On The Road Again...

Back Home in Tourist Land

It is an odd feeling to return to a transient town after a month away and to be welcomed back with open arms by the saltiest locals and have 'hellos' shouted at you across the street and across the channel while paddle-boarding. We have been in Key West since January, but the town already is starting to feel like home. We have hopscotched our way across the country, living in a variety of towns...but Key West seems to have taken us under her wing like no other.

We have been back from our month-long sojourn for about five days, and each day I have bumped into folks who have inquired about our trip, our handsome mutt Sparky, or have been simply friendly neighbors and filled us in on the local gossip. After living in California, where most people would rather tell you to 'Fu@k Off" than say hello...It is an interesting turn of events. Especially considering that I kind of have wistful emotions about heading back West...

I will quickly recap the state of my life, so y'all can keep up with the narrative...

My wife and I live in Key West. I work on boats and my wife runs the premier spa in Key West (go ahead and click on the link, my missive will be waiting for you to return). We moved here for her job and can you blame us for moving to Key West? I had never been here before her interview, but this town and the Florida Keys region indeed kicks a serious amount of ass...

Without any further ado or grab-ass, I will start a little narrative about our trip and attempt to avoid any needless political bantering or wistful bull-crap....

The Road Home to Indiana

Justine and I have seriously awesome family. It is hard to plan a trip anywhere within a thousand miles of these folk and not look at a little detour for a barbeque or some sort of get together. Luckily for everybody involved, our favorite artist Xavier Rudd was playing a show in Atlanta Georgia in our time frame for traveling North. It was the perfect excuse for heading inland a tad.

Our First Stop in Cocoa Beach

Heading North through Florida sucks. The highest points of the drive are the landfills which border I-95. The state of Florida in generally is a horrid cess-pool of crappy scenery and rednecks. That statement may be derogatory, but you cannot argue against it. Florida, in general, sucks.

Cocoa Beach sucks least though, out of the places that we could stop on the way to Atlanta. I had hoped to surf as much as possible throughout the trip, but some forgettable tropical storm stirred the waters a bit too much to allow for pleasurable surfing. I contented myself with a lot of profanity/drinking and Sparky taking dumps in the surf (kidding...maybe). He does look rather happy coming out of that shore break though doesn't he?

Xavier Rudd in Atlanta

Xavier Rudd is one of our favorite musicians. He's from Australia and pretty much blows every other musician I have ever heard of out of the water. He is rather folksy and bluesy, but it's Australian folk and blues...So you have never heard anything like it. Go ahead and take a break from my rambling and check him out.

OK. You are focused and with me now. He pretty much rocks doesn't he? I hope you read his biography, because he makes any of the 'Jesse Jackson types' in America seem non-commital about the problems we face today. In fact, I would consider him a voice of sanity in today's world. Ooh, I'm getting close to politics...and I always save that for the last paragraph...so let's move along. Shall we?

We stayed in a hotel a couple of miles away from our concert, so we caught a cab to the show. We actually caught one home too and it was weird how both of the cabbies were Nigerian. It was also weird how their politics and philosophies were oddly out of touch with reality and in complete contrast with the actual American reality of life. My wife and I are very open to conversation and I enjoyed listening to their respective take on life and reason for immigration. They had no problem defaming our American way of life, but at the same time they were hungrily striving for that same piece of the Dream. They were just trying to make an Islamic version of that Dream happen. For instance, we drove through the art/culture district of Atlanta and our first cabbie was busy pointing out everybody that looked 'gay'. He kept saying, "Look, look...See what I mean about this neighborhood. Very bad people". I had to hold my tongue for all of the ride and simply chuckle with a 'What the Fu#$' when I got I out of that cab. I neglected to mention that I lived in Key West and the area looked pretty tame, when compared to strolling past our local burlesque bars after mid-night. The funny thing was that both of these guys had huge families back in Nigeria that they refused to bring over to the US of A until they were college age, apparently they didn't want their education to include superfluous things like respect for all people...

We walked into the concert venue and had to make sure that we had the right concert hall. Apparently Atlanta isn't up to date on relevant world music or maybe the town as a whole is too up it's ass in rap music to realize when a world class concert comes to town. I remember back to the time we saw Xavier Rudd in Oregon and we were practically elbowing hippies to protect out spot in line.

The concert was everything I hoped it would be. It rocked. Very hard. This guy plays steel guitar, lap guitar, a didgeridoo, foot drum set, harmonica, and a variety of instruments that I've never even seen. He's also backed up by two fantastic musicians on drums and bass. I am a fan of Xavier Rudd. If you know me, email me with your address and I will gladly buy you a CD and mail it to you. You are seriously missing out if you do not listen to this music.


I guess I forgot to mention that Justine was having so much fun at the concert, that she decided to hop up on the stage and jam out with Xavier. So ya, towards the end of the concert several ladies hopped up on stage and jammed out with Xavier Rudd and his band. You gotta love that...

Onward and Inland to Indiana

The next morning after the Xavier Rudd concert, we threw our bags back into our little Honda Fit and powered North towards Indiana. We spent a night outside Indianapolis with a great buddy, Davis, from highschool and his fiancee. It's so awesome to hang out with people whom you have known for over a decade and done insanely stupid things with that have become serious titans of industry (or at least done something serious in life) yet retain a fine taste for Miller High Life. After leaving Indy early in the morning, we powered into West Lafayette for a stroll through the Alma Mater and a brief walk down memory lane. My wife has a close friend who lives in town and just got engaged. We were lucky enough meet up with her and her new fiancee at a new pub called DT Kirby's for some greasy pubs fare and delicious craft micro-brew. They have this awesome IPA from People's Brewing Company that knocked my socks off. After Justine finished up with her long overdue hugs, we headed North and home for a long weekend with our families. Just for the record, the beer was so good that I had to have more than my fair share, luckily Justine volunteered to drive the rest of the way home.

Heading back to our old hometown is always interesting. Justine and I both grew up in the same town. Now our parents live about 20 minutes apart, just a couple of dusty country roads apart. Her parents live on a pristine lake and my parents live on a beautiful farm. After leaving Indiana after college for the coast, I tend to get a little bit shaky and very grumpy if I cannot dip my toes into water on a daily basis, so we generally stay at the lake on our visits. This time was no different and we had a beautiful time on the water going Stand Up Paddle-boarding, fishing, taking Sparky swimming, and having bonfires.


Our time was filled with big family lake days, visits from extended family, great home cooked food, and keeping Sparky from decimating the native cat, goose, and squirrel population. Our one diversion from the lake was to head up to a Purdue/Notre Dame football game at Notre Dame. I won't go into many details from the game since Purdue got sorely whooped by the hated Irish. My good friend Colin took us to the game, supplying everything from awesome tickets to tailgating action.

It was my first college football game since graduation from Purdue and everything was just as I remember it. I had been to several Notre Dame games during college and Notre Dame fans just don't change. On the whole, they are the most annoying and cocky group of fans that I could possibly imagine. Notre Dame is a fairly small school with a small group of alumni, so it follows that most of these people are (what a fellow Boilermaker calls) subway alumni. Notre Dame has sucked for the past several years and it was sad that Purdue had to lose to them, but I guess I really didn't care that much. The game was fun, but the tailgating was more fun. Justine had a friend who used to live near Notre Dame in South Bend drop by and it was great to reconnect with her. Her and her boyfriend are two solid hippies who spend their time bumping around the country, going to shows and generally living life. In the whole crowd of tens of thousands of rabid football fans, they were the most normal people we met.

On Towards the Northeast

After our four day weekend in Indiana we hit the dusty trail for our eventual destination of Maine. Leaving Indiana early on Tuesday morning, we crossed the dreaded state of Ohio and headed into northern Pennsylvania for our first night of camping.

Justine and I had been looking forward to sitting around a campfire with beers in hand for the past nine months. It was so nice to actually be sitting in the woods with dirty feet, listening to the sounds of crackling wood mingle with the forest. For the first four years of our marriage, camping was WHAT we did in our free time. Living in California lended itself very well to camping. We were surrounded by dank, wild and untrammeled forests and living in Key West has put a little bit of a damper on our camping time, so it was very refreshing to smell all of the old familiar smells of a northern woods. After the tent was set up and fire nicely burning with Justine's famous campfire spaghetti with meatballs slowly cooking, we grinned at each other and clinked beers to another long, beautiful extended vacation.


After leaving Pennsylvania, we worked our way North and East into Upstate New York. I was surprised by how rural the whole region is. I mean outside of Albany, we didn't really drive through any serious urban areas. The driving was all through beautiful, rolling farmlands with small mountains in the background. We took a leisurely pace of driving, stopping several times to take Sparky for walks or skateboarding. After an afternoon of driving we picked a good state park out on the map and headed that way. Along the way, we picked up some supplies of ice, camping grub, and local micro-brew. I mean, you wouldn't expect us to drink Miller Lite the whole trip, would you? Our second night of camping brought us to a beautiful little state park in New York. Apparently it had just had some road paving done, because there were some wonderfully smooth hills for me to skateboard down...including one very close to our campsite.

Leaving New York, we were excited to get into Vermont and check out the town of Burlington. Our driving route took us along the eastern shore of Lake Champlain and through numerous beautiful little, picturesque towns. I'm talking towns that were postcard perfect. Towns with a general store, post office, cafe, and not a piece of litter to be found. I can safely say that if Vermont had waves, I would move there tomorrow.

Our main reason for heading into Vermont was to visit the town of Burlington. We had heard a lot of great things about this little slice of paradise. They have several great colleges, plenty of old hippies, breweries, and it is nestled along the shores of Lake Champlain.

Burlington did not disappoint us. The town is beautiful. The architecture is spectacular and the views across Lake Champlain are glorious. The microbrew is delicious, hoppy, unique, and plentiful. Shortly after arriving into Burlington, we left Sparky to his own amusement in our hotel room, and then struck out into the town center in search of new beers and pub-centered amusement.

We spent an evening pub crawling around Burlington and ended up at a decent Irish pub for some meat pies. En route to our final destination we played some darts, participated in a trivia contest, and checked out a few nice little stores.


The next morning we struck out in search for bagels and we found an absolute goldmine. Tucked away along the waterfront, in an artsy/industrial complex, we stumbled upon the bagel shop pictured above. The bagels are boiled in honey and then wood fired. Everything was locally sourced, from the flour to the cream cheese. This place was easily the highlight of Vermont.



Before we headed out along the road towards the White Mountains of New Hampshire, we took Sparky for a swim in Lake Champlain. The air was fairly chilly, but the lake was still very warm. The whole lakefront is semi-developed into city parks and other civic minded things. There are some excellent running and bike paths, playgrounds, dog parks, public boat ramps, and a community sailing center. Key West could learn a thing or five from Burlington, most of our waterfront is pimped to private businesses for the tourists.

To Be Continued...

Ok folks, that seems like a good place to break this story up. Stay tuned for the rest of our adventures in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. And I suppose that once our story take us through Maine, we'll have to road-trip South again.

Keys Living

The Case of the Missing Squid

I have a bad habit of leaving squid, shrimps, and other stinky bait in the cooler for days on end after spending an afternoon fishing. Last Monday's fishing trip was no different and yesterday I opened up my cooler to look for a beer koozie and was hit by a wave of stink. As you can imagine, a box of squid smells pretty rancid after spending a week inside a cooler on a back porch in the tropics. Once I opened the cooler, the scent settled in a stinky sort of fog around the back of the house and eventually crept its way up to the front of the house (which also happens to be a spa). I knew I was in a tough spot, so I rallied some bleach and fortified myself with a beer. I emptied the contents of the cooler in a garbage bag, added bleach to both the cooler, the bag, and the garbage can. I burnt some sage and prayed for garbage day to come. After several chemical additions to the back porch, the smell had subsided to a bearable stink and I was content with my actions. Time to crack open another beer and read the newspaper.

So far, this seems like a non-event right? Well, this morning it got interesting...My wife has the olfactory nerves of a bloodhound and insisted that it was still rank outside our house, she wanted me to take the bag of squid juice and toss it into a sidewalk trash can that gets emptied every morning. I agreed to avoid any issues and went out the the garbage can to retrieve the goodies. After taking a few deep breaths and crossing myself, I opened up the lid and reached in. To my surprise the can was empty. "Hmmmm, it must be in the other can", I thought to myself. A quick look into the backup can left me a tad confused, the bag of squid was gone. After a thorough search of the deck and my memory, I confirmed that the bag indeed had been taken from our garbage by somebody. Let me say that again, somebody hopped the 6 foot tall fence that surrounds our house, took a rotting bag of squid from our garbage, and disposed of it for us...Who would do such a thing? I have to admit that I am quite befuddled as to who would be such a garbage diving samaritan. They ignored the fishing poles, bikes, assorted tools, and simply went for a stinky bag of squid. I'm still scratching my head. Maybe they couldn't take the stink any longer...

Key West Post Oil Spill

Ever since the oil spill, the talk around town revolves around exactly how screwed we all are. There is a general consensus amongst the boating crowd that the Keys are going to effected, either by the actual oil or more likely by the rumors of the oil which is causing people to cancel trips. I've been getting in the water at the reef pretty much everyday for at least a quick snorkel while all the paying passengers are in the water, in the back of my head I keep saying to myself, "Well this all might be toast next week". On the other hand, the boating crowd has been saying that the oil has been a few days away since a few days after the spill. The big problem is that most of the people here don't actually read too much news and treat bar talk as a legitimate news source. I'm not saying that all the guys down here are full of crap, but I'm very aware of the fact that a bunch of the guys down here hype things up very much. From what I understand, we're looking at oil starting to show up within 5 days or so. A couple of good sites to follow, that seem pretty reputable would be Keysspill.com and our local newspaper.

Fun on the Water

A couple weeks ago, I got the chance to go out fishing with Justine's parents on a boat chartered by one of her friend's parents. We spent the morning trolling offshore, got skunked, and then headed inshore along a couple of mangrove islands for snorkeling, bottom fishing, and spear fishing. I actually had better luck with my spear than with a hook and sinker. My prize catch was this Hogfish, a local delicacy. The only way to actually catch one is by spearing it. Now, I'm pretty much hooked on spear fishing.

In Closing

Life down here is going well. It's hot, like mid-80's and humid hot. Spending my days on the water is great, it's different every day. I'm learning a ton about sailing and seamanship. Let's hope the oil stays away and BP figures out how to fix the mess they created.

Cheers. Ben

Life in Key West

Life in the Keys doesn't get old. I spend my days at work around sail boats and catamarans, my days off are spent snorkeling along beaches and reading in the sand. Work mornings begin with coffee at sunrise and days end well after sunset with beers at the wharf-side bar. Days off are a combination of sail boat repair, searching out good snorkeling beaches, and great times with the wife.

Things certainly stay interesting working as a mate on sail boats. The first thing the owner of the boats I work on said to me, "Hey, there isn't a job description for this job. If I tell you to do something, you do it. Do you get that?" A couple of days ago I fully appreciated that statement as I found myself bleaching out a gnarly galley kitchen that hadn't seen a scrub brush in months. But I guess such is life as the lowest ranking mate in the company. All of the menial tasks on the dock are worth it as soon as the captain yells, "All lines ashore" and we head out for another day out on the water. I was working with a captain a couple of days ago at a very trivial task assigned by the owners, which was menial to say the least, and the captain happened to also have an English degree. We had a chuckle about our shared course of education and commented on the fact that at least with our large vocabulary we knew several synonyms for the word 'menial'.

Mate work on our boats is a fine combination of sailing skills, snorkel instruction, life guarding at the reefs, janitoring, small-talking with tourists, and most importantly bartending. It's an interesting blend of jobs I've held in the past with the definite perk being that the view from my office is always the beautiful ocean, mangrove islands, and historic Key West harbor. All of my time spent sailing aboard the catamarans gets logged in the accumulation of hours towards a captain's license with a sailing endorsement. I guess that is the end goal of everything. It's funny because so many captains, not so much with my company, but with a number of other outfits have a 'holier than thou' attitude towards mates and I have to chuckle because they had to put in their time to get there. They can't pretend that they weren't low mate at one point, because it's all about getting those hours.

I don't really have much to write about. Stories about charter trips out to the reef with tourists, days off spent exploring snorkel spots or rigging my little sloop, and nights spent having beers with my wife at The Green Parrot just aren't ready to be written yet. I'm really getting into spear fishing just offshore at little reefs I can swim out to, but I don't have any great stories or tall tales to report on.

It's funny at how easy it is to ignore the outside world and politics down here. In California we lived in the 'Redwood Curtain' and now we live in the 'Conch Republic'. Last week we actually celebrated the 28th anniversary of the Keys' attempt at seceding from the US of A. It was a week of drag queen races, bar parades, sailing races, and attempts at throwing rolls of toilet paper at the local Coast Guard boats. I get kind of pissed off when I read the national and world news. I'll browse the papers, keep informed enough, but anymore I don't even care. I would much rather read the sailing magazines, think about fine tuning my rig, or talk shop with the other sailors and fishermen on the bar stools next to me.

We'll catch ya'll later. God Bless. Cheers.

Sailing Pictures

Jib Sail Dumping Wind

Starboard Tack Looking Up

Justine Enjoying The View (you can see that reef underneath the boat)

Pulling Off the ForeStay

A Few words about the Sloop

It's a beautiful little sloop. Great lines, shallow draft, room for four to day sail, or rigged for an experienced solo sailor. I bought/traded for her from an older sailor in Carolina Beach. He had a yard full of grime covered boats and was glad this one would get back into the water. She was built over 40 years ago and most of the gear is original. Original sounds good, but it means that she needs a ton of work. She'll sail fine, but all of the hardware is ready to be replaced. After trailering her down from Carolina Beach, she sat in a spare lot for a couple of weeks until the weather cleared. For the past month we've had her in the water at Cudjoe Key and have taken her out for several day sails. Now that I've got some time on my hands and decent weather, the sloop has been pulled out of the water and I've set to restoring her in time for the April sailing club races. She's getting a new forestay, turnbuckles, a fiber glassing, paint, and bright work.

A Post in Which the Author Admits that Puppies are Useless and Rambles on About Sick Days

I called in "sick" to work today. The circumstances which led to this fine exercise of employee rights are various and somewhat humorous, but better left to be written about after I've had a couple of beers. Needless to say I was in no mood to spend this glorious day cooped up at a crappy animal shelter. For the past couple weeks, I've thought about calling in "sick" each morning while I sip coffee. Every previous time, I'd pushed aside the thought with feelings of responsibility. Today though I had a breakthrough.

Last night I was duped into fostering a little puppy for the evening. Usually other people at work take the puppies home for the night. I have no use for puppies, especially puppies interrupting my leisure time. I was assured that this little she-devil-bitch-of-a-terrier puppy slept peacefully through the night and would be little more trouble than setting out water and walking until it peed.

I was lied to. This spawn of the devil kept me awake the entire night yipping and trying to escape it's kennel. I ended up going into the spa attached to our house at two AM, finding the room farthest from our bedroom, dragging the puppy kennel into the room, plopping down on the ground with the damn thing, and trying to keep the hellion quiet.

Needless to say, I was in no mood to work today. As soon as it got light, I drove that damn dog back to the animal shelter, put it in my bosses office, and left a note on the desk informing her that I was unable to make it into work today.

Man, I got one very angry phone call when the office opened...It was your standard "you need to be more responsible, etc" spiel that one could expect. A combination of attempted guilting and prioritize employment in your life. It just so happened that I got the phone call as I was driving along this stretch of road along the Atlantic Ocean, a sailboat was running along with a fresh breeze several miles out. I had to roll my eyes, politely inform my boss that I indeed would not be making it into work today, and continue on with my day as planned.

I read this book in California called, "The Art of Vagabonding". The main thrust of the author's philosophy was that the one truly finite resource in one's life is TIME. And the most responsible choice a person can make is to spend one's time wisely and in pursuit of your true desires. Today, the best use of my time is to nap off the memory of that stupid puppy, eat a massive breakfast, buy my wife a birthday present, walk along the wharf staring at the schooners, and then have a beer in honor of my wife's 25th birthday tomorrow.

Cheers.

Fond Memories, a Ramble Down the Coast, and Thoughts about Life in the Keys So Far...

Almost a year after leaving California for North Carolina, I found myself on the road again towards a new town and new adventures. My wife and I decided to make the move to Key West after she got offered a great job managing a spa. Last winter I drove across the country in a van and this past week I drove half of the East coast with a loaded down truck, pulling our sloop filled with surfboards and gear on a rusty trailer. It was my first time pulling a sailboat more than a few miles and it was hairy the whole time. I'm glad I took the advice to get the trailer looked at and replaced the hubs and bearings. I saw several dead trailers along the road missing wheels or with broken axels. I usually enjoy long drives through new scenery, but pulling a trailer through winter weather is tricky to say the least. The trickiness factor is raised a bit when you throw all of your belongings into the back of the pickup truck, add an excitable dog, and top it all off with a two day old hangover courtesy of long night with a good buddy watching my beloved Boilermakers do what they do.

Leaving North Carolina for points South, I got a little nervous about things ahead and unknown. Thinking back on the past year on Pleasure Island, I had to chuckle a bit at my lack of a 'real' job. I was employed fully the entire time, but I never had to punch a time clock or sit in a cubicle. My days consisted of rampaging around high end golf courses in a John Deere Gator in search of wily Canadian Geese, kayaking around with families of tourists, or blazing up the inter-coastal waterway on jet skis with tourists in tow. I did work in an office for almost two weeks, but I just couldn't stand being inside on beautiful spring days. The fact that my boss was a raging mega-b@#ch, in every sense of the word, made the 'I Quit' phone call even easier.

My point is that since arriving in North Carolina, I had been in sort of a semi-vacation mode. Hell, even in California, I was on semi-vacation for the last year or so...day-time bartender is a job I would volunteer for. Here in Key West, the game starts all over again. There are people to meet and routines to get figured out. My strategy in new towns is generally to pick a good local bar and meet all of the crusty locals at the bar during Happy Hour. I'll let you in on a little tip...Enjoyable jobs are rarely found in the classified ads or on Craigslist. You get the fun jobs by meeting people and buying people beers. That old guy next to you on the bar stool may own a sailing charter business or a kayak tour concession. He needs to see your face several times and remember that you are an all-right dude before he lets on that he might be able to squeeze one more guy onto the schedule. It will be interesting to see how things pan out here on the island.

After a couple of days here in Key West, I'm pretty stoked about the lifestyle and possibilities. I'm ready to get things unpacked and settled down, because then the exploration can start. Sparky and I have already been on some nice runs around the island and through the state parks.

We had a record low yesterday, it was 42 degrees. The locals were freaked out and wearing every scrap of clothing they had, at once. It makes me chuckle a little bit, the rest of the country is shoveling snow and that qualifies as frigid weather. It's going to be in the 70's the rest of the week.

The political scene is funny down here, it's pretty far left. I can appreciate the liberal attitudes, but I get so tired of hearing talking points from the left. I get equally pissed about hearing about talking points from the right. I just wish that people would read newspapers, books, journals, and then make up their own mind. Both parties and the media are equally vested in keeping people in a constant state of frenzy about some little unimportant piece of political gossip. I thought it was funny that the media cycle has been talking about this 'tell all' book written by advisors to Obama and McCain. They keep going on and on about what amounts to gossip from a couple of guys trying to make a buck. If all of this information is so damn important, then why didn't they tell us about it a year ago? We're talking about that BS and what Harry Reid said about Obama...Who gives a shit? Does anyone really live under this impression that Reid and his ilk were these shining examples of virtue? We should be talking about real issues that need contemplation and discussion. As for me, I'll remain skeptical about the whole shebang.

Keep on keeping on. Cheers. Bah. Stay Tuned...

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