Originally Posted By Lisann22 I don't think easy was ever in question. ;> I'm glad you got the room comp'ed gadzuux. Have a great time. I think you made the right choice, I just never chimed in.
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb I'm glad to read you made a choice you're happy with. Have a great time!
Originally Posted By gadzuux <a href="http://www.piratesinparadise.com/" target="_blank">http://www.piratesinparadise.c om/</a> A link to the festival website, if you're interested. The schedule of events and lotsa photos.
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 <<And yeah, I'm a "pushover".>> "Intelligent," "fun" "interesting," "nice," and "attractive" I already knew. And now we get, "really selfless when it comes to friends." What would Cher say?!
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy Maybe she'd say that she'd take back anything she ever said to hurt gadzuux if she could turn back time. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZX4P11sq2I" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =AZX4P11sq2I</a>
Originally Posted By Slimshanks I be glad ye decided t' go, ya seadog! I really admire an' be impressed by yer loyalty t' yer matey. I be seein' th' point some be makin' about enablin' th' lass' but ye spake ye could be "generous o' spirit wi' me heartys" an' I think ye be havin' shown that this voyage. I also think th' fact that she knows ye be doin' it ONLY fer her will make it easier fer the lass' ta understand that this *really* be yer last voyage. Maybe ye can make a special time of just that fact alone an' be havin' a special "farewell" grog or somethin' ta make it "official". I think that way she`ll realllly know ye mean it an' ye`ll both be havin' some "closure" on it. An' now that ye be havin' a "really good headspace" about th' trip, ye`re practically gauranteed t' be havin' a good time! Ye be a good shipmate doin' this fer yer matey. I be proud to be havin' a matey like ye.
Originally Posted By TALL Disney Guy I had to Google that to get it. er, in Bush-speak, I had to use the Google to get it.
Originally Posted By gadzuux Let me see if I can knock out a bit of a trip report. The short version is that it turned out to be the best vacation I've had in years. I experienced several moments of unqualified joy, contentment and gratification. The travel itself was uneventful. I flew out of SFO to MIA on thanksgiving day. The plane was full but no problems. MIA is a terrible airport in every regard, but I was able to retrieve my luggage and get my rental car (saturn SUV) and on the road to ft lauderdale without incident. I got to the hotel about 10:30pm. It's a smallish place that I've stayed in twice before, so even though the office is closed they leave an envelope with keys and instructions by the front gate for me. By this time I'm hungry (it's still thanksgiving) and I only had a sandwich on the plane, but it's too late and I'm too tired to do much about it. I headed back out and found a walgreens and a dunkin' donuts open - perfect. I picked up six donuts (we don't have dunkin' donuts in CA so it's like haute cuisine to me) and picked up a few provisions at walgreens before heading back to the hotel to turn in for the night. They upgraded me to a nicer room. This place consists of two 2-storey buildings, back to back, with a pool on each side. On top of one of the buildings are two extra rooms and a clothing-optional sundeck, and I was given one of these rooms. The room itself has windows on three sides, a kitchen, and a separate dressing area between the room and the bathroom. It's much more than my needs require, but I'm grateful for the upgrade, if only for the light and the relative quiet and privacy. Friday was my first full day, and it was overcast and chilly and occasionally rainy. This was more disappointing than it should have been, but for me it was a big problem. You see, I don't really like ft lauderdale all that much, and have visited for the past three years only as a kind of rest-stop before being put to work in key west. If I went straight to KW from the airport, I'd be tasked as soon as I arrived. I finally figured this out a few years ago (this is my sixth KW pirate festival), and started scheduling a few R&R days before heading down. But if it's not sunny and warm I don't really know what to do with myself. I don't want to go bar-hopping, and it's "black friday" for shopping, and I want no part of that either. I went for breakfast, did a driving tour of the city, then went back to the hotel to loaf around and sit in the jacuzzi. This was my actual birthday day, and while I was sitting in the jacuzzi another couple struck up a conversation with me, remembered me from last year, and even remembered that it was my birthday. For that I am eternally grateful to them. I wasn't going to tell strangers about my birthday (seems kind of desparate) but I guess I must have last year, they remembered and came back this year, and wished me a happy birthday. Thank you universe. Saturday was better weather, so I concentrated on tanning, and got some important work done on my skintone. Later the hotel was having a 'mixer' with an open bar for hotel guests, and I met a couple that helped to pass the time. I won't delve too deeply into the "gay thing", but I can tell you that as a single gay man, it's been my experience that you often have to take on two at a time. Not my favorite idea, but two is better than none. Hey, it's not my world - I just live in it. In the end I think they were more impressed with my room than they were with me. C'est la f'in' vie. Sunday morning I checked out and headed to haulover beach in miami. For those that haven't heard of it, haulover is one of the most pre-eminent nude beaches in the world. It's remarkably big and mainstream. It's operated by the city of miami itself with paid parking lots, vendors, lifeguards - the whole bit. And literally thousands of people. More than half seem to be 'elderly' and not at all attractive. But that still leaves the other half. The beach itself is beautiful, and surprisingly edged by high rise condos with a full view of the beach beyond. No one seems to care. By the time I checked out of the hotel, packed the car, had brunch, and drove to the beach it was almost 2pm. I just 'hung out' for awhile and read my magazine, never spoke to anybody, then packed up and left about 4:30 when it started to get breezy. I had a looong drive ahead of me and I wasn't particularly anxious to get going, preferring to do the drive after dark. Sunday was the end of the four day holiday weekend, and I was worried about traffic. I needn't have bothered - all of the traffic was coming back at me, practically nobody was driving down to KW, they were leaving. Just before the 'intracoastal highway' begins that links all of the keys is a town called 'florida city'. It's main purpose seems to be as a jumping off point for travelers - with gas stations, family style restaurants, cheap motels, and a walmart. I stopped at walmart to pick up some provisions, had supper in a bbq joint, and headed south. "Highway" doesn't really describe the road. Most of it is two lane, and much of it is posted at 45mph, 35mph, and even 25mph. It's also not particularly picturesque. It's hwy 1, with all of the expected jimcrack that lines many roads - circle k, big o tires, supercuts, tickytack motels, gas stations and lots of traffic lights. I left florida city about 7pm and got to my hotel in KW about 10;30 - that was good time. Sometimes it can take well over four hours. KW in the next posting.
Originally Posted By gadzuux I just wrote out about five paragraphs and lost the link. yikes. The hotel. Atlantic Shores. I love this place. If you remember earlier in the thread, this hotel was the crux of my decision to go. Without it I wouldn't have come. Each year for the past six years they've donated several rooms to the producers of the festival. And so for the past six years I've been able to stay there for a week for free. It's more than just a great deal, I've become an out'n'out fan of the hotel. On some level it's a "gay" hotel, except that it isn't really. Anybody is welcome to come, and over the years they've built themselves a diverse and colorful clientele. And more than half of them are straight. Along with islanders who come for the bar, cafe, pool, deck and beach directly on the atlantic. They used to have a long pier that jutted out over the ocean, but that got wiped out by hurricane wilma last year. It's beautiful, but in a funky and authentic way. It's all "real" and honest - not at all like a marriott or hilton. And it's populated by strange and wonderful people. So is all of key west. It's a little island in the middle of nowhere that's kinda hard to get to. It's hot, and people drink a lot. And it's an artists enclave, with a lot of fringe creativity going on all around all the time. We tried to "change it up" this year, and fight the boredom factor. One of the ways we did that was to fold in a local legend about the "Conch Republic Navy". The founding of this particular navy is a long-spun drinking tale, but the thumbnail version is that sometime in the 70's the feds erected a drug interdiction checkpoint just north of the island, making life miserable for KWers - the majority of whom were not smugglers but had to endure the searches anyway, and the chilling effect that it had on the tourism business. The mayor of the time (a local hero) effectively seceded from the US and established key west as the "Conch Republic". This meant that the navy and coast guard stationed on key west were now the enemy. They launched an attack on a coast guard cutter with water balloons, while a plane overhead bombed them with stale loaves of 'cuban bread' (something they have a lot of down there). The coast guard responded with water hoses and boarding. They immediately surrendered and applied for a billion dollars of aid. Out of this tale comes the official commemoration of the "Conch Republic Navy" party. It was a major hit. Anybody with a boat wanted to be commissioned in this new navy. It was held on a marble pier, with tiki torches, a nine piece swing band, and a beautiful wooden two masted schooner, lit to high heaven on the adjacent dock. Ranking representatives of the US coast guard were in prominent attendence - in full dress whites - and the current mayor (who I met on a few different evenings, nice guy). The location for this shebangy is 'Safe Harbor' and it's beautiful too. During the preparations for the party, I was invited into many people's homes and boats. This area is also an artists community, and speckled everywhere is whimsy expressed artistically. One was a woodworker, who was building a miniature model of an aircraft carrier, the first commissioned ship in the new navy. This was painstaking work that he was doing in his live-in converted warehouse. He showed us a portfolio of his boatbuilding, and you could see his pride and contentment. Odd guy too - like a young rhett butler with the waxed mustache. He seemed genuinely pleased to have us come calling and show us around. Completely and honestly charming. I visited several people in their homes and always enjoyed it. It's not something you usually get to do when you're on vacation. And the people were uniformly interesting. (Must save more often).
Originally Posted By gadzuux This event was sponsored in part by a new rum - "Pirates Choice". You've never heard of it because it's not on the market yet. They've got two flavors - key lime, and dark molasses. The key lime sounds hokey, but it's actually pretty good. I don't drink a lot of hard liquor (usually) but when I do, it's rum. I ended up drinking more of it than I would have liked. The marketing woman for this new rum was completely nuts. Her name is Jewels Million and she's this intense southern honey blonde from virginia beach. She talks a mile a minute with her eyes ablaze and her hands waving, with perfect manicure, makeup, and couture. She's new here. Over dinner she told us the story of how she came to be in KW. Something about a bad breakup but the part I caught was about how she needed something "beachy" to start her new life in the keys, so she went out and bought herself a bright yellow hummer. She's only been in the islands for about four months, but she's already run over a chicken and a cat. She's going to be running the mojito bar (with pirates choice rum). This is a very labor intensive drink, and it's the only one being offered. She pulled it off. One of the regular guests during this week is norma miller. I've written about her before, but she's one of the originators of the 'lindy hop', and has had an illustrious career in showbiz, mostly as a dancer, but she's done it all. This year we celebrated her 87th birthday, and I'm something of an elbow holder for her during her visits. Norma made the front page of the local paper, and after these many years is widely recognized around town, both by festival attendees and locals. So it's always fun to go out with norma. The mayor kindly issued a proclamation that the day was officially "Norma Miller Day" in KW, and we were given a private tour of the Mel Fisher Museum. You may have heard of mel fisher - he discovered the wreck of the "Atosha" back in the eighties. There have been many documentaries and tv shows about this one. There were vast and fabulous riches recovered - gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds, rubies - mel became a very wealthy man. He's gone now (although he did get a commission in the conch republic navy anyway) but he established a foundation that seeks to use the money for altruistic purposes, and one of them is this museum. Very impressive stuff, we were taken into back rooms and seeing ancient and delicate artifacts from the 1500s. A gold conquistador helmet especially caught my eye.
Originally Posted By gadzuux There's a hundred stories I could tell, but the trip can be summed up by a few moments - one was rather mundane. I had taken norma back to the hotel from the pier party early as she was tired. Driving back to the party alone afterwards, I was visited by a moment of quiet where I just blissed in my own head about how happy I was, and that I was surrounded by wonderful friends that I truly care about and truly care about me, and that life itself was a wonderful place. It may sound corny, but when that sensation happens, and it's something "real" it's worth whatever price it costs, and it doesn't come easily. The second moment was on a sunset sail on the schooner wolf, the same two master that was at the dock on the evening of the pier party. It was a 'pirate' sail, with cannons and gunfire and bawdy songs, but at sunset there was a wedding on board, and that quieted everyone down and made it more reflective and romantic. And then as the sun set, a bagpiper on the stern of the ship began to play as the warm breezes sailed us toward the open sea. Everything was beautiful. Everything. Priceless. Later I discovered that the bagpiper is the wife of don maitts, a highly regarded commercial artists who, among other things, designed the caption morgan's rum label. I also met several published authors, musicians, and craftspeople - each of them fun and interesting. I don't know if they'll be another festival, but I hope so. I don't know if atlantic shores will survive another year, but I hope so. That's looking doubtful - the rumors are strong that the bulldozers are coming, and it will be replaced by private and exclusive oceanfront condos. Nobody wants it except the bankers, and they'll probably win. Which in the end is the story of key west - a vibrant and fascinating place that's slowly being overcome by reality. But not quite yet.
Originally Posted By gadzuux Oh yeah - my wound. Seems I can't get through any vacation without hurting myself somehow, and this one was no exception. I'm rather tall, and most everything about KW is 'small and cute'. Along schooner wharf (one of the more picturesque areas of the island) were little wooden shacks set up along the docks and vending touristy junk. It's a standard clapboard affair, with hatches that swing up and latch when they're open, with the open hatchboard hanging out over the walkway. I managed to bang into one and put a very unattractive gouge in the middle of my forehead. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but even minor head wounds bleed a lot. I now have a big gash across my head as a temporary souvenir. The vendor also gave me one of those foam rubber beer can holders as a make-good. I guess that makes us even. I should learn to watch where I'm going, but they also shouldn't be placing obstacles directly in footpaths of people who might be drinking. I'll be fine.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Driving back to the party alone afterwards, I was visited by a moment of quiet where I just blissed in my own head about how happy I was, and that I was surrounded by wonderful friends that I truly care about and truly care about me, and that life itself was a wonderful place. It may sound corny, but when that sensation happens, and it's something "real" it's worth whatever price it costs, and it doesn't come easily. << Doesn't sound corny at all to me -- it's what life is all about, or ought to be. So glad the trip turned out to be so enjoyable, gadzuux!
