My second half of the Keys was maybe a bit less successful than the previous day, but as I have to tell myself sometimes, no one’s grading me. The problems, which were not major ones, were that it was very bright and hot and sunny, and also, although I thought I’d checked, a lot of my stops were closed on Sunday, urgh.
Woke up to the lovely day in my rather spectacular Grassy Flats room. The growly weather of yesterday was gone, very nice out. They had, oddly enough, not a coffee maker per se, but an espresso maker – OK – so I made a double and poured the powdered creamer in (ugh) and made do with that. Got cleaned up, went to the onsite market for breakfast (a large cappucino and a breakfast burrito). The cappucini lasted the rest of the morning on the drive, actually. Final cleanup, packed, got out.
One funny note – there were a series of parking spaces underneath a roof, and my grey SUV was in the third one. The first two were also grey SUVs. I made a couple of trips down with the luggage. Was about to set up the driver’s area with the coffee and water and opened the driver’s side door – and there was a garbage bag with orange peels in it attached to the gearshift. WTF? So I’m like starting to take this off and suddenly go… .oh fuck, this isn’t my car, mine’s the one next to it. But this car looked just like mine and had one water bottle in a cup holder and one empty cup holder exactly like mine – and it was open, not locked. So I quickly shut that door and went to my own car before I got caught and yelled at for being an idiot. Sure enough, as I was about to pull out, that first car pulled out. I’m sure they were wondering how their garbage bag got detached from the gearshift, heh.
Most of the starting activities were right there in Marathon, so I picked those off.
Stop 1 was Sunset Park.
This was charming, but on the wrong side of the key for sunsets, so go figure.
Stop 2 was the Florida Keys Aquarium Encounters. This was pretty neat! Though pricy. I got there at a good time to take a free guided tour of the facility – my guide led me around and told me what I was looking at, and then I went and retraced our steps and took pictures. They had options to feed the fish and stuff, but I wasn’t really interested. But the lobsters and the starfish and the big tanks with the sharks etc. were really cool.
Stop 3 was supposed to be Crane Point Hammock, another park, but it was closed. However, the railroad car right nearby, also in the guidebooks, was right there to look at.
Odd sidenote: there wasn’t really a place to park, so I parked across the street at the Publix. And, swear to god, in the bush by my car, it sounded like there was a rooster crowing. And then it came out – and it was a rooster crowing. This was my first encounter with random Florida chickens, but they were all over Key West.
Stop 4, just down the road from the Publix, was Sombrero Beach. This was nice, but I wasn’t actually planning to stop and swim, so I just walked around for a bit. (I had to pay for parking, too. *huff*)
Next up on the list was the 7 mile bridge, but no pictures, because I was driving the bridge. But immediately on the south end was Stop 5, Veterans Memorial Beach. Again, not swimming, but a nice little nature walk.
After that, I started crapping out. I’d been looking forward to Bahia Honda State Park, where I probably would have taken the time to go snorkeling, particularly around the old railroad bridge (highly recommended). But it was a beautiful Sunday and there was a line of cars backed up to Route 1 waiting to get in and I just shuddered and drove on by. I also had a couple of other stops (Key West Visitor’s Center, an underwater photography gallery) that turned out to be closed.
But I went to the No Name Pub (on No Name Key!) for lunch, and that was a hoot and a half. Off the beaten path, but despite their claims, it was not hard to find. Fun and funky, they made you wait outside until someone came and got you and could seat you. The walls and ceiling are covered with dollar bills with people’s ‘hi we were here’ notes. A biker couple from central casting sat by me at the bar, they were fun to talk to. I had a … gosh, I don’t remember. Like a salmon burger or something, lighter than typical bar food. It was very atmospheric in the best way, and I had a great time. I bought a t-shirt!
Finally ended my drive in Key West as planned. I could have ditched the car at this point, but oddly enough, it had made no difference in the price whether I kept the car or not, so I did. I’d wanted to stay in a gay guesthouse, and many people I trust recommended the Island House, but my hornist buddy Mark recommended Alexander’s Guesthouse, which sounded quieter. (and was right across the street) Didn’t have too much trouble finding it. I was there about 20 minutes before check-in time, but there’s a temporary parking space right in front. Parked, buzzed, no one answered the buzzer. Buzzed a few more times. Hmmm. So I decided to try to find a parking spot and come back – and actually found one across the street at the end of the block, free, unmetered and unrestricted, and quite close by. (and that car stayed there until I headed for the airport two days later)
Back to the guesthouse and finally they buzzed me in. Many apologies, they’d been poolside trying to fix the big TV. I was greeted by Roman, who was very friendly and went with me to the car to get the luggage out and insisted that I go get my free poolside welcome drink while they brought my luggage to the room before giving me a tour. Well, OK, then, so I had a prosecco and watched the boys and girls in the pool. The pool area was super-nice and they had free drinks at happy hour, as I would be indulging in soon enough.
Got the tour. Unlike Island House, Alexander’s is not clothing-optional by the pool, although they do have two sundecks for that. Found out how everything worked, particularly breakfast. And got shown up to my room, which was two floors up on the main house, right off of one of the nudie sundecks (although I never saw anyone use it). I was in Room 8, and it was adorable, but was (at the top of the house) half slanting eaves, so there was a lot of the room you just couldn’t stand up in. (If I go back, and I’d like to, I’ll book a different room.)
Changed into my bathing suit, brought a towel and a bag of stuff down, and swam. The other swimmers were gay couples who all knew each other because they’ve all been coming there for years (one couple from London!). I sort of hovered around but they brought me into the conversation, very nice. I found out that the Alexander’s boys like to trash-talk Island House a little – they all said that the cafe there was really good, but it was much more of a pick-up joint. Like, come to Alexander’s if you’re in a couple and want to stay in a couple – go to Island House if you want to pick up a man (or a disease). I have no idea how true that is, but it was funny that there was like a rivalry. I will say that Alexander’s was pretty solidly mixed as far as men and women, and there was at least one trans guy.
Swam, read, got a free happy hour cosmo from Bautista the Bartender, which was excellent. Then went up and got cleaned up. The plan was to go down to Duval Street and go to a drag show at 7:00, then get dinner. I set out and somehow got lost enough to overshoot the bar and walk quite a bit further down Duval than I meant to (it was still bright and hot). But got to Aqua about 20 minutes before the show.
I wasn’t expecting a lot at a drag show on a Sunday night, but… staff was very friendly. Duncan? Douglas? something was the waiter, being shadowed by a new employee. Oh, it was Dustin, thank goodness for my thorough notes. He was wearing basically nothing but little hoochie shorts, and he could pull it off, let me tell you, although I actually didn’t get gay vibes from him. I ordered a frozen drink called a “drag daiquiri” made with dragonfruit, and also had him get me some $1’s for tipping. He brought them back to me tucked in a little stack in his waistband right up front, so I mimed going in with my teeth to grab them. It was all very silly and flirty and gay.
The drag show, which was a lot of fun anyway, was hilarious because there wasn’t much of an audience and what audience there was was little groups of older straight ladies out for girls night out. And me. I was literally the only guy in the audience. There were three queens: the lead emcee queen (Epiphany), the impersonation queen (Faith Michaels) and the movement queen (I can’t remember! One of these ladies.) Anyway, Epiphany did the patter and established that all these ladies in the audience were not lesbians, but girls-night-out girls. “And YOU!”, she pointed to me, “THE ONE GUY! Are you GAY?’ “Oh, yes.” I responded. “Thank the Lord”.
And they did the show, alternating numbers. They were all pretty good – I liked Faith Michaels the best, her Cher was great. Whenever they came around and came up to me to get my $1’s, they were like, “THANK YOU for being here”. Holding up the side. Particularly when I lip-synched “If I Could Turn Back Time” right back to Faith Michaels. “You GET IT” she sighed.
One thing that was different – Chaka Khanvict of drag bingo fame here in NYC and the other queens I’ve seen are experts at grabbing your ones for tips without missing a beat. But these girlies would literally stop lip-synching, and stick their bosom or butt out so you could stuff your money in. I found that disconcerting. DON’T STOP PERFORMING, queens! Anyway, I had another drag daiquiri – luckily they were pretty mild. And had a great time. (They also had two male-presenting dancers who did a number, that was fun.)
And headed out afterward, where the queens were on the sidewalk to take pictures with, and they were like, “PLEASE stay for the second show, we’ll get you in free”
Me: “I have to go get dinner!”
Epiphany: (miming a double blowjob) “HE HAS TO GO GET DINNER!”
Alas, I meant just regular dinner – I went across the street to Mangoes, where I had lobster mac’n’cheese and a glass of wine. (My fifth drink of the day, or maybe sixth – did I drink at lunchtime? *hic* who remembers?)
And a nice schlep back to the guesthouse, where a guy buzzed by me on a bike, greeting me with “Eric!”. Twas Bautista, the friendly bartender from poolside. Wow, one of a handful of people who know my name… that was just kinda nice. (maybe a good time to say that in terms of friendly customer service, Alexander’s was really top-notch – definitely recommend it)
Up my two flights of stairs and ducking around my eave-ridden room to get ready for bed.
Coming up: 200,000 steps in Key West!
The Toast Point Page 