Key Largo, Montego, Baby, why don't we go....

On Thursday, Alan & I were left to our own devices. So, since we were in Daytona, and neither of us are into THOSE kinds of cars (I think that Alan's into functional cars...or at least semi-functional), we went to the beach for a long walk. Not too crowded, and the ocean was relatively warm. OK, compared to the Cape, it was balmy...but I only waded up to my knees. We found a baby turtle, crushed to death by some marauding dune buggy. Although we were unable to save the little reptile (he WAS kinda cute), we did rescue a sign that would have floated out to sea because the tide was on its way in.

We returned to Willard's house to await his return from work...it was around 7 or so that Dawn, his wife, gave us some dinner...and then Willard decided to do "one last thing" to his rig - a home-modified handtruck carrying a Coleman coffin; his total set-up weighed in around 110 lbs. I think we were finally on the road by about 9 or so. I should point out that getting our stuff into the back of the pickup truck was the easy part - stuffing our butts in the front was not so easy. We all fit, but there was definitely no extra space - the small cab was just not intended for three grown-ups, one of whom has wide, child-bearing hips. Good thing we're all friends (uhh, right??).

Our first campsite was in Key Largo - we tumbled out of the cab sometime after 1:30? 2:30? and stumbled around to set up camp. Whenever it was, wake-up-time came FAR too soon. Willard went off to leave his truck at a designated spot and left Alan and me to find our way to meet up with him.

BIG mistake.

We started by going in the wrong direction. SOMEONE - and she shall remain nameless - tried reckoning direction by the location of the sun in the sky and where she guessed the ocean might be....realistically, she was COMPLETELY clueless.

About 10 miles into the trip, Alan & I had pulled relatively far ahead of Willard - we needed to stop at a bike shop for a few things. Willard's handtruck wasn't doing so well; there was no axle, so the wheels kept bowing under the weight of the coffin, and scraping against its side. There was momentary mutual hope that a catastrophic failure might occur with the handtruck...and soon...so that plans could be revamped, as it would be far easier to choose to fall back on vehicle support 10 miles from the truck rather than 100 miles away, in Key West.

Most of our first day was along a bike path which paralleled the highway. The weather couldn't have been better: hardly a cloud in the sky...warm...like paradise, with palm trees and everything. Sometimes, the path would cross the highway and take us down side streets, which gave us a break from the sounds of the cars, as well as from the sun.