I am trying to move into a cool spot. It’s hot or I’m hot. I can’t tell anymore in the heat and humidity of Florida. The dark restaurant parking lot is shared by another RV, a big one about 50 feet away. It is very quiet as usual here at night as the Cracker Barrel serves no alcohol, closes at 10 PM, and is always set next to hotels and corporate office complexes. I can see dimly inside of our van due to some security lights in the parking lot, next to an unlit construction site. Quiet,  I am just resting, until I hear a “Cra-a-a-ck!”, clearly a gunshot…very close, right next to our van. I feel the adrenaline push me into a fully alert state, ears attuned, brain engaged. “Don’t sit up!” I counsel myself, “Go to the floor!”

Should I wake Steven or would he sit up and expose himself to more risk? What should I do? What should I do? The floor would provide  extra barriers from all sides, lined with refrigerators, toilets, storage, and the engine. Shit! This is so scary! Without his hearing aids, he will likely sleep through this, but if I wake him he may sit up. What should I do? “Cra-a-a-ck!”, the second gunshot reports, just as close, right behind our heads. Oh No! Are we being fired on? Then I hear a voice, an adult woman or higher pitched young male, “Get the Camera, ….” followed by a name I don’t remember later. I resolve not to move, as the best course of action.”Cra-a-a-ck!”  The third blast of the gun. I lie there wondering if they killed someone or an animal and now are getting a trophy picture. Oh Crap! I am paralyzed with fear. Don’t move! Don’t move!

I don’t sit up until I hear a diesel engine start, and then recede into the distance. I hear three more, “Crack! Crack! Crack! …in quick succession, sounding perhaps a block away. Is that more shots being fired…or the cracking of ejected cartridges? I finally sit up and peek out to the construction site…dark, still. I peek out the other window toward the neighboring RV…no lights. I wonder if they are quivering in the dark like me? …or have a weapon drawn, ready to defend themselves? I want to go out and check to see if there is an injured animal or person there, but I am too scared.

At 6:00 AM, when I hear vehicle movement and the restaurant workers arrive, I go out and look around. There are no shell casings, no dead bodies, just an open construction site littered with piles of sand, cement, plywood, and discarded packaging. No clues as to what went on last night. No RV neighbors anymore either. Just a quiet dawn at the Cracker Barrel. Perhaps the shooting was just some teens showing off with weapons for the camera at any empty construction site. Maybe.

We both detest the idea of being, “sitting ducks”, senseless victims of crime. We are now reconsidering the wisdom of getting weapons training, licensing, and permits required to possess a firearm. Violence begets Fear, Fear begets Violence. An ugly cycle, but one we want to survive.

That 75 degree difference for the high temperature  in each locale today explains the good, bad and ugly of Key West, Florida. There is no other place in late January to play in the warm seawater, smell semi-tropical flowers, and lie in the guaranteed sunshine…that you can DRIVE to in the U.S.   That is the good part. 15 years ago when I last visited, it had only been “found” by gays, cuban exiles, and WWII Navy families that stayed on. I remember joining them for Bocce Ball in Higgs Park in the evenings. It was very, very quiet. Especially at night, when the only people out in the residential neighborhoods near Duval Street were dog walkers, men with great haircuts gossiping about the dinner party they were just leaving, and workers coming home from the bar and restaurant trade. QUIET. Locals now refer to that as “Old Key West”.

Beginning about  15 years ago, someone named Walsh brought in a lot of money and developers and the housing and hotel room stock exploded. Now there are 30,000 people here in the high season, only about 8,000 during the summer. Some of these are from the cruise ships which spew out tourists daily. What never seems to stop is the high pitched whine of scooters, the low thumping of Harley engines, the canned and amplified tour trolleys. Inebriated (loud) adults seem to have infiltrated all the formerly quiet neighborhoods.

It is a noisy, rowdy place with a dark side. Homeless drug addicts have also “found” Key West, and there is lots of panhandling and violence as well. We went to Duval Street (the main commercial drag) in search of a signature cocktail and live music, and instead found a crime scene, shutting down the block and the bar. At least 20 police officers were interviewing eyewitnesses to the stabbing, possibly a homicide.

The other attraction that never stops is perhaps a bit more charming…BIG COCKS EVERYWHERE!….that would be Roosters I am referring to, no matter what you were thinking. They crow all day, and all night in every part of the Island. They are so used to dogs, they don’t even step off the path at their approach.

My mother told me that my father remained in a homophobic rage their entire visit here, 25 years ago, because of the overt male sexuality and hysterical drag queens. There are still sweet and funny drag queens on Duval Street complimenting me on my goofy jewelry, but now they are next door to a brothel for straight men, and across the street from raunchy bars encouraging drunk tourists to dance on the counters, and “take it all off”. Feels a bit like Bourbon Street in New Orleans except there are galleries, designer stores, beautiful restaurants, and historic buildings tucked in between the “Spring Break in Florida” feel to the place.

 The landscaping has benefitted from the infusion of capital, and it is an eyeful. Bromeliads taking all their nourishment from the air, huge staghorn ferns (that die in my care in the SF Bay Area, thrive here. Flowers just keep blooming, seeming to have no season. Fan Palms, orchids just hang over the fence, lush and lovely.

We were fortunate to be here for the Quantum Key West Races: lots of spinnakers flying, Hobie Cats with crew hanging out in their harnesses, with great wind for the races. There were some gorgeous schooners out to observe the fun. Once you get out on the water, all the dross and ugliness drops away. Once again, we started talking about traveling the world by sailboat…just talking, not planning…. talking…for now.

We have been learning Argentine Tango where good shoes are crucial. I got a pair custom fit in Clearwater (near Tampa)…sexiest shoes I’ve ever owned! Hum Baby! We also went to a Ballroom Dance Supply store in Miami in search of men’s shoes. Wow! Dancing With The Stars! Amazing costumes!

Unfortunately, nothing for tangueros here as Argentine Tango has all the sizzle in the sensuousness of the close embrace dance itself. Women’s tango clothes tend toward black, formal, close fitted to show off the line of the body and the movement. A black skirt cut on the bias, a clingy top, and fabulous shoes are de rigueur.  One ballroom dance competitor arrived for a consultation with the 30+  years experienced staff members, former competitive ballroom dancers. She modeled her bright sequined, draped and with cut outs, high slit up the leg, amazing dress showing off her long fabulous gams; the consultants removed her necklace and replaced with big earrings, traded black tights for sheers, and began to construct a custom headpiece. We had been feeling guilty about spending $200 on each pair of Tango shoes, when we realized that the ballroom and latin dance folks have to bling up and fully costume. Ching-ching!

Miami Beach, Route A1A, took us past all the Trump Towers and designer stores lined up like Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles. On Shabbat, the Lubovniks, Chabadniks, and other jews with proscribed clothing rituals, strolled after services with the double wides…strollers that is. I am impressed by their religious devotion to rules that require long frock coats and big fur hats on their heads in the Miami heat and humidity.  It felt like New York for a few blocks. I wondered if these were visiting snowbirds, or residents. My intellectual curiosity was dimmed however by the $20 minimum parking fees. The plethora of South Beach art deco architecture is visible from the van anyway, so we moved on.

Little Habana is like travel to a foreign nation. The local park is completely jammed with older domino players at the picnic tables. Tito Puente, The Mambo Kings, and other Cuban orchestral music is seeping out of each storefront.

The cuban food is muy Exquisito, just like the eponymous restaurant (www.exquisitorestaurant.com) serving these shrimp filled, fried green plantain cups, Cuban black beans, and steak strips fried with lime and garlic…y muy barrato tanbien! We returned a week later to eat traditional cuban sandwiches (ham, pork roast, swiss cheese, mustard and pickles grilled on the planchon), only improved by thin egg bread, called the MediaNoche! Sweet, salty, melty, crunchy…what’s not to love about that combination?

We’ve also enjoyed the diversity of palm trees in Southern Florida. Fort Meyer was the 2nd home of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. The downtown historic river area was delightful with a river promenade, lots of outdoor restaurants and bars, and a pocket park with palm varieties identified. Edison imported a “Royal Palm” collection and lined the streets, starting a city tradition. He also investigated the potential for many tropical plants from this area to be used for industrial purpose including light bulb filaments and tire manufacture. This sculpture list in reverse all the plants he investigated, then at night the shadow spells out all the varieties.

Serendipity at work, we spent one of our rare nights in a motel at a cheap Days Inn, only to find it came with some unique features in the enormous rear garden. This was a site they drilled for oil and up bubbled a mineral spring (with alligators of course…no place to run the dog). This simple corporate motel had grecian temples, sculpture, fountains and pools for guests to enjoy the 82 degree mineral water….and the hottest little dive Tiki Bar in town, plus 2 free drinks with our stay. We hung out with the local Harley riding couples and had a blast except for the payment exacted later…tons of mosquito bites.

We went to Sanibel and Captiva Islands to bike the nice bike trails and the Ding Darling Reserve as it is one of the great birding areas of the South. However, traffic, crowds, heat and humidity, and parking were repulsive, so we drove it quickly, not seeing any birds we had not seen already. We zipped on to Naples which was entertaining looking at how the ultra-rich live; the median income here is….5th in the nation. There was no street parking allowed, no curbs, no sidewalks, just wide roads, beautiful landscaping, and mansions. We enjoyed the galleries here, with lots of abstract artists represented, including a wonderful gallery of Wolf Kahn’s work.

Our best bird sightings have been the new “pigeons” of the South, and like pigeons, they are everywhere in small herds. They survive from Key West to Newfoundland, Canada. This weird, ugly duck that was not in the bird book because it is a hybrid of a Muscovy Duck and a mallard, is pimply, fearless, awkward, and HUGE, as the Muscovy Duck is the heaviest of the duck family. Hmmm, that is a lot more meat than a pigeon…dinner, ya’ll?

Now to the bugs. Biting Gnats? Sand flies? Mosquitos? Sand Fleas? Ants? Many varieties of insects to feed on your sweet flesh.

Steven=1 itchy bite

Sal=45 oozing, itchy welts and bites

…Just not fair. Okay, not as bad as a case of small pox (as shown) but itchy and distracting, especially on warm, humid nights. You can imagine how nice my chewed on legs look in my Fabuous New Tango Shoes….NOT!

 For so many reasons, we are fleeing the swamps and bayous of Southern Florida for 5 days in the Florida Keys. Biking, swimming, 3 days of watercolor workshop for Steven, perhaps some Tango practice in my new HOT shoes! Did I tell you how gorgeous black suede and patent leather piping look together on a 4 inch heel? Oh-La-La!

Thanks to cousin Katy’s recommendation – we were lucky enough to spend a three-day break lazing on a small, sleepy barrier island in Florida – St. George Island to be exact.  It’s in the panhandle, between Panama City and Tallahassee.  Whether foggy or sunny, the wind provided enough chop that kayaking was not a fun option.  Days usually included a nice walk or long bike ride in the morning, followed by the beach and reading for several hours, and then some good, local seafood in the evening.

The lighthouse on the island

St. George Island is 28 miles long and 2 miles wide; it is located 4 miles off the mainland.  With miles of undeveloped beaches, the local State Park and Campground is a rare find.  Though on one end lies a very exclusive, gated community with its own airstrip, the rest of the island is very laid back; down-home beach bum might be a better description.  There are many areas left undeveloped, and no building can be taller than 3 stories.  There are only about 5 restaurants/bars on the island, and it is a VERY dog friendly area.  Dogs are allowed on the beach and in most all of the restaurants. It was not uncommon for people to introduce their dogs first so we had to figure out if “Lucy” was an owner or a dog. Some of our favorite dog hang outs:

Eddie Teach’s – a great open air, dive bar, with a working wifi.  Open for lunch, dinner, and late-night bar with live caribbean music. We arrived in time for their weekly trivia game, and could help our team, “Lucy’s (the dog) Bunch” with the rock n’ roll trivia. They have a “happy hour” Monday – Friday at 3:30 – 4:30 with half price raw or steamed oysters.  Plus, they have a really good list of draft and bottled beers.  The oysters there were fresh and had a more flavorful, muskier taste than the Tomales Bay type we are accustomed to at home.

The town on the mainland before you head over the bridge to St. George is called Apalachicola and it is very cute  – a smaller coastal fishing town with more of the “Old Florida” feel.  House boats, seafood restaurants, some good history spots. We enjoyed a popular local hangout, Cafe Con Leche featuring local artists and blasting show tunes.  There, you can watch the local fishing fleet unload the catch of the day while you eat a slice of fresh vegan fig/almond saffron cake with a fig buttercream icing….are you drooling yet? No? Then accompany it with their house coffee, the “Deep Blues Blend” by the coffee company, Muddy Waters Coffee, sporting a logo of the great man playing.  As promised, it will “Wake Up Your Soul!”

Fishing boats in Apalachicola at the mouth of the Apalachicola River produce a whopping 90 % of Florida’s oysters and 10% of the nationwide supply.  Over 2.6 million pounds of oyster meat is harvested annually.  A perfect day to end our visit to the Forgotten Coast!

When I thought of Florida, I used to immediately remember the Jimmy Buffet lyrics, “People who retire to Florida are wrinkled and they lean on a crutch”. Yep, there are a lot of old farts here, and they are out there in droves as volunteers in the State Parks, providing the cleanest campgrounds, most informational tours, and a bounty of travel ideas. They are also out there on bikes, roller blades, kayaks, and tennis courts…hey those wrinkled old farts are us! …there are a lot of ways to get old and it’s fun when you do it with the right people….

With over 600 springs in Florida, we have been visiting several to see manatees. So far the Edward Ball Wakulla Springs boat tour (Blog: Gulf Coast 1/9/13) is the winner as there were lots of manatees up close and personal. We only sited one baby at Manatee Springs, and none at Hermonassa Springs and Rainbow Springs. However, these springs have amazing designated human swimming areas. Manatee Springs floods with 600 million gallons of water a day so it is pristine, but the real beauty is Rainbow Springs, with “only” 400 million gallons a day….

Swimming in 70 degree freshwater lagoons fringed with palms is pure magic, only dimmed by some anxiety about swimming with gators. Advised to “take caution” and report any gator “approaches”, I wonder if my report will be a scream as I am dragged under?  I lower my risk by swimming near small children, and hope my big fat white body looks just like a manatee. Both gators and manatees like to park themselves over the bubbles from the spring releases for a “jet spa massage” and otherwise take no interest in each other.

The West Indian Manatee population in Florida is challenged by speed boats (and have the scars to prove it), red tide, and water colder than 68 degrees, which makes their digestive abilities cease to function. These slow-moving mammals are now “Vulnerable” as opposed to “Endangered” in part because they can tolerate changes in salinity, and have learned to swim up rivers from the Gulf to these warm spring lagoons. However, other members of the sirenian family, dugongs and sea cows, have become extinct. Female Manatees can grow to 16 feet and 3500 pounds. They have one calf, after a 14 month gestation, and stay together with the calf for two years. Calves are born about 4 feet long and 60 pounds in weight, and can begin to eat river vegetation immediately. Manatee molars wear down from the abrasive plant foods, so they have “marching molars” that replace the worn ones. As they eat 10-15% of their body weight daily, this is a great survival tool. As Darwin said, “Biology is destiny”.

The Gulf Coast has been hammered twice with devastating hurricanes. There is still much detritus to be seen. Other than a few formally dying downtowns, which were improved with FEMA funds, many of the damaged mansions on the coast have been flattened to make way for more resorts, condos, and casinos. So much for the “Scenic Drive” that was promised. Therefore, we blew through Alabama on the Gulf Coast, only stopping outside Mobile for a fresh shrimp Po-Boy sandwich at a Vietnamese restaurant. Our food bible, “Southern Belly”, recommended it for the freshest seafood. As promised, the pick-up truck outside was filled with coolers from the owner’s own shrimp boat. Crunchy and sweet, fried in a dusting of cornmeal, it was enough for another meal, and improved with bean sprouts, Asian basil, mint and cilantro, usually only added to Pho, but we liked a thatch of it inside the sandwich.

We also blew through Mississippi on the Gulf Coast, stopping only at the wonderful Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi, designed by Frank Gehry. With cranes and heavy equipment cleaning up on the beach, lurking behind, stands a flow of 5 angular brick and metallic buildings nestled among the large oaks.

The Museum owned by the City is devoted to the richly glazed ceramics of George Ohr, a goofy and well-liked local artist.

We hurried on to Florida, but delayed arrival at our featured destination to do a little spelunking in Marianna. Well, not really….no muddy crawling on our bellies, with headlamps and helmets, and no belaying into underground caverns, just a tour of a really extensive, well protected limestone cave system, thanks to the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression. Ribbons, drapes, straws, pools, towers, and thanks to recent rains, all were glittering and dripping with groundwater. We really dug it! (pun intended)

So do the bats. Although there are 18 species of bats in Florida, only 4 of them will use bat houses: Evening Bat, Freetailed Bat, Big Brown Bat, and Southeastern Bat. However, only 10 maternity caves survive in Florida, due to habitat destruction, so the survival of some bats is in question. The only Gray Bat hibernation cave in Florida is in this park. With its low temperatures, a colony of 200 of the endangered bats overwinter here. Throughout the United States, fewer than a dozen such caves exist.

We had planned to move on to our featured destination, St. George Island campground, sticking out into the Gulf at the end of a long strand. We were looking forward to a quiet place where Lety could run free on the beach, with no swamps, gators, or cars to harm her. Unfortunately, the inclement weather changed our plan as it is very exposed out there, and a storm is coming in. We decided to retreat inland to Tallahassee, the Capital of Florida for some movies, Tango class, and that one last French Bistro dinner to replace the one we missed in New Orleans: Lobster Bisque, Crab cakes a l’aubergine, trout amandine, and some fine after-dinner confection. Of course, that meant we had to bike at least half of the 38 mile “Capital to St. Marks” rail/trail conversion in Tallahassee, the first of many in Florida we hope to ride.

We then hurried on toward our final Florida Panhandle destination just south of Tallahassee, Florida….the Edmund Ball Wakulla Springs Park, the deepest freshwater spring in the world, 350 feet, passing up to 250,000 gallons of water into the river hourly, the top 7 miles blocked to boats. We saw LOTS of manatees because 6 years ago they started to winter over here, breeding to a population of 56 last year. They have no fear of humans and only move away from propellers. The guides on the boat tours are knowledgeable about their protected wilderness here. They identified stuff we don’t see in CA like ahingas, mudhens, 9 foot alligators, kingfishers, pileated woodpeckers…and where scenes from 2 Tarzan movies and “Creature From The Black Lagoon” was filmed, and one National Geographic swimsuit shoot, underwater, in the 40’s.

The lodge here was built with 22 guest rooms and beautiful marble by the far thinking Edmund Ball in 1937, who put long-lasting protections for the property in place, including geothermal heating and cooling run off the constant 69 degree spring water. Maintained by the state now, it has the longest continuous slab of marble bar in the world, 22 feet…and the most beautiful bathrooms in any state park anywhere (although I am a fan of those in the art deco NPS Maritime Museum at Ghirardelli Square in SF). Now, finally, on to St. George Island in the Gulf of Mexico.

New Orleans is a gem of a big city, one of our country’s most generous and creative, and determined to thrive in the face of tragedy. Surviving Hurricane Katrina and four failed levies in 2005, and then 4 months ago, surviving 9 foot waves driven by Hurricane Isaac, even more damaging because the City had no opportunity to recover as the storm sat on New Orleans for 3 days. “You have to be crazy to own property near the river, lake or shore on the Gulf Coast”, says the Californian (….who doesn’t purchase earthquake insurance). As we well know, when you love someplace, you assume the risks, and spend your last dime to be there. Yep, it is crazy, but being a part of a community with like-minded people is so important. We appreciate George Rodriques’ piano donated to the City’s children’s music programs.

New Orleans is also surrounded by thousands of acres of protected reserves, wildlife refuges, and terrific state and parish parks. One can leave the city in any direction, and within an hour be surrounded by enormous acreage of protected open space. Certainly the easiest access is across the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway, the longest bridge over water anywhere in the world. Two parallel bridges actually, puts you close to huge swamps, especially the Big Branch Marsh NWR, and of course… a Chef John Besh restaurant, La Provence! We see many bald-headed eagles, hawks, terns, gulls, egrets, and heron, all thriving in this fecund part of the world.

It was raining and 37 degrees, so we did not meet our fitness goals today, only a tiny slice of the Tammany Trace, a 37 mile rail/trail conversion, mercifully flat. The Visitor Center is housed in a canvas tent, with the damage from 2 feet of flooding a few months ago evident.

We hiked through the Cane Bayou to a boardwalk built to safely traverse the alligator area, only to find that it was destroyed by Hurricane Isaac, except for a single track, 4 inch wide plank, precariously balanced on the sunken boardwalk. Although Lety is an agile young dog, we worried about her ability to “walk the plank” and the consequences if she fell…dinner for a big reptile?

We stayed in the Fontainebleau State Park with the best amenities we’ve found: free wifi, hot showers, and sewage dump, inexpensive laundry, and privacy.  However, we got swarmed by mosquitoes (which never go away in the swamps apparently, even when freezing weather hits) and ran out to buy an army surplus bed net for safe sleeping. I am sure as we head southeast into Florida’s swamps, we will have an opportunity to test it out.

We thought it was safe to let Lety off leash in our completely empty part of the campground, as we get her running back and forth between us for her exercise . Unfortunately she saw a deer and took off into the swamp. From her excited yipping we knew she lost the scent quickly, but being a street dog from Mexico, she disappeared for almost an hour when she found a garbage pile of abandoned jambalaya filled with jalapeno peppers and shrimp carcasses….which ended up as vomit on our bed two hours later. Back to the laundromat for the second time that day….and cancelled dinner reservations for our last gourmet meal in Louisiana. Oh no! No blue crab bisque! No slow roasted lacquered duckling! No sweet potato beignets with cane syrup ice cream! Oh well, we know we will come back, with my mom next time, for more incredible Louisiana joie de vivre. Adieu, mon petite choufleur!