The keys are Florida’s holiday capital it seems and there are loads of them all connected by concrete bridges down to Key West where you are then only 90 miles from Cuba. The Weather was pretty crumby, here I was ready to get a tan and it rained on and off all day. I’m sure lots of people have seen True Lies, indeed I saw it the first time I was in the States, we watched it in Virginia Beach and nearly died walking along the highway to the cinema from all the traffic. The bridges in the keys were where they filmed the sequence where Jamie Lee Curtis is pulled from her car as it drops off the bridge. You can see where they repaired the railings to make it look used as further down the bridge was in very poor condition. I now have the urgent desire to watch it again :)

I had got up quite late and was driving slowly but I had the urge to stop somewhere at a reasonable time, make some food, take a swim, write my blog… The road was not short though and its about 100 miles of islands and bridges but I eventually found somewhere about 20 miles from Key West and stopped to camp. $46 a night!?! I tried the place next door and they wanted $60. No easy places to hid in these small islands so I figured unless I wanted hassle in the middle of the night I may as well pay up and at least i would have an easy night. The place was dead though, lots of RVs but no people. There were a few kids having the start of a party in one of the bungalows across from where I was parked but otherwise the place seemed eerily quiet. I met a guy who had also just turned up and he told me about some kind of event down in Key West, a fancy dress event or something. I said maybe I would go down, but really just wanted to test out my camping stove and make myself my first meal that wasn’t a sandwich since I left. This wasn’t easy with the infrequent rain showers that made me keep having to jump back in the car every 5 minutes but eventually I got myself a nice coffee and good old pasta with tomato sauce going. Ah, a quiet evening, just me, the water nearby, the party ended, the sun even came out for a sunset, some couple putting their tent up nearby was the only distraction.

No modern tent should take 2 people more than about 5 minutes to put up and they were messing about for ages. I finished my meal and went over to see if I could help just as the guy walked off back to the main area. Big Mistake. It was getting dark and here we had a slightly crazy divorcee (so she said several times) with 2 jellyfish obsessed kids, a rescued cat, 2 mice, stuff which was now everywhere, two tents in various states of completion and the treat of rain. First she had to narrate some story for 10 minutes with the punchline of there being 1 and three quarter tents. 10 minutes I could have spent working out which was incomplete instead of patiently listening to her ramble on about her ex-husband. Then I set to work figuring out which poles and fly went to the one they had already started on. I got the poles together and started putting it up as well I could, still not knowing if I was erecting the incomplete one or not. The woman wouldn’t shut up, she was shouting at the kids to stay away from the water, going on about the cat, repeating the tent story, thanking me profusely. Clearly bonkers.

Three guys turned up in a golf cart, seems the guy that had abandoned her had narrated her problem to some Christians and they were duty bound to come and help. You could see when they saw me they just wanted to get the hell out right away and leave it up to me but I wasn’t going to let them get away with that.
‘So you’re ok then?’
‘Um, no, I have no idea of what Im doing and could use some help here’
‘You sure? You seem to know what you’re doing’…
More hands were more help and one of them drove off to get a hammer to drive the stakes in as I sorted the poles and fly out. You could tell they had never camped in their lives with how they tied the fly to the base, they just wrapped it around a pole and didn’t stretch it to the pegs. Bloody townies! :p Eventually it was mostly up and it seemed we had the right one up. Thank god. The guys introduced themselves and drove off and then I had a few minutes of refusing the cash the crazy woman was now trying to force on me or telling her I didn’t want anything from the store the next day. It started raining, with this weather I doubted I would be sticking around to get the steak she was probably planning on buying me. I wasn’t going out now, it was dark, raining, all my stuff was now getting soaked and I didn’t have my bed set up. Good samaritans finish last! :p



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