March 21 - 24, 2011 Florida City: “Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha… “

The sign says it is called “Campground and RV Park”. The campground map calls it the Florida City Campground and RV Park. Once private, it has been owned by the city for many years. It is not nice. But it is handy as it is the last geographic stop before a traveler begins the plunge down the Florida Keys to Key West. It is also our camp for daytrips to the Miami area.

We expect electric and water and get it, by in some cases daisy-chaining waterlines and having a couple motor homes rely on their internal generators for electricity.

An old Argosy.

Ken and Linda go exploring.

This is an old, lightly maintained park. There are rigs here that haven’t moved since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I go to the restroom and two black cats dash out, one very pregnant. Inside the restroom seems reasonably clean although the soap dispensers are empty and the lighting is dim.

Ed and Susan are next to a guy in a truck camper; he watches porno DVDs during the day at high volume, and disappears at night - presumably to work. My neighbor is also a night worker with a very small old trailer and jalousie windows that are never closed, home or not.

Some swear this looks like one of those Miami-Dade trailer parks always being busted on “Cops”. But I think it is mostly just low-income people with little to pay for housing, and hoping the chain link fence will protect them from the world. Mostly. Early the morning we left many heard four quick gun-shots just outside the fence. No police response, no ambulance.

Al last used this campground five years ago and says it has grown worse with each visit. His problem is finding space for 25 rigs (actually we are now down to 21) in Florida’s high season this close to the keys. All the parks can easily rent to individuals at high rates and have little incentive to accommodate groups. We hear even this park wouldn’t guarantee him space; we arrived with 21 rigs on a first-come-first-served basis. But we made it.

The Sundowner, on Key Largo.

On our first evening we decide to go to dinner in Key Largo, the first island in the series of keys that stretch to Key West, and watch the sunset. Mike and I are looking at the fish mounted on the wall of the Sundowner, our restaurant, and Mike is telling me what it must be like to hook a tarpon. I ask the waiter to identify the tarpon, and he says just look over the deck’s edge of the restaurant. We do and immediately see scores of tarpon, easily 4’ in length. I can’t understand how such a large fish can survive in large numbers close to a fish restaurant, but spot a note in the menu inviting people to stay for the fish feeding late each afternoon. Later I learn the tarpon is a sport fish - caught and released - rarely eaten because it doesn’t taste very good. It is not on the menu.

March 24, 2011 The Eds did it…

Best - green theme always diesel.

Bad!  Station advertises diesel.

Also bad, in a station advertising diesel.

Good, but would prefer green hose for certainty.

First off, a note about our Ed. In a rush to get to the restroom, Ed grabbed the green hose at the gas station and pumped unknowingly 10 gallons of regular gasoline (nice price, which is what attracted him) into his diesel truck. Susan spotted it while Ed was in the restroom. Usually the green hose is diesel, but we all know (and can forget when in a hurry) that sometimes the green hose will be gasoline. It took an hour to get a tow truck and the driver, a native Cuban, spoke halting English. The lesson, which Ed gladly shares, is to check twice and pump once. (We know another that has made the same mistake. Our time will come.) This is clearly an area for nationally mandated standards, particularly with diesel passenger cards gaining in popularity.

And now another Ed, this one from Latvia. As the story goes, the day before their wedding, the girl he called “sweet sixteen” declared him too old (he was 26, she was 16) and left. Ed wandered the world moping and eventually settled in Florida City compelled to quarry huge blocks of coral to construct things in memory of his “sweet sixteen”. Like a 5000 pound “Feast of Love” table. Like a bedroom set made from tons of coral, and including a 155 pound rocking cradle for the baby he would never have. When the area’s magnetism didn’t seem quite right, or the essence seemed to be waning, or the subdividers were getting too close, whatever – he decided to move everything to Homestead and continue building what became his castle.

This pool-shaped hole was Ed's quarry.  Note the lush landscape on nearly zero topsoil.

This revolving stone is balanced on a Model T axle.

The insurance gecko watches from above.

A small hole in the wall lines up with the large hole in the obelisk to point at Polaris.

Ed's clock (Standard Time only).

Who knows.

Inside Ed's coral walls.

The Repentance corner.

By now you may be writing him off as a crackpot, somebody that should be featured in Ripley’s Believe-it-or-Not, perhaps to be pitied. No-no. Well, maybe just “no”. Ed, in common with the Egyptians, the Mayans, the builders of Stonehenge, and the builders of countless other respected sites – smartly included a celestial observatory. A stone sundial that can tell Standard Time within a few minutes. An obelisk with a hole in it and stone viewfinder that always point to the North Star. And he experimented with magnetism and electricity. A genius, you see.

Ed’s Coral Castle, quoting from the tour guide, “has been featured in publications such as Reader’s Digest and National Enquirer.” Ed was 5-foot tall and 125 (or 120, in another account) pounds. He worked alone using simple hand tools (including block-and-tackle) to quarry the stone on site, carve it, and erect it. The largest stone weighs 29 tons, and a couple blocks are balanced well enough (on Model-T axles) that they can be turned with a (very strong) finger.

Ed started these constructions probably in the 1920s and completed them around 1940. He died of cancer in 1951. No record of the number of crushed toes and fingers.

March 23, 2011 South Beach, and we fall (partially) for a two-for-one…

Today again in beautiful weather we drive with Jane and the recovering Mike and explore Miami and the art-deco community of South Beach.

Using your head in Miami.

It is a wonderful day and the white sandy beaches are as I remember: crowded with people, young and old, thong or no-thong.

The Carlyle for lunch.

This is where we stayed on Collins 5 years ago.

The hotels fronting Ocean are beautiful and all feature sidewalk restaurants. You must pass through the seating areas when using the sidewalk and we are constantly being handed meal discount offers by very good looking barely legal women. We finally settle on the Carlyle, partly because Jane thinks she remembers it from the Robin Williams and Nathan Lane version of Birdcage (some of the clients looks like they could have been in the movie), and partly because Mike and I are tired and thirsty and the drinks are “two-for-one” and it is best, anyway, to go with the ladies choices.

We sit, and all order Mojitos; our waitress departs, and soon we notice the drink menu did not list prices. Mike, although still ailing, becomes suspicious. Pulling it together he summons the waitress and asks, pleasantly, the price of the Mojito. $19.50, she says pleasantly. So for $19.50 my wife and I can share two mojitos? No, for $19.50 each you can have four mojitos. Do you mean our bar bill will be about $40 per couple? Well, yes. Much discussion ensued all pleasantly and she eventually went back to talk with her manager. When she returned she had our drinks (very good), saying we could have two Mahitos per couple for 19.50. (This sounds like no deal now while writing, but it seemed a great victory at the time.) The food portions of our lunch were from the special pricing menu and were excellent, the portions being reasonably smaller and cheaper than on the regular menu.

March 22, 2011 Robert is Here, and we is in the Everglades…

After the Alligator Farm we head out with John for a tropical fruit farm at a place called Robert is Here, then on to Everglades National Park.

Robert is actually here, but there are no free samples; John buys a Sapodilla from Robert, who slices it into sections and we all sample, making it free to everybody but John. Tastes similar to a pear, but isn’t.

Then most of us buy tropical fruit milkshakes, Marcia and I sharing a strawberry-bannana Cansprel (sp?). I’m pleased and at $5.50 Robert must be making good coin. After our milkshakes we go to the animal yard out back and see evidence many that the animals have a diet heavy with overripe unsold fruit.

Slash pine trail.

Entering a mahogany hammock.

The bark of the Gumbo Limbo tree, very common in southern Florida.

The Whale then moves on to Everglades National Park. We ride through miles of brown sawgrass such as we saw at the Alligator Farm before reaching the dense green areas we expect. Our first loop trail called Pinelands is through slash pines (looks like lodgepole), slowly being crowded out by hardwood mahogany. On the Mahogany Hammock trail we learned how sinkholes are formed and remaining areas build up around mangroves forming a hammock or area of higher land. These are very densely vegetated with large mahogany trees, the loose-barked gumbo limbo, royal palms, the poison tree, and various air plants.

Mostly wood storks.

Roseate spoonbill.

Roadside activity.

More roadside activity as vultures consume alligator roadkill.

Our next stops are at a couple areas where large birds are the attraction. Great white herons, gray herons, osprey, and many wood storks. Although few in number, the pink roseate spoonbill is a standout, especially when flying low overhead. In one area a pair of large alligators are visible, as well as what we think are baby alligators. There is a sudden snapping sound but by the time our eyes focus everything again looks serene.

Hungry, we drive to the end of the road at Flamingo. This area used to be owned by Henry Flagler; he built canals to dry out the everglades and allow development, doing much damage to the ecology and little good (in this area) for himself. Flamingo opens beautifully on to Florida Bay, the vast watery tip of Florida on the gulf side of the Keys. There was a hotel here when we visited five years ago, but it is now gone and the building looks unmaintained.

It is late in the afternoon and we haven't eaten so we enter a café beneath the old hotel. I say café, but it is really a screened-in area with a lunch wagon parked adjacent to one opening to serve as the kitchen. It is not crowded and there are two servers. The servers seem busy so I grab menus and bring them to our table; a server asks if I would like to work there. That is the last we see of the server for certainly ten minutes, when he reappears and with a smile tells us he will get to us in about another ten minutes, so please relax. We are getting edgy and when he reappears he refuses to give the six of us three separate checks, saying the computer can’t handle it. Tom points out to him that the computer can handle it if we were are three separate tables. The waiter remains stubborn so Tom moves to a separate table. We decide we would rather eat than fight; I split a foot-long hotdog three-ways with Marcia and Jane, because every time Jane tries to order something on the menu they don’t have it. Tom meanwhile is placing his order with another server.

Not surprisingly, our food takes a while for what it is, and is at best passable. The water and coke taste awful. Tom has not been served and walks out in disgust. Soon, of course, his lunch-—which doesn’t look too bad—-arrives and is placed at his empty spot at the other table. I try to pay our $18 charge with a $20 bill but John threatens to leave me in the Everglades if that means a $2 tip. I have no smaller bill so Jane throws in $10 and John contributes $8 and we are out of there, quickly. I’ve gone from trying to pay the tab (after all, we didn’t drive) to being even more in debt to John, and now owing Jane $10 because I’m not about to charge her for her 4” share of hotdog.

We rejoin Tom outside and go to the Park Service’s visitor center but the displays are disappointing and we are quickly again on the road.

(In fairness, other in our group had no major problems with the café service and found the food good enough.)

Anhingas have less oil and must dry their wings.

Gray herron.

Green nasty with Ed and Susan.

He just wants to use the restroom.  Ed & Susan out of there, fast.

Mangrove roots catch silt and eventually form islands or keys.  Or hammocks.

We must drive back the same way we came since the road is at a dead-end. Close to the entrance we go down the Royal Palm side-road to the Anhinga Trail, which (as on our last visit) does not disappoint. This area has a creek and some open ponds, all formed as byproducts of an old Model T roadbed presumably built by Flagler. The trail offers close-up views of many of the birds we’ve been seeing from a distance, plus many alligators. Again, in this serene setting, I here a loud clomp and see an alligator with its jaws wide open and an Anhinga screeching away. Later, as we are returning to the parking lot, we see a very large alligator near the restrooms. I remember the earlier clomps and keep my distance, mostly.

We are home about 8 PM and the Whale (with Mike, who had not been feeling well) goes out to dinner at the Capri, a family Italian restaurant with service so the opposite of our lunch stop that it just seems unbelievable. I get a chance to pay Jane her $10 and manage somehow to pay for the John and Elain's dinner, but this in no way clears all the markers they have on us.

March 22, 2011 An Alligator Farm and airboat ride at last…

Today we are riding in the Whale with John and Elaine. The Whale is their big white Suburban tow vehicle, and even with six of us there is room for a couple more.

We follow the group to an Alligator Farm. As we kill time looking at the alligator and crocodile pens, the crew is preparing for the first airboat rides of the day. Soon we are loaded across two large airboats, our guide James delivering humorously the expected patter about keeping your toes and fingers on-board, no passengers lost since last Tuesday, etc. Several free alligators watch our moves to reinforce the message.

We are powered by a large V8 Cadillac engine and welcome the proffered ear protection. James promises two rides, the first slow and easy for picture taking and dialogue, the second one fast.

These flowers are yellow the first day they bloom and red the second day, then they drop.

Marcia goes warp speed.

Off we go, mostly straight, and mostly across an area with little water, thanks to the season and the drought. Once we are in the dry area we see only birds. He spins us around dramatically and heads us back where we begin the high-speed run. This is indeed very noisy even with ear protection but the ride is surprisingly smooth with no major bumps. The front row gets a little wet.

We are satisfied, sort of, but with each airboat carrying over a dozen people it is more like an airbus than an airboat.

Marcia, Elain & John conclude size does matter.

Nora handles a snake for the first time.

Linda, Bev, and friend.

Ouch.