The Florida Saga

ok, down to the details....
the flight down was fine. slightly frustrating because i had to pee when i got on the plane but didn't get to go for like an hour and a half. throw a pepsi into the mix in the inbetween time and it's an uncomfortable situation. then i dozed off for a bit and when i woke up we were already as far south as tampa. we flew over the everglades, which was interesting - although more shrubby-looking than swampy-looking. however, this part of the trip was painful because i get extreme ear pain when there are pressure changes. old swimming injury (not really, but it sounds cooler that way). and then *poof* i was in florida. the drive down to key west on saturday was nice - at first we saw quite a bit of hurricane damage near the miami area (in the form of fallen trees n such). as we neared key west we were chasing the hurricane- saturday morning there was still hurricane-induced rain. and, um, wind. a steady wind of 25mph. there was a beautiful beach there... right across the street from the hotel, that was rendered useless by the tons and tons of crap dredged up from the ocean floor. who needs to go snorkeling? there were all kinds of sponges, gobs of seaweed, sea fans, corals, even a bryozoan! and a lot of shoes. all these poor people walkin' around barefeet! and all this was piled a few feet thick and up to ten feet or so up onto the beach. and by the time we left, it wasn't smellin' so good.

downtown key west was great for walking around. although very slow saturday because it was so cloudy and windy. verrrrry tourist-y, wouldn't want to live there, and definitely annoying to get to - but lots of interesting little shops and places to look at. had quite a bit of a relaxed caribbean feel to it, which was great.



see? i told you it was windy...