Day 17

Wednesday, Oct. 12

We were up fairly early (about 7:00) to get showered and have breakfast before getting ready to leave.  The rest of the crew is flying out today, and Dawn and I plan to take a drive down the Keys to see what they are like.

By 11:00, everyone was ready to go, so we said our goodbyes and off we/they went.  I managed to get a couple shots of the large iguana that was climbing the wall of the hotel.  I guess it stays there to get the sun and stay warm.  We headed back to Budget to turn in the van and pick up the car we had reserved for the rest of our trip.  It took us some time to find the store and the get some gas.  Boy, are these U-turns at major intersections handy.

The car is a Ford Fiesta and we could get much of our luggage into the trunk, but not all (we have way too much stuff).  Then it was hook up the GPS, plug in Key Largo, and off we went.  Old “Jill” of the GPS is a little slow sometimes, telling where to turn, so I did make a few mistakes, but we were able to get back on the correct highways.

Dawn was taking photos as we drove along the highways.  She managed to get some good ones, but also a lot of the clouds, the tops of trees, etc.  ;-)  We stopped at a McDonalds just off the turnpike in Miami and had some lunch about 1:00.  Haven’t eaten in a McDonalds (other than breakfast) for years, and it wasn’t bad.  There were lots of black folks there, and the predominate language seemed to be Spanish – we assumed that there were a lot of Cubans in the area.  After that, it was trying to get back to the turnpike to continue on our way to the Keys.

 

We followed the highway through Florida City and Homestead, onto the Keys highway.  It became a regular highway with one lane each way and a speed limit of 45 mph.  Well, we found that the highway went down the middle of the Keys with hotels and housing on each side.  We didn’t see too much of the ocean or any beaches so we went as far as Key Islamadora, stopped and had an ice cream cone, and then headed back.   

We were about 80 miles away from Key West which is the end of the road, but we couldn’t see much.

 

When we got back to Homestead, we looked for another Best Western hotel, found one, and decided to stay.  After checking in, we sat around for a while – I got going on the computer, reading email, updating the blog, uploading photos to the web, and generally catching up.  Dawn watched TV, getting some news and weather in.

One news item was a small plane that had trouble while flying between two airports.  The pilot couldn’t make the airport and had to land on the freeway – one we had driven down earlier that day – Hollywood turnpike.  The shots showed that he had landed with wheels up, heading towards oncoming traffic.  How he found a gap in the traffic is beyond me, but it appears there were no cars affected, and he landed fairly safely.  One wing struck something and the plane swung sideways down the road until it stopped.

The news photos showed one wing somewhat crumpled, traffic stopped in both directions (backed up for miles), fire trucks and police cars, and lots of interest.  After a while, they allowed 2 lanes of traffic in the other direction, but they must have re-routed traffic on that side of the highway.  The pilot and co-pilot were taken to the hospital for observation, but as far as we were aware, there were no other injuries.  Very lucky indeed.

It gets dark early here, and when we decided to go for supper, we had to find someplace to go, and then find it.  Of course, once we decided on Applebee’s, we had to then find it.  The maps in the GPS are not the newest, so when we got to where “Jill” was taking us, we found that there was nothing there.  Then the problems began.  It was dark, lots of traffic, no idea where we were, and so on.  I managed to get back on the road we had come down, so we followed it.  Wouldn’t you know it, there was another Applebee’s right beside us.  We went in and had a chicken Caesar salad – it was good but very large.

Then back to find the hotel, which was another adventure, but we finally found it.

I had tapped into Radio NL’s Canucks broadcast and we listened to the game against Philly.  The Canucks were down 4-2 when we started listening in the 2^nd period, but they managed to tie it up by part way through the 3^rd.  Then, Philly scored and the Canucks weren’t able to score again.  Bummer!!

After that, we watched the ALCS game (Detroit and Texas) which was tied 3-3 in the 8^th.  I couldn’t keep my eyes open any more so lay there listening (I think).  Texas hit a 3 run homer in the 10^th or 11^th, and Detroit couldn’t come back.  That was it – lights out for us.

Unfortunately, our air conditioner cooled things off, then would shut off, and then not come back on until it got very warm, so we didn’t sleep too well.  And that was it for today.