Not Quite the Keys Trip

by Rick Brown

Our plans for the usual Florida Keys trip were altered very early in the year…due to circumstances well beyond Dan or my control. I mean…October really isn’t the best time to head down there. But it’s always important for us to spend at least a small amount of time together with a margarita in hand.

And it was bound to happen. Our luck with the weather finally ran out. In the past we’ve dodged hurricanes, had the benefit of drive days being the rainy one…but this year we spent two days on Key Largo in the pouring rain. The strange karma began at the car rental place. Usually we get some sort of Chrysler convertible or something similar. This year we had a choice between a P.T. Cruiser and a VW Beetle. Wow…bummer. And since every year we’re stereotyped as a gay couple on a fishing excursion we went with the soft yellow VW. Yet with all the precipitation…even donning our new coral Naked Sunfish baseball caps…no one could assume anything about us.

Key Largo is the closest to the Florida mainland. And even though Underwater Jesus may have been subtly beckoning us to snorkel, the weather was just shy of monsoon. Oh we tried to do the usual things. We went to Snooks as usual. This year we were waited on by a barmaid I can only describe as (and I’m being kind here) snobbish for no apparent reason. Hell…even the food sucked. Really. We ordered “happy hour” appetizers and they were nothing short of awful. Even the Greek olives were deep-fried. I’d never heard of such a thing and I hope I never do again. What next? Deep fried barstools?
Part of the problem was the Fantasy Fest in Key West. Apparently a lot of folks come down around Halloween for this days long masquerade party. But my guess is most of the men are there to catch the middle aged women flashing their titties.

Sheesh.

So we shopped. But even then we didn’t seem to be mistaken for gay fishermen…sigh.

We decided to splurge on our tequila due to all the other disappointments. 50 dollars a bottle. Petron is the brand I believe. And it’s great. Trouble is…now the usual 20-dollar stuff seems to taste horrible…suitable only for washing down deep fried Greek olives I suppose.

Then there was the last evening’s visit to Largo’s “finest Italian restaurant”. I’ll make a long story short…Chef Boy R Dee would have walked out.

But all this changed as we pulled our cutesy yellow VW convertible into the valet parking section of the Hollywood Beach Marriott. Neither of us had ever been to Hollywood, Florida before. And the place is a Shangri la of diversity.

Some bogus directions to a liquor store launched us on what seemed to be a two-mile trek down Hollywood’s boardwalk…a promenade really…but they can call it whatever they want. The weather was Floridian, the beach sandy, the surf invigorating, and the crowd as interesting as I’ve witnessed in…I don’t know how long.

And the food…especially compared with Key Largo…was to die for. We wandered into a funky little place called Le Tub and had some mussels. And we ended up at a beach café/bar called Nick’s Bar & Grill where we sat eating seafood, people watching and chatting with a delightful, young barmaid from Columbia,who is studying to be a nurse.

The weather was wonderful and as crowds of people walked by,we watched a smorgasbord of cultures mix. South Americans, African Americans, Hispanics from all over were out enjoying the day. There were bikers, hikers, families, strutters, tourists, and locals. A guy named Joey rode up and parked his custom chopped bicycle in front of the place. His ride was like a Schwinn chopper as opposed to a Harley.

The next morning before we made our way to the airport, we had breakfast in the Marriott’s restaurant. As a young African American chef was making me an omelet he asked me where I was from. And after telling him Columbus, Ohio he immediately brought up football, inquiring if I’d ever heard of Steve Spurrier, the Florida ex-head coach. And when I informed him I had, the chef did his impression of Spurrier throwing his visor to the ground in frustration, by chucking his chef’s hat to the floor. “Don’t you think players NEED a coach willing to throw his visor sir?” And as I told him I did, I realized interesting people could salvage a vacation with a lame rental car, rainy weather, and bad food by just being their interesting selves.