Getting Out of Florida

Waking up in Key Largo I decided I should spend the day trying to get out of the state of Florida. I drove all day past palm trees, past glitz, past swamps. I saw short fat palm trees, casinos, tall thin palm trees, tourist beaches, coconut palm trees, tourists traps, palm tree nurseries, and in the end I was happy to drive out of there. Shortly before I reached the border I drove through this little town advertising a new store, opened only a few days, it was like a farmer’s market type deal. I had to stop though because over the front of it was a large sign reading, “hot boiled peanuts.”

What are hot boiled peanuts? Apparently they’re exactly that. I had to try some as that sounded ghastly terrible.

There was one middle aged woman sitting there looking a bit put off, perhaps due to a lack of customers or perhaps due to the intense heat and lack of air conditioning ability in a building with no walls.

“So what is this I hear about boiled peanuts?” I said, “I’m from NH, I wanted to try them…”

“Well they’re warm and salted. Here, I don’t want you to buy anything you don’t like.” She handed me two nuts. The shells were soggy, moist, and warm. I slipped out the little meaty nut part and took an adventurous bite. It was like a tiny glob of mashed potatoes in a shell, with the hint of peanut taste. Maybe this was because aside from the meal I ate at Keren’s I was missing hot food, maybe it was because I was desperate for something different besides the PB&J’s I was sustaining myself with but either way, the boiled peanuts were amazing.

“Oh I really like them!” I exclaimed. A surprised, “Really?!” came from the woman selling it to me. I bought a big saggy wet and warm bag of them. Delicious.

“Usually I can guess people’s reactions…” The woman said. I laughed. I bought a cup of the things. She explained they’re usually eaten with soft drinks and are made from raw immature peanuts, unlike the fully grown roasted ones I was used to. I sat in the car picking at them for quite awhile until the large foam cup was nearly empty. This was my second southern food and my second success. Good thing I wasn’t about to try any chitterlings.

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May 23, 2011 0

Exploring the Florida Keys

Key Largo was gorgeous. In the morning when I packed up I took my sweet time reorganizing the Jeep and then stopped at The Shell Store. This place had shells of every kind and color in enormous buckets as well as any kind of tourist memorabilia you could ask for. I ended up buying a little turtle made out of various tiny sea shells for a dollar. It’s cute.

I continued onward discussing whether or not to take a glass bottomed boat tour. I should probably mention that besides being afraid of large boney fish I have always said I wouldn’t get on a sea-going boat, not even if I were paid… but having continuously dipped my feet in the warm waters I somehow felt more relaxed about the idea… and besides there were wild corals here, I hadn’t gotten to see any of those. I decided to go for it, but first I’d drive to Key West, the farthest of the islands. I passed Duck Key and Cow Key and Ramrod Key and all the darn keys, stopping at two beaches. One was rocky and amazing, covered in fossilized coral rocks (far to big to pick up and drag off unfortunately) and another beach which smelled really bad and consisted of 50% seaweed and 50% trash and debris. This place was almost as bad as the Wristcutter’s [a Love Story] beach! It was really bad… I was quite put off by it and the rest of Key West. The island was so full of people and cramped, such a tourist trap. It advertised it was the birthplace of the Sloppy Joe and had pubs and bars every two buildings, hotels the rest. I only stopped when I came upon a strange site… what appeared to be a brick ruin. It was what I came for… and there, sitting snidely across from a horse-drawn hearse and in front of oodles of fan mail was Robert the Doll himself, three feet worth of plushie terror. He was ADORABLE. I probably should explain… You see Robert is probably the original haunted doll. He was said to be made by an angry servant of the Otto family who practiced voodoo. He was named after the little boy (later renowned artist) he was given to and apparently held such a powerful grip on the growing lad that he never abandoned the doll, claiming that “Robert did it!” whenever anything bad would happen. The doll was said to pace, to glower out the window at children, to make evil giggles, to throw around furniture and to haunt people… You name it this doll does it! I can’t say I know the work of his owner, Robert Eugene Otto, but I have been delighted by his doll since I was ten or so. As per custom I asked the doll if I could take a photo and did so, taking the chance we could be cursed… We bought a magnet at the gift shop and perused the place. They had a whole collection of Edward Gorey stuff including The Hapless Child, perhaps because of the child-terrorizing doll in it. They even had a book on his home, the Elephant House, bizarre considering he was a Massachusetts resident, not Florida… Then again they had a book on Hemmingway’s cats, yet another Massachusetts thing. Who knows! Still, anyone adoring Gorey has got my attention.

Sooo… after that I hit the next glass bottomed boat place I could find. It was 1:35 and I literally missed it by five minutes. I decided not to wait around, to find another. I didn’t find another until I was back in Key Largo, seventy something miles away, and I was fortunate enough to just get in on time to take the last boat tour of the day. I filed onto the boat annnnd… was told there’d be a delay… The woman next to us looked on horrified, as if we’d just struck an ice burg here in the harbor. Our captain came up soon after and said she thought they’d fixed the problem. Then the motors started going and two seconds later we hear screaming from down under, two men yelling, “SHIT! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!” Our captain started to stamp violently on the deck, signaling ever-so-delicately to stop shouting, you’re freaking out the tourists. We were told something else was broke and we’d have to be refunded. I left… without seeing to corals and shipwreck promised, without being able to have the chance to glimpse a casual shark or dolphin. Sad, very sad. Could it be Robert?

I left and decided I should at the very least get a good piece of pie out of this trip, Key Lime Pie… I was dubious. Except for one occasion all the lemon meringue pies I ever had were ghastly terrible, I figured lime pie would be the same… I ordered the prettiest piece of pie I’ve ever seen, decorated with swirls of whipped cream and sauce. It was actually really good! And the ice cold water that went with it was a luxury I hadn’t realized I’d missed quite so much. I drank like a camel in an oasis.

The only other memorable part of the drive was when I saw some deer aside the road, four does grazing. I didn’t realize until later they were endangered Key Deer. How cool is that? I saw something endangered alive and running around… like the feral chickens roaming the streets of Key West I couldn’t explain.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 23, 2011 0

Air Boat Ride in the Everglades – Florida

I decided I should really hit the Everglades and take a look around. I’d yet to see any alligators in Florida and I thought I might see one on an airboat tour. Keren told me about the Miccosukee Indian Village. I travelled from her house to the Miccosukee Casino, the closest thing my GPS could offer. I’d had a hell of a time trying to get the GPS to recognize the address and now I was at the Casino and there was a gas station offering airboat rides. I was adamant I needed to travel further out of the city and into the swamp, that the Miccosukee probably lived in the middle of nowhere, where I wanted to be! I was right; I drove past at least eight other airboat places until I started hitting all the Miccosukee shops and their air boat tours. I was just in time for their last boat out. I forked over $32. As I waited I saw the mother of all alligators swim by, easily twice the size the Carolina ones. He or she was HUGE but swam by too fast to take a good photo. There were a few baby ones near the shore as well as an assortment of odd birds.

I got onto the boat with several other tourists, including an adorable old German woman who seemed super excited. I don’t know what she was saying but it amused me how happy she seemed. Almost everyone was wearing hats, hats that all went flying when the boat was turned on. My bandana stayed on my head almost until the very end. Bobby pins are amazing. The boat was ungodly loud and the other passengers all seemed to have earplugs but I didn’t mind it so much. For some odd reason I’d entered some sort of Zen state and was fine with everything, completely relaxed. Life was good.

I saw lots of birds, cranes and little duck like creatures who were stout and didn’t run too fast when they saw the boat headed at them. I boated past many many birds until I ended up at a mock Indian Village in the middle of the swamp. The whole place was on stilts. I don’t know how anyone managed to build it but there was only one woman there selling beadwork and various Miccosukee made jewelry. I took some time to stare at the water off the sides of the village. There were all sorts of odd little creatures, mostly tiny fish and storks. Then I saw a fish that was maybe eight inches long for a split second. It darted off into the muck so fast that all it left behind was a trail of mud clouds. It was likely a baby gar. I’m still vibrantly freaked out by large boney fish… alligator gar are one of the biggest growing in the US.

So ten minutes loitering and I was back on the boat. I sat quietly and just enjoyed the ride. I went into what I can only call an alligator nursery. Here alligators up to half grown ones were swimming around in a swarm. Some were sunning themselves. Many darted away from the boat coming at them while still others hit the bottom of the boat rushing by when it was lying still. Those suckers were strong! The driver riled them up as much as he could to drive more of them to the surface for photos. They seemed mildly annoyed. There were signs everywhere not to try petting the alligators as if this was a common concern with them being so damn fluffy and cuddly! Funny enough our driver didn’t yell at anyone attempting to do just this. He was a real laid back guy, probably figured if the dumb white boy gets his arm gnawed off by a pissed lizard it’s their own damn fault.

I was still so incredibly chill. I was lathered in a tube of sun block and despite the fact it was one hundred degrees that day I was still so happy to be there. Life just made sense here. I was with my kin – hundreds of baby aquatic lizards. I could be their queen!

When I returned I loitered on the bridge overlooking a canal that was full of life. I were very happy to see an absolutely enormous alligator snapping turtle emerge from the deep, break the surface of the water, and retreat back into the darkness. I wasn;t expecting that! I got a photo too.

On the way out I desperately needed the bathroom so I stopped at the nearest convenience store. It was empty and quiet and had no bathroom. I tried buying some ice cream just to avoid being awkward but it turns out the freezers had croaked and the candy ice cream bars were soup.

Onward I went until I found a gas station, which I know is not a great pit stop. I was wearing my long hippie skirt which very quickly got completely sopping wet with the flood of water on the bathroom floor I didn’t notice. I came out not so happy. I was two buildings away from the Jeep and Ruud was again distracted, loitering on the swamp banks taking photos of an alligator who was panting for some reason, or at least it had its mouth open. To make matters worse I had just discovered Aunt Rosie had come to me three days before her usual arrival. I was abruptly snapped out of my relaxed haze and was instantaneously cranky. I changed my skirt in the car, in an unladylike manner as we were driving. Better.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 22, 2011 0

Tidepooling in Key Largo Florida

Initially I put a pin in Key West (on the map) as a joke, because that’s where Robert the Doll lives, but seeing as I have been such a devoted fan of this infamous haunted doll I decided what the Hell, I might as well!

I had already had a very long day when I arrived in Key Largo. It was getting dark and I wanted to find a place to sleep so I could enjoy driving through the islands in daylight. So I found a campground here, by luck, as an internet search prior to leaving that morning revealed most were full and not taking any more people without at least a day’s reservation. The office was closed but some friendly RVers told us that the manager would be around in the morning to collect any fees we were unable to give them during the previous day, as there were spots still available. The campground itself seemed a tiny village of RVs shoved into a series of mini streets, with one other tenting couple beyond a fence where the tent plots were. The spaces for tents were just large enough to contain our tent but not large enough to properly secure the ropes down. It was also on sand but it was accommodated with electricity and water. Unbeknownst to me I was also right next to a little stretch of beach. It was rocky, mind you, and beyond the rocks were gnarls of sea weed but for me that’s the best beach I could ask for. I scoured it in search of shells and life that evening before the sun went down, that night after I did the laundry at 11PM or so, and again the next morning. There was fragments of coral skeletons everywhere, scattered about like common rocks and pebbles. There were also a few tiny shells here and there and one big crab in a burrow that initially looked like a ginormous spider.

And then of course there were star fish. The buggar was as big as my palm and oddly colored. I picked it up but not long after it started oozing orange goo as it tried to ankle it out of my hand. You see, this is why star fish creep me out. They are sooo alien. I put it back before finding a tiny sea anemone, a whole school of the brightest teeny tiny snails you could ask for. There was even a conch-like snail the size of my thumb I also picked up for some reason.

I picked it up and was fine with it when it was sitting still but when it started to ooze out of its shell like a cow tongue trying to come out… well I kind of tweaked a bit and flipped back into the water. I was more comfortable with the hermit crab I found adorned with a fantastically beautiful shell that seemed five sizes too big for it. Of course to make the wildlife all the more amazing there was a swarm of little throat-bobbing lizards skittering up and down the trees giving us that whole Jurassic Park feel. I loved the lizards… as corny as that sounds.

I watched the sun go down sitting on a dock, surrounded on all sides by bath warm sea water gently lapping by. The sunset itself was gorgeous, the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen and I got some fantastic photos of that, I’m happy to say.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 22, 2011 0

Coral Castle – Miami Florida

The Coral Castle is one of those quasi-obscure tourist attractions that didn’t start out as one. I had heard about it on a documentary when I was child and always wanted to check it out. Basically it’s a castle created by a five foot tall one hundred pound man. That’s not that interesting. The interesting part of this story is the fact he built the castle in the 1920’s with no modern technology or equipment and since he worked on it in the dead of night he also had no witnesses. Some of the stones used to create the outer walls are as much as 30,000 pounds and no one has any idea how he managed this feat on his own. Some people blame aliens. Because that’s clearly what I’d do if I were visiting earth for the first time – I’d appear to one random old man and tell him to build me a castle in the dead of night!

The castle itself is beautiful. He managed to carve moons, stars, and other planetary shapes all around the place, not an easy thing to do in the particular stone he was using which is actually coral. There are three moving stones on the premises, a rocking chair and huge door and a triangular gate that weighs 6,000 pounds and can be pushed by any visitor who wants to try it. I of course decided to try it and believe or not it didn’t take much effort at all, the whole thing just slid as easy as could be (and I am not that strong!)

Of course when you look around you realize this was made as this man’s home. He had a tool shed and a bedroom in a structure that looks very normal and house like (other than the materials it’s made out of ) and then he made all sorts of open air rooms out and about. There were living spaces, a table shaped like a heart, writing desks, a repentance closet with another chair, a bunch of little pools, a bathtub, a drinking well, a kitchen, and a bedroom, complete with adult and child sized beds, including a crib, which freaked me the hell right out, especially knowing he didn’t have any real children – just the ones he imagined up. Apparently there were five of those…

Of course the most interesting part of this whole thing was the fact the man who created it was completely fucking crackers. He had a crush on some heiress, who probably didn’t know of his existence, and he believed she was sending him messages through a newspaper comic. He also was a recluse, pretty much only dealing with people when they came to his little castle and paid ten cents to look around. He must have done this little tour a lot though because by the time he died he managed to amass several thousand dollars. It gave me a lot to go over in my mind. I have yet to figure out why a creative and super intelligent mind is so often disturbed.

The place was small but amazing if you’re one to ponder. The little automated tours were long-winded and boring but the rest was cool. It was also covered in lizards, both native and not and it took every ounce of my willpower not to try and catch one. When I was a kid I spent so many hours learning to catch everything I could… chickens, turtles, frogs, wild birds, you name it. A lizard would have been fun… but I captured them in photos instead. They were adorable and fast.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 21, 2011 0