key west

I drove to Key West yesterday.

First you pass the Miami hurricane shelter and then you get to the Lazy Days restaurant. Pass through Key Largo where there's the African Queen and streets with names like Coconut Drive, Lime Drive, Bonefish Drive. Though right before is a Largo residential community which has, for every mail box, a cement dolphin holding the actual mail box in its flippers. There's a dolphin research center near by. The air smells like what a fish's house would smell like if they had houses and invited you to visit.

Cheap cigarettes. A carton of marlboros for $25.

Then you go over this bridge. which is not THE bridge, because you haven't gone through Marathon yet, but it's long. Signs for the Key Deer, which are almost extinct, so you shouldn't speed so you don't hit one and kill it. Then finally the Seven Mile Bridge, with all these side bridges next to it that just seem to start and stop but don't connect to each other, people fishing off them, and a couple riding their bikes in the breakdown lane on the bridge which doesn't seem safe.

Ramrod key, Cudjoe Key, Sugarloaf Key, Shark Channel, Shark Key, and my favorite name Waltz Key. Drive all the way to the end of Key West. If a stack of pancakes were a town, that town would be here. Hang out on the beach until a sunburn seems inevitable, no one on the beaches but a couple getting married, their wedding party laying bored on lounge chairs while they have their picture taken, 3 homeless guys, a guy walking his little dog, a guy in a yellow canoe who was fishing but is back now, ask the Hawaiian Ice guy where everyone is, he says "that's next week", drive back.