Chronicles of Sioneva:

The Coral Islands

 

 

 

"Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Doc... Are you telling me that it's 8:25?"
"Precisely."
"Damn! I'm late for school!"

Back to The Future, Part I

 

The trip did not start off well. Not at all. My brother and I had been trying to do this trip for a long time - visit the Florida Keys, swim in the warm water, bask on the beaches, grab some caches. That sort of thing.  He'd even bought me a plane ticket for my birthday; we were all set, right?

 

WRONG!

 

My flight was scheduled to leave out of Des Moines at 6:30 am. Des Moines is a 2.5 hour drive away. Which is why a sinking feeling very quickly gave way to a panicky feeling, which quickly gave way to a crying feeling when my alarm did not go off... and I woke up on my own at 4 a.m. The reader is left to do the math...

 

Anyway, one hour, many tears, several hasty calculations, and one miracle later, I was booked on a flight out of  Kansas City at 1:10 p.m., for a very reasonable price, considering it was extremely last minute. (There were only two seats left at that price, too, when I booked it!) I wasn't taking any chances this time... I DID NOT GO BACK TO SLEEP, and I left to make the, yes, 2.5 hour drive down at 8 a.m. The rest of the trip out went without a hitch. Whew.  Ft. Lauderdale, here I come!

 

 

"I've never seen you before in my life, but you look to me like a slacker!"

Back to the Future, Part II

 

The moral of this little interlude is that campground security in Florida is very suspicious. If you're there to camp, you better have a tent up... even if it's dark and raining when you arrive, and you really would rather sleep in the car. We gave in and put the tent up. It stopped raining. We stayed dry.

 

"Is this a holdup?"
"It's a science experiment!"

Back to the Future, Part III

 

Okay, time to talk briefly about the caching, before I start going into detail about the Keys... The primary caches on my list were the three earthcaches in the keys. Two in Key West, and one on the way down. I blame catsnfish for this, naturally! These are the three, for reference: Backbone of the Keys, My Moon, and Key West Marine Park. Each was well done and worth the visit! Now I only need to place another earth cache, and I can get my gold master's pin! I made sure to get the southernmost point virtual cache as well!

 

"Mosquitoes of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist."

The Princess Bride (well, sort of)

 

We also tried some more traditional caches, and quickly learned why you SHOULD NOT cache in Florida without 400% DEET bug spray! I had to fight the mosquitoes bravely, to keep them from carrying my brother away to parts unknown - they were just that big. No, really. Never has a log been signed so quickly, and I think I discovered a previously unknown skill for ammo can throwing. Practically over my shoulder, as I turned to run! Once safe back in the car, we took stock - feet, yes (I was wearing flip-flops), face, arms, neck... even on my fingers! Eesh!

 

Blood donation was not over with for the day. We endured the same ordeal, and again, set a speed record, at the campground, 15 miles north of Key West. Up went the tent, in we dove! Tom even got a brush burn on his knee from the speed of diving in! We talked a bit, the braved the bloodsuckers again to go buy that which we were lacking. We were much happier possessing that wonderful can of OFF.

 

"Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim."

Finding Nemo

 

 

In between feeding the mosquitoes, we actually made it to Key West! We wanted to swim!  One beach had water the temperature of a hot tub and way too much seaweed. Ewww. The second beach was much better, plus there was a bar on the beach! Sitting there, drinking Rumrunners... ahhhh, this is the life. I was wondering why Key West was called Key West instead of Key South, given that it's the southernmost Key - it's actually from the Spanish "Cayo Hueso", or "Bone Key", which is creepily cool when you think about it!

 

Anyway! The third beach we went to was at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. We liked this beach for many reasons. A) It had free admission on the day we visited, which was a great deal, 2) My brother could snorkel around coral reefs just walking off shore a little bit, 3) It had a really nifty nature trail through trees the likes of which I'd never seen before - wish I knew what they were. Mangroves, maybe?

 

"I know those cannons. It's the Pearl."

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

 

We left to get some conch fritters and key lime pie - hey, we were tourists, what can I say? Then we came back to tour the Fort part of the state park. The amateur historian in me was fascinated by the crumbling walls, there was even a cannon embedded IN one wall, iirc. This fort was the headquarters for the Union fleet that blockaded the South during the Civil War, and was a key point (pun intended) during the Spanish-American War and the dealings with Cuba. A lot of history here! But I didn't find any of the caches.

 

 

(to be continued... Maybe.)

By Sioneva

 

 

 

 A strangelet is a hypothetical object consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. An equivalent description is that a strangelet is a small fragment of strange matter. The term "strangelet" originates with E. Farhi and R. Jaffe. Strangelets have been suggested as a dark matter candidate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Comments(1):

1. You are so funny! You wonder why we buy you donuts! Vicki (mrs catsnfish)

   Wednesday, August 05, 2009 joseph