Ten Little Indians

Our vacation started with a beach house stuffed to the rafters with ten people... My parents and their friends the Bells moved to another house after two days, as planned. That left six of us there. On the Thursday my sister and her family left for Miami airport at the crack of dawn. In the middle of the morning Chris and I left as well, joining my parents and the Bells at the other rented house on the far side of the island. In the afternoon we drove back up to Vaca Key for a swim at Sombrero Beach while my mother did some shopping in Marathon. Dinner was a hearty home-cooked potato salad, with nary a deep fryer in sight.

Friday was a repeat of Thursday with the Bells heading out at the crack of dawn to drive back to Canada. We headed back up to Vaca Key again in the afternoon, this time to pick up a rental car from the Marathon airport so Chris and I could get to the Ft. Lauderdale airport the following morning without inconveniencing my parents. My parents shopped (again) while I went for another swim with Chris.

Chris and I were up and on the road by 6:20 the next morning with a beautiful sunrise laid out before us. But that story has already been told...

During our two days at the second house I managed to find, start and finish all 230 pages of the singer Jimmy Buffet's 1989 collection of stories and memoirs, Tales from Margaritaville. I thought it would be fun to read some Florida Keys stories. It was a brisk read, but the characters were unlikely and rather opaque, and they had an annoying habit of making unexplained life changes. A bit like a pop song I guess! To his credit he did an entertaining job of evoking the "old Keys" lifestyle, largely through the persona of a Wyoming cowboy...

Listening to: Road To Nowhere by Talking Heads from Little Creatures.