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July 11, 2005

Key West and Environs

Well, today we embark for Key West. I'll be able to give a first-hand report about any damage from Dennis--although Key West is really built to weather the storm so I don't anticipate much, if anything.

If all goes well and the tours are still being conducted I'll be visiting the Dry Tortugas tomorrow. After returning we'll tour the Everglades Park including the small town of Flamingo on the very tip of Florida looking out across the ocean toward the Keys--so, if fortunate I'll have several views of the Keys.

Also I need to write about Day 8 which included the Caribbean Gardens Zoo and The Collier County Museum. And Day 9 which was our trip to the Beach during the height of Dennis. Finally Day 10 which was a trip to the Naples pier in the not-quite-aftermath of Dennis.

Please pray for those who faced the wrath of Dennis yesterday and who will be receiving the remainder of the storm over the coming days. While they won't have a hurricane, they will have the fall out which can precipitate floods and other very ill effects.

Hope all is well in blogland--have only had time to visit a few places during vacation. Regular rounds start up again after. I'm able to do this much because of the disparate schedules of me and my host. I tend to be a late-night person, he an early morning person. Thus our mutual functional period covers our various activities and we part ways long about 7:00-9:30 depending upon his tolerances. It's really a wonderful way to vacation--plenty of "alone" time and plenty of time with my friend--well-balanced.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Key West

Nine o'clock and the sun is still westering over Key West. The sky is painted with the red, yellow, and orange clouds and split by rays of the deep turquoise blue tht seems to radiate out of the west, a final glowing sky to fight the shadow that encroaches. The Harbor Lights wink on and the silhouette of a man in a row boat works across the bight as does the shadow of a bird in flight that cannot yet be identified.

Key West is recovering from Dennis. Piles of debris line the streets and many of the parks are not open until Wednesday. We had to postpone our trip to the Dry Tortugas by a day, but it buys us a day on the island.

We may spend part of the day tomorrow visiting Bahia Honda a few keys up. We will probably walk by Hemingway's house (we can't really go in as we are both deathly allergic to cats and the polydactylate cats still wander and (I'm told) aromatize the premises.) We will then probably take in a tourist trap or two--such as the pirate museum. We might also visit the beach hear. Already have visited Southernmost point, Southernmost house (with a real widow's walk) and Southernmost Hotel.

Key West is the land of cultivated, calculated wierdness. Needless to say we will not partake of the Duval Street Drawl, nor shall we be in attendance on her royal highness Sushi, the local drag queen. We will try to visit Fort Zachary Taylor--I'm told the largest masonry structure in the United States. And we may try to take in a few more keys or museums. (There's a fossil coral reef on one of the keys.)

Any way, pray for continued good weather at least for the duration of this trip and pray Emily away from habitations. I'm already dreadfully tired of this hurricane season. Having four in one season can do that to a person.

Hope to fill you in on more details tomorrow.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 13, 2005

"As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean"

Preliminary post on the Dry Tortugas.

Just returned and rocking, endlessy rocking, compensating for ship motion. It's amazing what six hours on a boat will do to you--even if they are spread across two three-hour spaces. I haven't had time to absorb the trip yet, but suffice to say that it is paradise within paradise. If the Keys are wonderful and beautiful, the Dry Tortugas are that and more as there are far fewer people--flying fish, parrot fish, tarpons, dolphins, sea-turtles, frigate birds and boobies--but only the people who arrived on the boat.

We did not opt to camp out and I now think that might have been a mistake. I think about seeing the Milky Way from the middle of the Gulf of Mexico--Okay not the middle, but well nigh the last little spot of land east of the Yucatan.

And the sea is turquoise--perfect turquoise--the water still slightly turbid from the churning Dennis gave them, the silt and clay still settling, but not dense enough to both the local life.

And the fort itself--the prisonhouse of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd--one of those accused in the "conspiracy" to assassinate Lincoln. Tried and convicted during a suspension of proper legal procedings that passed for law at the time. Pardoned upon helping the garrison when a Yellow Fever Epidemic broke out.

The shopkeeper there was a volunteer. He said that he worked a thirty day shift and lived on the Island during the time. What an opportunity! I'd love to do something like that. Every night the moon, the stars, the dolphin, and the sea=turtles. All of nature cries out to God in praise, and the cries are the loudest I have ever heard in this subtropical haven. (Yes, not heaven).

I'll think about this some more and hopefull come up with something better to say. But don't count on it because words fail in the face of such glorious beauty and majresty. I will try regardless.

Tomorrow leaving Key West, which I have come to love. I wouldn't be able to live here--there is a weirdness here that is merely trying and tired--there is an attempt at energy and night-life that is merely dissolute. There are boutiques and shops that do business as though one were in a third-world country.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 15, 2005

The Vacation Winds Down

All I can say is that it is a good thing that the Keys were the last point of my agenda rather than the first. I would never have escaped from them--never found my way anywhere else. I did not expect to like them as much as I did, and yet, there it is. Nearly everything else pales in comparison, as lovely as it all was. I'm suffering from Keys withdrawal.

The pace of Island life was so subdued and so Caribbean--I don't do night life so I didn't really see Key West at its worst--in fact, I saw nothing that put me off overmuch, and certainly nothing that was as bad as the Ocean was good. There is nothing like the sight of turquoise waters broken by the deep blue of channels and the occasional brown of a shoal or coral reef. Nothing like seeing parrotfish and angelfish swimming free. Nothing at all like the Dry Tortugas. While I was there I met a volunteer in the gift shop and asked him about the living arrangements for volunteers. I didn't think that they would come in with an early boat and go out in the evening. And I was right. They live on the island for thirty day stretches. Suddenly I saw myself as a gift-shop volunteer on Garden Key--somehow don't think they'd put up my whole family though.

And Key West, while magnificent and displayed for tourists in a way unmatched by any other key, was simply the jewel in the Crown. Bahia Honda, a long key with a gorgeous beach and a magnificent view of the Flagler bridges was our last stop on the way out. We only spent a couple of minutes, but it was once again gorgeous beyond words.

My host has been extremely patient and kind. We have schedules that work well together to give each of us a lot of private time. He gets up along about 4:00 am and I get up about 7:00 and follow that with an hour or so of hemming and hawing, prayer and prep for the day. He goes to bed along about 8:30 (or earlier) and I go to bed along about midnight or 1:00 am. Again, open spaces of free time for both of us.

This vacation has been a blessing, a deep and wonderful blessing. And in the course of it I have seen a great many things, most particularly those recounted here. But Key West overwhelmed me. I would like to go back and go parasailing (a desire I have never before in my entire life felt). It's odd, I have no longing to live there. I don't know that I would like to live there all the time. But as a rejuvenating charge, they simply can't be beat. Next time it will be with the family.

(Oh, and the major impediment against these things--the very frightening prospect of a hundred-mile-long bridge is not even remotely a reality. There are only two fairly long stretches of bridge. So, I suspect that I will return as soon and as often as is feasible. These are a taste of paradise on Earth.)

Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 16, 2005

A Meme! A Meme!

I have not been as faithful in my blog-reading as I ought to be in the course of vacation--I'm sure you'll all note why. Nor have I written as much as I could have written either about the vacation nor about other matters. That is partially because I spend so much time in conversation with my excellent host that all things I have to say are said before they make it to ether.

However, Father Jim has passed a meme that ask what is atop my nightstand. That is a tough question in a couple of ways because my nighstand amounts to a multi-shelf bookshelf. However sticking to the absolute letter of the law, I will detail what is on the uppermost shelf: a lamp, three piece of fossilized coral from a reef on San Salvador Island, Bahamas; a basalt hand carved Tiki; a Queen Conch also taken from the rubble pile outside the cracked conch shack near the ex-naval station, now research station on San Salvador Bahamas; a polished nautilus (to reveal the mother-of=pearl layer beneath the brown and white exterior; and finally a lump of amethyst. This peculiar array is in deference to my wife's decorator sensibility. Obviously there are other more practical things on the other shelves )among them, books) but, this is the topmost shelf.

As a meme requires a vector and a host, I operating as vector, pass this on to bill (Summa Minutiae), TSO, MamaT, Julie, and Dan (Lofted Nest) unless they should prove to be resistant to its charms.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:15 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

States Visited

From TSO--

I included only the states I have statyed in or gone to deliberately for some reason, not the ones I have passed through.



create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack