Road Trip to Paradise

Road Trip to Paradise

    Riley and Willa Sue decide to take a road trip to the Florida Keys, where they have heard Mother Nature has not been entirely paved over and she uses hurricanes to let the invasive species, humans, know she's still very much around. 

    Just above Miami, Riley and Willa Sue leave I-95 and get onto the Florida Turnpike and take it to US 1 and on to Florida City and reach the 18-Mile Stretch causeway linking the mainland to Key Largo. They feel something wonderful, like a welcoming committee of fairies, or mermaids. They get choked up and tears come to their eyes. Is this what heaven feels like? Have they come home? They feel this way until it dissolves as they cross Jewfish Creek Bridge just above Key Largo.

    Jewfish Creek connects the Bay of Florida to the west with Card Sound to the east. Card Sound empties into the Atlantic Ocean near the posh, exclusive upscale Ocean Reef Club resort at the northeastern tip of Key Largo. Posh, exclusive, upscale are not on Riley and Willa Sue's wish list. They are spoiled by the mostly unspoiled corridor of the Florida Panhandle, where Willa Sue was born and grew up, and where she and Riley met at her US 98 vegetable and fruit stand between Port St. Joe and Apalachicola.Card Sound reminds them of Apalachicola Bay and Port St. Joe Bay.

    Riley says he's tired of driving and he slows and pulls their light blue Toyota Highlander onto the white crushed sea shell and coral fossil shoulder, and stops the Highlander. He opens the driver's side door and gets out and leans backward and stretches his spine and abdomen, and then he bends forward and stretches his spine the other way and his hamstrings. Willa She gets out, does the same, and they switch sides and head down US 1 to where they know not. They have no reservations. They are going where the wind and tides take them.

    As they pass over Tavernier Creek Bridge, which connects lower Key Largo to Plantation Key, they get their third glimpse of what the Florida Keys really are about. When they cross over Whale Harbor Marina on the upper end of Matecumbe Key, they see what the Keys really are about. Fucking beautiful emerald green and blue water and shallow flats, When they leave  Matecumbe Key and hit the causeway to Lower Matecumbe Key, they are fucking blown away by the sheer beauty the Atlantic Ocean to the left, and the flats and deep blue green channels to the west. They see a bald eagle on top of a large power line tower.

    As Willa Sue and Riley leave Lower Matecumbe Key and cross Channel 2 Bridge, they feel like they have died and gone to heaven, which feeling increases when they cross over Channel 5 Bridge and reach Long Key, where the roadside scenery becomes rather ordinary, and remains that way to and through Marathon to Seven Mile Bridge, and Old Seven Mile Bridge running parallel, built by Henry Flagler in the 1920s for his railroad from the mainland to Key West. 

    When they reach the hump of Seven Mile Bridge, they see left and right as beautiful an ocean as can be seen anywhere. They feel like they have died and gone to heaven. The scenery calms down until they reach Bahia Honda Bridge and the parallel old Bahia Honda Bridge Flagler built. Then, they are on Big Pine Key, and all they feel in their stomachs is butterflies. Thousands of butterflies.

    When they reach the traffic light on Big Pine, Willa Sue feels seized to turn right on Wilder Road and drive that winding road to where she knows not. They pass by a shopping center on the left, then they are in a residential subdivision, then they see a No Name Pub on their left. Then on their right, they see a marina, with a two story building, with a bait shop at ground level and wooden cabins across a side road from the marina. Dead ahead is a bridge, the sign on it says, "No Name Key Bridge." Willa Sue pulls into the bait shop parking lot and they get out of the Highlander and stretch and walk to the bait shop.

    A pretty, 40 or so red-headed woman asks, "Hi, can I help you?"

    Riley kinda feels like he's a passenger along for the ride, 

    Willa Sue says, "Hi, do you rent out those cabins across the road?" 

    The pretty red-headed woman says, "Yes, and we have an apartment above the bait shop. It's available, and two of the cabins are available. The apartment is $100 a night, one night free if you rent for a week, The cabins are $135 a night."

    Willa sure says, "Can we see a cabin? The apartment might not be quiet enough for us."

    The pretty red-headed woman reaches behind her and pulls a key ring off a nail on the wall and hands it to Willa Sue and says "Cabin 4, and my name is Hazel." Her eyes are hazel.

    Willa Sue and Wiley cross the side road and go into Cabin 4. It has a living room and kitchen area, a bedroom, and a bathroom. 

    "This'll do just fine," Willa Sue says.

    Passenger along for the ride says, "You're the tour guide, Wife."

    They walk back across the side road and tell Hazel they want the room for a week, and how does she want to be paid?

    Hazel says, "We give a 10 percent discount for cash. Otherwise, Visa or MasterCard. We don't do Federal Express."

    Riley pulls out his wallet and counts out enough hundreds and fifties for a week, and asks, "How's the food in that pub down the road?"

    Hazel says, "Right good for bar food. There is a Chinese restaurant and a pizza parlor in the shopping center you came by on your way here. There is a family style restaurant on US 1, just take the side road to the left before you reach US 1. There is a health food store with a sandwich bar going the other way on US 1, toward Key West. There is a Winn-Dixie in the shopping center, it has a deli bar. And, there is a popular breakfast, lunch and dinner cafe called "The Cracked Egg, on US 1, next to the Big Pine Motel. That's where you eat, if you want to know what's going on around here."

    Willa Sue gives Riley a wink and a smile, and she thanks Hazel, and they walk out the bait shop to the Highlander and get in and head to No Name Pub and go in and see dollar bills all over the ceiling and part of the walls and order draft beers and kick back and take a breath, and say, in unison, "Holy fucking shit! Is this heaven?"

    Archangel Michael tells Gabriel and Melchizedek, "This is going to be interesting, don't you think?" 

    Gabriel and Melchizedek smile.

    Willa Sue and Rile order pizza, which turns out to be super darn good, and it is perfect with a couple more draft beers.

    Leaving the pub, they bump into two doe key deer, who look like they are looking for handouts. Figuring these small white tails probably are like their larger cousins in the Florida Panhandle, Willa Sue walks back into the pub and returns with a hear of romaine lettuce and some carrots.