People of the Road, Part 20

Airports are strange spaces. The immediacy and convenience of air travel demand streamlined processing of incoming/outgoing travelers such that the conveyor security system scrutinizes anyone planning to board a plane. TSA employees with extensive reminders drilled into their heads scan the flow of people in exhausting volumes. Humans behind surveillance cameras scope the crowd for instructed cues of threats to air travel there or en route.

Past Big Brother’s gates, airports are a service utopia.

Restaurants, lounges, newsstands, coffee shops – all are rather ubiquitous within the confines of terminals and concourses. Jewelry and souvenir shops are likewise abound, but in smaller variety. The least common staple of airports, and certainly the most valuable to a certain airport clientele, are the bookstores.

Blanca works in just such a bookstore, in just such an airport. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston is host to many traveler services, but Fully Booked in Concourse C is where you might find Blanca selling books and chatting with coworkers.

Blanca was born in Houston, near the southeast coast of Texas. Like the rest of Texas, Houston is warm, which she isn’t a fan of.

“It’s too hot and nasty,” Blanca says. “But I like the people, they’re really nice. You know, in every way.”

Anything bad besides the weather?

“The Houston traffic. It’s extremely packed, and it sucks when you don’t have AC,” she says. “We do try to work around traffic hours.”

But an overall agreement with Houston doesn’t mean Blanca wouldn’t like to see the rest of the country.

“I’d go up north – all the way up north,” she says. “Go to interesting cities, meet more people. I’d like a change of weather, some snow, a change of climate. New York, maybe.”

So what would it take to drag her out of Texas?

“A plane ticket and some money,” she says simply, and laughs.

Meanwhile, Blanca is studying at University of Houston for a degree in Education.

Thanks, Blanca, and good luck with the snow!

People of the Road, Part 19

Miami International Airport is the 12th-largest airport in the country, and the largest hub for travel to and from Latin America. In addition to airport staples like Brookstone and cheesy souvenir bodegas, the airport hosts shops with “Latin” flavor/product and a duty-free mini-plaza for those flying out of the country. Like any airport, Miami International has its share of bars and mini-lounges for the wayward wanderer to take the edge off the day. Concourse H has two: a standalone bar lined with Heineken bottles and a more typical lounge roped inside a food-court area with a Pizza Hut.

Perhaps you enjoy the greasy waft of airport pizza when you down your well-earned beer, or you need the screeching cacophony of tired families finally getting food.

No? Then smart you might be twice-rewarded for choosing the Heineken bar if chance has you ordering a drink from chipper, gregarious Mathew.

Like millions of travelers who flock to the area each year, Mathew loves the warm weather of South Florida. That fits, since Mathew was born in a small town called Danville, Pennsylvania, and visited Fort Lauderdale on and off for three years. His last visit was, in fact, his last: after two weeks of vacation, he rented a place for another month – and has been in Florida for almost 22 years.

Part of what drew him to Florida and away from small town Pennsylvania was the diversity, and the diversity keeps him here – that and his partner, who he met three months into living in Fort Lauderdale and has been with since.

“There’s a lotta diversity down here, a lot of hetero and homo, it’s a very good mix,” Mathew says.

Florida agrees with Mathew so much he hardly has a cross word for the state, except for traffic.

“The busier traffic isn’t so bad; because of this wonderful economy, more people are moving away,” he says.

Fort Lauderdale may not always be Mathew’s port of call; in four to five years, he might move to somewhere more low-key, like Melbourne, Florida – a small town with warm weather. But that’s for settling down – Mathew still has his heart set on travel someday.

“I love Reno. It’s a beautiful area, I’ve been there three or four times,” he says. Interesting tidbit: Mathew drove cross-country to visit his dad when he was younger, from his home in Pennsylvania to California along the same I-80 I drove along a month ago.

Thanks, Mathew, and good luck with Melbourne!

A Taste of Downtown Miami

Eric and I had yet to see any of what millions of travelers paid good money every October-May to fly across the country to see: downtown.  So on my last day in beautiful Miami, we leisurely woke up and drove down highway 1.

Unfortunately, that leisure time bit us in uncomfortable places as Eric’s roommate drove into town around 3 p.m. and we had to curtail our little tour of South Beach to get back to the bungalow.

While the gallery speaks for itself, Eric and I agree that his roommate’s arrival was extremely timely, as our expedition into the Art Deco district of South Beach forced us to cross paths with the biggest idiots we encountered all trip. Nowhere did we find a bigger concentration of entitled blowhards – and we didn’t even get out of the car. People strolled into the street without looking and gave us the stinkeye for having the nerve to drive where they walked. A car not fifteen feet in front of us pulled out from the curb and we had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting him. Dude didn’t even notice. So for that, adios, South Beach. Hopefully forever.

People of the Road, Part 18

Sloppy Joe’s bar is a legend of Duval Street in Key West. Though the bar is large, its claim to fame is steeped in seventy years of history and associated with one of Key West’s famous artist community. Though that community includes playwright Tennessee Williams and singer Jimmy Buffett, Sloppy Joe’s was home to one of the greatest writers of the 20^th centery: Ernest Hemingway. Sloppy Joe’s features pictures of its famous alumni and sells t-shirts with Hemingway’s mug emblazoned under the bar’s logo. If you do go to the storied bar’s gift shop, you might be rung up by plucky, cheerful Faith.

Faith is not a Key West native. She visited in 1998 and fell in love. Four years later, she lost her job in Erie, Pennsylvania. She felt she might never be able to visit her beloved island community again. So why not move to Key West?

“I’m poor here, but I’d be poor in Erie,” she says cheerily.

Faith has lived in the southernmost point in the contiguous US for eight years and has worked in Sloppy Joe’s for seven. And she loves it.

“There’s flowers, trees and music, everywhere you go,” she says. “It’s just a whole different world. No keeping up with the Joneses. And you get to meet people from all over.”

The island’s laissez-faire attitude attracts an eclectic bunch: Key West’s holidays include the Conch Republic Independence Celebration (complete with parade and drag race), Hemingway Days (short story & look alike contests) and the infamous Mardi-Gras-esque Fantasy Fest.

“You hear things long enough, they stop surprising you,” she says. “Like Fantasy Fest. The first time, I was like, ‘Oh my God!”

Of course there are things she could do without.

“The price gouging,” she says. “Wait. Change that to the chickens.”

“They’re sort of protected here,” she says, “and they start crowing at three o’clock in the morning.”

Despite her adoration for the friendliest little island, she has a ready-made plan of escape .

“Here’s my ideal vacation,” she says, “take a train all across the South, then go up the West Coast and across the North.”

Thanks for the chat and the bag to keep my camera dry, Faith!

The Florida Keys

The Florida Keys are an island chain petering off Florida’s southern coast, famous for beautiful blue-green water seemingly unblemished by pollution – and, yes, unaffected by the BP spill (as far as we could tell). Unlike the fishing industries impacted by the spill, the Keys house a small population that thrives on exotic residential housing and year-round tourism.

Key West, the end of the Keys by road and southernmost area of the contiguous United States, was our destination. Inspired by my friends’ journey, we considered Dry Tortugas (island accessible by ferry), but soon found that the 150-mile drive from Miami to Key West was quite far enough. On a typical freeway, we may have decimated that distance in under two hours; the 1 highway, on the other hand, was almost always single-lane once we departed the mainland.

Several small towns lined the 1 on the strips of land that connected the highway more often than not, to our surprise: the long causeways over water, which we assumed would be the norm, were really only located at the end of the drive before Key West. Shell shops, an airfield, a diving museum, several bars and restaurants: these color the road and contrast the gas stations and multitude of Burger King joints.

Many of the beachfront properties are sheltered from the road by fauna.

The blue-green water playfully laps at the private beaches we blow by, and despite their frequency, Eric and I still point out palatial estates in wonder and envy. For most of the Seven Mile Bridge about 40 miles out of Key West, we endured our new Florida friend, the temporary tropical shower, and beat it out by the time we hit the end of the road.

For the first half of the island, Key West is a trickster, masquerading as a typical suburban community with chains and parking lots and fast food. Once the 1 trickles into the western half, mom-and-pop inns and bed-and-breakfasts pop up with alarming frequency, and the suburban malaise gives way to little shops and churches. By the time the 1 hits Duval Street, the de facto main street of Key West, the island resembles Nantucket.

Since we were wholeheartedly embracing our “no plan” plan, Eric and I stopped at the first place that looked good, a restaurant called Fogarty’s, which claimed to sell a Dolphin Sandwich, but upon inquiry our waiter told me on the sly that it was just Mahi Mahi. My palate craves exotic foods, and today, it was disappointed.

Look closely: below the right edge of the sign is a picture of Hemingway, the giant marlin on its left and a propeller below the sign's left edge.

I got a tip from my dad to get a drink at Sloppy Joe’s. Why? Because Hemingway used to frequent the bar during his days in Key West, and it was named after his friend “Sloppy” Joe. The drinks were, as Eric put it, “pretty stiff,” and he pointed to the menu, which notes “Our drinks have a pour of 20% more!” Well played, Sloppy Joe’s. Pictures of Hemingway crop up around the bar, along with a massive marlin and airplane prop. Customers regularly flowed and the bartenders rang bells – perhaps for a customer ordering their signature drink, the Sloppy Rita, which is choice – and a staffer played acoustic guitar on stage. Once he started seeing customers come in dripping, he played CCR’s “Have You Ever Seen The Rain,” and we realized progressing with our day would be a little harder now that downtown was beset with serious downpour.

Looking out of Sloppy Joe's front door.

With time leaking out of our coin-fed parking meter, we decided that we needed to get to island’s edge and see the Gulf of Mexico from the end of the United States. We downed the last of our liquid courage, grabbed a bag to cover my camera from the gift shop and darted into the torrent. We discovered later from the locals that the streets were flooding from high tide – no place for the rainwater to go. Which was comforting news when we sloshed through ankle-deep streets to get to the dock at the end of Duval Street. Soaked and squelching, we made it. Take that, rain! It did, indeed, take it, letting up two minutes after we reached the talk. COOL.

We figured that was enough adventure for one day, and humped our soggy selves back to the car to begin the three-hour drive home.

Postscript: I decided I needed to plant my feet in the Gulf of Mexico since we didn’t get a chance in Key West. We parked and hit up a dock for a seemingly uninhabited little motel, and in my haste to get in the water, I chose a deceptively mossy rock to sink in. I lost footing and busted my knee, but manned up and stood my ground for an epic picture before limping back to the car. Thanks for everything, Keys.

Photo artfully cropped to protect the squeamish.

DO NOT STOP SHARKS WILL JUMP

Big Pine Key holds a population of endangered Key deer, with other signs noting, “SPEED KILLS KEY DEER”

Many of the beachfront properties are sheltered from the road by fauna.

Look closely: below the right edge of the sign is a picture of Hemingway, the giant marlin on its left and a propeller below the sign’s left edge.

Looking out of Sloppy Joe’s front door.

Photo artfully cropped to protect the squeamish.