far. I had been up that morning, early, and walked
around a little bit, taking some pictures. I usually just let Justin sleep
until whenever. We just hung out, pretty much, as nothing much was
really going on. Went to TGI Friday's for supper and the in-house
magician (Alan, I can still remember, because he noted that I didn't),
did a few card tricks before we ate our meals. It was pretty silly. Again,
like pretty much everyone else, he thought were an item. But it was
fun.

That evening we did watch the sunset and got some pictures, just to
say that we did. At that point, Jay was already a little loopy. The people
from Tampa commented that my "boyfriend" already looked like he
had the drunk walk going for him. We all sat around at a picnic table
and talked. After a margarita, a couple fruity mixed drinks, a mystery
slushie drink and a shot of peach schnopps, I was feeling the buzz, too.
Justin kept commenting on how the police officer's wife was the "perfect
wife," and the police officer kept telling him that he had a "fine little
lady" right there (ahem), and when Justin sort of grunted in response all
the time, the guy started to get really weirded out. I think he probably
thought we had the weirdest relationship ever. I got a few weird looks.

Later that night I inevitably puked my stupid guts out. What a jolly time.
All I know is that I was so focused on trying not to look drunk while
I was walking, that I totally forgot to like, buckle my belt and zip le
jeans. So when I was chatting with the 20-somethings from South Carolina
before heading back to bed, I probably looking embarrassingly retarded.
Justin and the Tampa neighbors went out that night, and he came back be-
fore they did. He mentioned something quick about how he couldn't get
his shoes off, and he knew they came off because he wasn't born with
them on. Then he passed out. That morning when I woke up, he was
coveting my blanket, was sleeping on my pillow, and was in my sleep-
ing bag with me. I figured it was probably an appropriate time to get
up.

The next day was not a lot of fun sometimes. We left Jabour's earlier
in the day, after I bought some souvenirs for the kids at home. I had
to wake Justin up, even though I would have let him sleep, because
we needed to get out of there. Although I bought him coffee, it was
too cold by the time he was awake. To top things off, he wasn't feeling
well at all. We stopped at Subway because Justin had a craving, but
then he couldn't handle eating. I think he made himself sick, and then
we moved on. I drove, and we headed north.

When we reached Homestead, we took a self-guided tour through the
Coral Castle, which, looking back on it, was the whole reason the Flor-
ida trip ever came to exist... Justin had heard about it on Coast to
Coast AM. I think he was feeling a little better by that time, and being
able to walk around a little probably helped, too. But after that, we
continued on toward West Palm, where we still intended to get in touch
with Justin's friend.

We stopped at a McDonald's to change clothes, went to a mall and
wandered around aimlessly, but ended up at Flanigan's restaurant
where I had a humungoid salad and then called home and chatted
for a long time while Justin waited, too, and watched basketball on the
television. Later, his friend showed up, carless, and we drove him to
Sears to see about picking it up. He didn't have the keys, though,
so we ended up just going to his place, where we crashed. Watched
a lot of cartoons and then around 3am I passed out on the futon.
HOLY FUTON! And very large dogs, Jesus Christ. And did they really
think I wouldn't know about the porn? Haha. But I slept longer
than Justin that morning, and I think he was even surprise about it.

So from West Palm Beach we headed home. It was a straight shot
pretty much all the way through. Justin drove through Georgia that
time, but by the time we were in Kentucky, I took over and continued
the rest of the way home. We got home around the same time during
the day that we had left eight days earlier. We were even home a day
earlier than we had initially planned, but neither of us really cared. All
we wanted were our beds.

So it was a fun trip. Stories, at any rate. But of course it's impossible
to recreate how much fun I had with words. It just is.

Adieu.

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