Key West Sucks During the Holidays

Last Monday at noon I was chatting with my friend Dave online. He says to me, "So - roadtrip?" "Sure - where?" "I don't care - you?" "Miami?" "How long?" "If we drive hard - tomorrow" "Let's do it"

In we got into the car, and off we went. I was supposed to go to a family party that night, but I decided the road trip was more important. I'd been having 2 days of family parties already, and frankly, out of 34 people at these parties, I didn't think my presence would be missed that much. My immediate family did tell them I was in Tennessee though. "What's he doing in Tennessee?!"

So on we drove - through the night, and through the next day, through traffic and clear sailing.

I looked down for a few seconds at one point on the highway in Georgia, looking for some snacks that we had down there, and Dave says, "Hey man!" and I looked back up and there was somebody with their brakes just slammed on - so I slam on the brakes, but couldn't stop in time - so I swerve off the highway to the left shoulder - and almost gave Dave a heart attack. Wisely, he was on guard ever after that point.

We made it to Miami around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday Miami time - and being that I had lived there for 2 years on my mission, I drove Dave around some of the streets and showed him various places, and then we drove down to a better part of Miami to look for a hotel. On entering downtown Miami we had immediately locked all of the car doors. It's not necessarily a place you want to get lost.

Miami is a crazy place. Miami may be located in the United States, but when you go to Miami, it's like visiting another country. Some stats about Miami (taken from here): 2,341,167 live in Miami-Dade. In the city of Miami proper, 362,470 live there, and encarta.com says: "Hispanics, who may be of any race, made up 65.8 percent of the city’s people." And from personal experience of living in many parts of Miami, the county residents are around 65.8% Hispanic too. It's probably even higher, because a lot of them are probably scared to take part in the census for fear of being deported. Dave called up Amber, and he told her: "It's like we're in Mexico - most of the signs are in Spanish."

Now many of you people are thinking, “Oh – awesome! I want to go to Miami and eat some authentic Mexican food!” No! Bad people! There is more to Hispanics than just Mexicans! In Miami actually they have very few Mexicans. They have a lot of Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Colombians, quite a few Peruanos, Chileans, Guatemaltecos, Honduranians, Costa Ricans, Ecuadorians, a few Argentinos, and a few Uruguayos. I met more of each of those countries than I met Mexicans.

It was wonderful using my Spanish again. We went to a Nicaraguan restaurant, and I was doing good, not quite back on form, but I was fluent again. I decided to go in for the kill and ask for a Chia drink. "Y una china!" I said! Blast! I had just accidentally ordered a Chinese woman.

Miami drivers there are absolutely insane. In Miami, you do not need to actually pass any tests in order to obtain a driver's license, you can just go out and buy one. It might not be legal, but it can be done. During a traffic jam on the highway, a Garbage Truck just drove right off of the highway, over the grass, and onto another road.

We then decided to head down to Key West. Thought it would be great to spend the night there, then drive up in the morning. To get down to Key West – you go on a 2-lane highway, for 138 miles, crossing over 5 mile long bridges between the Keys, going only 30 mph in one place so as not to kill any Endangered Key Deer. And then we got down there, at 9:30 p.m. and we drove to a hotel – it was full. We drove 3 more miles to another hotel, it was full. Dave got online to check out available hotels, while I called up my sister for help at home. There was 1 hotel with a vacancy in all of Key West during the holidays, and that cost Fifteen Hundred Dollars.

So we turned right around and headed as far up Florida we could go that night, away from Key West with its No Vacancy signs, away from Miami with its $95.00 a night Red Roof Inn prices (something we had paid $40.00 for in Georgia), and made it to Ft. Pierce, where I noticed the Treasure Coast Inn was $10.00 cheaper than and decided to stay there. We drive up, we both say, “Hey, this is a decent looking place!” We go inside the room, and I can honestly say that this is the worst place I’ve ever stayed in, EVER, in my whole entire 28 year long life.

The place smelled of mildew and a couple of other smells mixed in. The tile was peeling off the wall. Dave and I were both scared to look underneath the beds for what we might find under there. Dave went to take a shower, and there was a friendly little cockroach in there saying, “Hey! I’m your hotel shower buddy!” The water was slightly red-tinged and smelled funny, so I decided that in this case, no shower would be better than any shower at all.

Then I drove for a couple of hours, and Dave took over, and using Ft. Pierce as motivation, he drove 1004 (also the exact amount of words in this article. Yes – exactly the same amount) miles from Daytona Beach, Florida back home to St. Louis, with nary more than a 15 minute rest for gas, food, or a potty break.