A Day at the Dry Tortugas

Comfort Inn, Room 102, Key West, Florida

There is no way for me to do justice to today's trip. I'm just too tired and too ready for sleep. So I'll post a few pictures, and maybe a video of a barracuda, then I'll decide later if I'll say or post more.

Briefly, we took a high-speed ferry the 68 miles from Key West to Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas, and back--five hours of traveling round trip. Between these sea voyages, we stayed in the Dry Tortugas National Park for four and a half hours.

The main cultural feature of the park is Fort Jefferson, a huge brick structure, supposedly constructed with about 16 million bricks and the largest brick structure in the Western Hemisphere. The fort, which takes up most of Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas reminded us of Fort Point, a fairly small fort set up in San Francisco to guard the bay. It now sits under the Golden Gate Bridge. These two forts must have both been constructed around the same time: the mid-1800s. Fort Jefferson became a prison during the Civil War and the famed Dr Mudd, who tended to Booth's wounds after the latter's assassination of Lincoln, was once a prisoner there. The structure is surrounded by a moat, once had a drawbridge, and is huge. Three stories tall, but surrounding a good amount of space.


Some of the brick of the fort is falling away, leaving me to wonder exactly what balance between preservation and destruction the Park Service is envisioning for this building.


I love the fort's moat, which is filled with seawater. For most of its extent, the moat wall separates the moat itself from nothing more than the sea.


From the top of the fort, there is a good view of Bush Key, which was overrun with thousands and thousands of nesting birds today. But the secret of Fort Jefferson is that the outer side of its moat wall supports the best reef around the Garden Key, and it is covered with all types of corals and teeming with other marine life.


Someone took a picture of our whole family at the gate leading into Fort Jefferson, allowing us one of the few pictures of the entire family on vacation.


What we really enjoyed was snorkeling. Our equipment didn't fit us perfectly (which really slowed down my swimming) and we drank a little too much seawater, but we saw some interesting sea life. We spent at least an hour and a half swimming in the water around Garden Key (circumsnorkeling the entire island except for the small part we had to walk across).


We had a digital underwater still and video camera that could hold over 1000 photographs at stunning resolution or about 30 minutes of video, so we have about 200 photographs of the park and its animal life. One of the most interesting finds was a giant lobster (I'd guess weighing at least fifteen pounds) that had set up house in a large gap in the moat wall of the fort. Since I was floating in the water as I took the picture and using the flash underwater for the first time, I didn't capture enough of the beast to give anyone a sense of its size. But it was large.


Erin and Nancy had barracuda resting by them, enjoying their company. But I decided to follow a barracuda, capturing my second pursuit as video.

After our snorkeling, we headed back to the boat, showered on board, then set off for what is passing for the mainland nowadays: Key West. Tim saw a sea turtle on this trip, but the rest of us missed it since we were inside at the time. Otherwise it was an unremarkable voyage, except that it was the end of today's great expedition. The park was as good as we had expected. We just wish we'd had more time there.

We ended the day having a good Cuban meal outdoors in an open courtyard at Mallory Square. Feral cats surrounded the space, but never ventured in. Roosters were everywhere, even walking at our feet, but as darkness fell they ended their day roosting in the trees around us. It was a great meal in a magical spot, but we thought little of it because we had been to the Dry Tortugas today.

Quote of the Day (Erin to Tim):

I'm not high-fiving you for melanoma.

volveremos a las tortugas

The Cats and Chickens of the Conch Republic

Comfort Inn, Room 102, Key West, Florida

Although 352 miles isn't that much for us to drive in a day, today was a little tiring. We awoke too early to get ready, so we could get on the road. Then the minivan we were renting from Enterprise ended up being an SUV with almost no storage space at all--and with six people in the car, we actually needed some storage space. Somehow, we managed to squeeze three suitcases, three laptops, five or six cameras, and a number of other bags into the car, and stick Tim in the back seat surrounded by all of it.

Mr Mike began the driving and made it at least half-way across the state. We traded somewhere along the length of Alligator Alley, and I drove the rest of the way to Key West, which was fine. Driving is a meaningless activity to me, neither painful nor fun. But the driving took a while. We had to cross the state, turn south and drive past Miami, and then hop on the Keys, that string of islands held together with the highway US 1. It's more than one hundred miles from the beginning of Key Largo to the end of Key West. (These two keys have Key as their first name but are separated by dozens of other keys, all of which appear to have Key as a last name.)

A Break in an Old Bridge in the Florida Keys(Erin's Photograph)
Seven-Mile Bridge, the Keys, Florida
We ate a hearty lunch of fancy fish sandwiches at one of the early keys, so I thought we'd never eat again. A couple of hours later, after enjoying the sights of driving through the Keys, we arrived at our hotel, which turned out to be quite nice. It does have a sour smell to it, which I find is common in southern Florida. It's some kind of unavoidable mildew that is sharp almost like urine but is something like the smell of a carpet drying out from being soaked with dirty water. This smell isn't overwhelming at all (and my nose doesn't register it anymore), but it's here, waiting.

Key West is a little looser than other places. The streets downtown were filled with drunk people, many carrying open glasses of alcohol. Cats are everywhere, the polydactylic ones supposed descended from the cats at Ernest Hemingway's house. And chickens are everywhere, though I've no idea why. This hotel appears to have both an official cat (who spends all of its time lounging under a bush) and an official hen, who currently has two chicks.


The Hotel Chicken of the Comfort Inn, Key West, Florida (Tim's Photograph)
A real problem we had was that, after an hour wasted trying to establish a wireless Internet connection, we gave up and had to ask to change our rooms. Now, our rooms are poolside, and we are the closest rooms to the breakfast buffet, both of which are perks, but the best perk is that we can actually read our email and post our vacation.

After solving the Internet crisis, we drove into Key West, parking near Mallory Square so that we could see the crowds watching the performers at sunset, and so we could observe the tradition of watching the sunset from Key West's boardwalk. We were there too short a time, but the sunset was worth the trouble, and the performers were reasonably entertaining. I was disappointed in not seeing the famous performer who hands out phoney (truly phoney) banknotes and mixes humor with something akin to political commentary.

One of the famous signs we saw today was the post showing the distances other places are from Key West. Erin was happy to see New York City included.

Sign Showing Distances from Key West(Erin's Photograph)
We ended up eating at a good restaurant, Red Fish Blue Fish, which served us enormous portions of food. Not one of us finished a meal. But we also began with appetizers (a rarity for us): gator bites and conch fritters. It's been a while since I've had alligator, and I didn't remember at all that it cooked up white. It doesn't taste quite like any other meat, but maybe a little like pork. We had to have conch, since we're in the Conch Republic, but it was good to have them in fritters, which were essentially large soft hush puppies, with tiny chewy bits of conch. I eat anything, but I've never had a good serving of conch, and I've tried many times to find one.

Sign for the Restaurant Red Fish Blue Fish (Erin's Photograph)
Menu at Red Fish Blue Fish(Tim's Photograph)
And what is the Conch Republic? It is the free nation of the Florida Keys, but you can learn all about it by going to its official site. Don't forget to read the history of the nation!

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Getting Your Ham On

North Easter Island Circle, Polynesian Village, Englewood, Florida

Today is Easter, which the Oxford English Dictionary Online Word of the Day service recognized by sending a remarkably illuminating entry for "Easter egg" (though I believe it accidentally left out an important mention of Canada in the entry). We recognize Easter by posting a photograph I took yesterday of a small reproduction of the crosses at Calvary--not exactly the right image for Easter, which is about the resurrection rather than the death--and by showing the tiny Easter baskets Nancy prepared for the kids this morning.

Little Calvary, Manasota Beach, Englewood, Florida
Easter Baskets, Polynesian Village

The family split up a little bit today. I went to Port Charlotte to see my friend Bob Grumman, and I spent a good deal of the afternoon there. Everyone else stayed here entertaining themselves. Despite the excitement of Bob's house, I'll leave readers with nothing more than a picture of one of the flowers of one of the weeds Bob planted in his yard (thus nullifying its status as a weed). The flowers bunch together into a bouquet, sort like Queen Anne's lace, but in a more beautiful way. Just another example of how different plants are here than in our part of the world.



What my family ended up doing in my absence was riding around the circles of Polynesian Village. The world of Florida is flat, which makes for great bike riding. And PV has the extra advantage of being almost totally free of cars, so we can ride in circles here forever. I assume we would be the thinnest of people if we lived in such a bike friendly place. (Though I've gained one pound a day every day I've been here so far, and we haven't gone out to eat once!)

An Egret Resting on a Car in a Carport (Tim's Photograph)
On their ride through the park, they found an egret standing atop a car as if it were merely standing in a stream. Another view uncommon at home, but we never come down here without seeing egrets pause in carports.

Tim Huth Riding in Polynesian Village (Erin's Photograph)
As the three of them rode through the park, Tim and Erin photographed each other, just for fun. Part of the safety program we've put them through. This isn't really possible in places with many cars and speed limits above 15 mph.

Self-Portrait of the Tim as an Adolescent (Tim's Photograph)
Tim appears to be turning into Erin (who takes self-portraits all the time). The great thing about this shot is that the wind has moved Tim's hair off his face.

Riding Bikes through Polynesian Village (Tim's Video)
And here is a good view of what bike riding is like around here. Nancy, obviously, isn't so sure that it's a good idea to ride a bike and shoot video simultaneously.

The Family Walking to the Rec Hall for Easter Dinner (Tim's Photograph)
I made it back from Bob's forty-five minutes before the 4 pm start for Easter dinner. This is a view of the entire family (sans Tim, the photographer) walking to dinner. My in-laws, Bud and Marge Frye and Marge's sister Joan Grant are walking with the three of us. We waited until 4 pm to start our half-block walk to dinner, but by the time we arrived the "parking lot" (a small grassy area) was full of cars. I'm not sure what surprised me more: that people in such a small space actually drove to dinner or that all the spaces were gone by 4:03 pm.

Polynesian Village's Lone Alligator Sunning Itself before Easter Dinner (Tim's Photograph)
As soon as we arrived, Tim (who takes after Mr Mike, AKA Bud Frye, in terms of friendliness towards strangers) learned from someone that the local gator was sunning itself at the edge of the pond. Once he told us, we hopped up and moved outside to take a look. At first, no-one believed that tiny alligator was real (that beast being such a shellacked entity), but once it moved, opening its mouth to try to scare us, we knew it was.

Easter Bonnet Parade
We've been here once before for Easter, so we should have remembered that the dinner included an Easter bonnet parade, complete with prizes for the prettiest, funniest, and most original. Nancy, Erin, and Tim were chosen as judges, since they were deemed unbiased (and since none of their relatives were in the running). Today there were about fifteen people (all women and girls this time) displaying their sometimes homemade bonnets.

Easter Bonnet Parade
The bonneteers paraded through the recreation hall twice, giving the judges enough time to make their decisions. Later on, the trio turned in their decisions, but the woman who'd chosen them came back to tell them that there were prizes already for the children, so the one child winner would be changed. (The guys, however, were a bit surprised that only one of their choices actually one--bringing the need for an unbiased appraisal into question a bit!)

The Family at the Easter Potluck (Tim's Photograph)
We were joined for dinner with Dick and Mary, great folk, and we had a good time. This was lucky, since dinner, with all its additions (benediction, Easter bonnet parade, plastic Easter egg hunt, and raffle) lasted for about two and a half hours. As before, we had a seat in front of the large television, which was on and showing a golf tournament, so much of the crowd was staring our way throughout our meal.

Tim's Easter Dinner (Tim's Photograph)
Tables were called to dinner at random, and our table (#9) was called up "to get their ham on" [our plates] in the first half. There was plenty of food, way too much, and here's a sample from Tim's plate.

After dinner, the four of us rode through the park a few times, having lots of fun. I learned that I barely need my hands to ride a bike--something I hadn't remembered. I could ride fast or slow without hands, I could make even sharp turns without hands, I could lean into a turn without hands, and I could drive over bumpy grassy areas without hands. I rode my bike this way all the way around the largest circle in the park without trouble. Great fun, so I wish I could ride a bike in such an area. I hate, however, riding anywhere where there are cars or crowds.

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Sand and Sunburn, Glass and Graffiti

North Easter Island Circle, Englewood, Florida

The weather today was sunny and warmish (still the low 70s), so this was beach weather for us. Not swimming weather, but walking on the beach weather, so our trip to the beach was the big event of the day.

Trees on the Way out of Polynesian Village (Tim's Photo)
Starting our walk out of the park where the Mikes live, we were struck, once again, by how different the flora and fauna are here compared to where we live. There are almost no overlaps. We passed agaves, seagrapes, palms, palmettos, bougainvillae, and these weird pines, none of which grow outside in Schenectady.

Terns over the Gulf (Tim's Photo)
The beach was breezy, too breezy, but we walked down to just before the point where erosion has removed the beach. Sandpipers and terns jostled for our attention.

Nancy and Erin (Erin's Photo)
We took pictures, many pictures, but present only a few of them here today.

Geof Sandglyphing (Erin's Photo)
I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to write in the sand quickly enough so that I could capture what I wrote before the oscillating waves wiped my words away.

Geof Climbing towards the Water (Erin's Picture)
After we left the beach, I suggested that we walk down under the Manasota Beach Bridge to look around. On the way there, we walked along this tiny boardwalk, among the mangroves. The posts holding up the boardwalk were covered with barnacles, and a crab was scuttling over one large set of these, so I set out to take a look and test the strength of the crustaceans' hold on the post. (Firm.)

Geof Holding a Tortoise (Erin's Photo)
After leaving the boardwalk, I spied a tortoise (or tortuga), and we ran to see it. We took his picture and taped him walking sluggishly uphill, which seemed a strange direction for him to go. So I followed him, and at a point near the top of the hill he sped up significantly and disappeared down a large hole into his den.

Tim Climbing under the Manasota Beach Bridge (Erin's Photo)
Right under the bridge the place is strewn with glass and graffiti, but we still stayed there a while investigating.

A Sandglyph
This was also the one place where I could draw in the sand without waves immediately erasing my work, so I produced one punning sandglyph.

Then we walked up the hill ourselves, onto the bridge, over the water, and back home. Eventually, we realized that the sun was hotter than we had thought and that we were all a little sunburned. Tim's neck was the worst, but my pate is stinging slightly. Maybe I should find a hat to wear on our all-day excursion to the Dry Tortugas.

Later, we tried to help Aunt Joan pack, but she was out of boxes. Nancy took a little nap, and at least I also realized how being out in the sun can sap your energy. For dinner, we made salmon, asparagus, a salad, and my rendition of my mother's chicken rice. There were seven of us, with Joan.

After dinner, the Mikes headed out for a two-and-a-half-hour Easter vigil service, while we went out to buy a few supplies: toiletries, habanero tortilla chips, spare rechargeable batteries for our digital cameras, and a memory stick for the camera Erin has that doesn't have one. (The last we bought outrageously on sale, and it is huge and can store over a thousand photographs taken at the highest setting on the camera.)

Tomorrow is Easter.

volveremos a las tortugas

The Scent of Grapefruit Blossoms

North Easter Island Circle, Polynesian Village, Englewood, Florida

Okay, we're easing into vacation a little. I slept almost until noon, giving myself a little less than nine hours sleep. That sounds like vacation. Almost immediately after waking, I went outside to experience the weather. The air was thick with the sweet scent of honeysuckle, but there was no honeysuckle. Instead, the scent was coming from numerous small white grapefruit blossoms on a tree in the backyard. A strange sight, actually, since also on the tree were a few tiny blackened grapefruit, which had held onto the tree past their ripeness and shriveled into tiny dark fists of fruit. This opening to the day heralded life itself, the grapefruit encompassing both birth and death.

We actually relaxed today, which is something I rarely do. I read the paper slowly. I enjoyed the warmth, because it's amazing how warm a sunny 72-degree day can be. Aunt Joan, Mrs Mike's sister, came to talk for a while, and she told us that she couldn't find the statue of St Joseph she buried in her front yard (to ensure the sale of her house).

Later, I rode a bike around the circles here until I finally found her place. It wasn't hard to find St Joseph. Tim could tell where he was buried immediately and just tugged him out of the ground. A week from today, Aunt Joan is moving back to the Rochester, New York, area for good, so she was busy packing. She gave us some foodstuffs from her pantry, which I used later to make a tuna-tomato bowtie pasta dish for dinner.

Nancy had the most fun today. She spent her time cancelling credit cards, and trying (ultimately, unsuccessfully) to get through to the Department of Motor Vehicles back in New York. But now we have a replacement credit card arriving here tomorrow, just in time for our trip to Key West on Monday. And all our other credit cards (well, whichever ones were in her wallet) are being replaced.

Nancy wasn't the only person to lose something. Tim left behind the power cord to his cellphone. He wanted to buy a new power cord, but I thought the better option was to replace his entire phone (which is quite cracked and worn out) for free at the local Cingular store. So we drove out to Cingular, which wasn't nearby, since nothing except the beach is near Englewood. Amazingly, that Cingular couldn't access our account, because they don't have access to accounts in all regions of the country. (Is this not a national company?) We could buy a phone for full price, but I thought free was the better choice, so we drove back to PV (Polynesian Village) and ordered a phone over the phone. It will be here by Tuesday or Wednesday, and we won't be back until Wednesday night. Tim is now trying to conserve the power on his phone, so he can keep it working until we return here.

At eight o'clock at night, the three men (Mr Mike, Tim, and I) headed out by car to Tampa to pick up the last member of our vacation team: Erin, who flew in from La Guardia tonight. This three-hour trip allowed us a chance to travel across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, to sit in a cellphone waiting area at an airport and read the arrival notices on a screen as if we were at a drive-in theater, and to park for a few minutes in an "immediate loading" area as an attendant tried to encourage us on our way.

I forgot to take pictures during the day today, so all I have is pictures of our nighttime trip back from Tampa:

Sunshine Skyway Bridge

Sunshine Skyway Bridge

Budmond Frye (AKA Grampy, AKA Mr Mike)

A Serious Tim Huth

A Blurry Erin Huth

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Something Like a Beginning

North Easter Island Circle, Polynesian Village, Englewood, Florida

I'm not sure today was the best way to begin a vacation, especially our first real vacation in a few years--and the first time in many years that the four of us will be together. But you work with what you have.

What went wrong? In the end, nothing; in the end, everything. Today, Nancy attended the funeral of a favorite student of hers, a kid who had killed himself last week. The shock of that death is hard enough, but when coupled with the reality of an emotional funeral it probably became even a bit harder today. (And by "today" I mean "yesterday." I just haven't made it to bed yet.) I left the office at the last possible moment myself, held up by some problems I had to deal with at the last minute. The last time I had a deadline at the end of the day, the same thing happened. Amazing.

Once Nancy, Tim, and I made it home, we did some last-minute packing (stuffing toiletries in the suitcase, nothing much), filled bowls throughout the house with cat food and water, and prepared to leave.

Before I mention the next part of the story, let me just say that I'm the person in the family who always loses things. The other night, I lost my wedding ring. I went searching for it "everywhere," but it didn't turn up. Not that it really matters, since this is a replacement wedding ring. I lost the real one on a train trip from Albany to New York City one summer in the 90s. But it's nice to have one. I found the ring last night, after having given up the search. So all was well, and I simply waited to see what I would lose next.

But it wasn't me who lost something. It was Nancy, the person who almost never loses anything. And she had lost her wallet. This was a big issue, since we needed a government i.d. card to move Nancy through airport security, so we tore up the house, and searched "everywhere." We never found it. She thinks she left the wallet on the diningroom table, but the table was bare. Maybe she had put it in her backpack, but the wallet wasn't there. Finally, I said that we couldn't wait any longer, that we had to leave. I had Nancy get the only other picture i.d. she had, her school i.d. (technically governmental), and we left the house not knowing if we would make it through security and onto the plane.

We worried about that for naught (by which I mean we worried in the normal manner). Apparently, the absence of a high-quality identification card merely forces you to go through mildly more rigorous security--actually a bit less rigorous than I've had to endure. So Nancy made it through security, and we made it onto the plane.

The flights were uninteresting. We flew from Albany to Baltimore, where we had a 105-minute layover, enough time to allow us to sit down for an unimaginative but adequate dinner. Then we flew to Orlando, which was a surprise. I could find nowhere on my itinerary where it said we'd be stopping in Orlando, no place even where it indicated the flight was "direct" instead of "non-stop." So we discovered the Orlando leg of our trip while standing in line to board the plane.

All our flights were on time until the last leg, but in Orlando we had to wait for connecting flights, so we landed in Fort Myers forty minutes late. Not so great when we still had eighty miles to drive. My father-in-law drove us to Polynesian Village, a retirement community consisting of streets in concentric circles. Though completely benign, these streets always cause me to imagine the Dantean circles of Hell.

The other good news is that the temperatures are dropping around here (though the weather is still moist and warm to me), and rain is expected for the next three days. So I'm not sure this is the best way to begin a vacation.

volveremos a las tortugas