Florida 1980
The trip that Karen Johns & I took to the Florida Keys in March 1980 was last ranked the no. 23 most memorable trip of my life (as of this writing in October 2009). This seems rather low for that excursion. The last day in Key West was one of the most memorable of my life, and had we decided to do things differently, may have been the most memorable.
ITINERARY:
vvv Saturday, March 1, 1980 vvv
Leave for Florida, driving south in the snow.
Handwritten entries on a calendar kept the previous month, notably the one from February 25, mention our planning of the Florida trip, although no details are provided. I have no existing records of when exactly we traveled, but I believe we left in the afternoon or early evening and very well recall we soon hit a major snowstorm. Internet research documents a notable snowstorm in the south-eastern US on 3/1/80 to 3/2/80, as reported below at this site here:
"On March 1 Arctic air had settled over Virginia and temperatures were in the teens. More than a foot (13.7 inches) of snow fell in Norfolk. The heavy snow combined with strong winds created blizzard conditions."
Thus based on the weather records, I gather we probably started out in the afternoon or early evening of Saturday, March 1, and ran into the storm soon thereafter. Sometime after midnight on Sunday, March 2, the storm's intensity picked up. I'd been driving several hours, and pounding beers the whole time, and had to take a leak. I was worried that if I pulled off of the single cleared (somewhat) lane of I-95 South, I'd get stuck. I looked around and saw that we were the only ones on the highway as far as the eye could see, so I stopped the car in the middle of I-95 and took a whiz, them climbed back in the car, popped open another Budweiser beer, and continued southbound. I don't recall how far we made it that night or where we finally crashed.
vvv Sunday, March 2, 1980 vvv
Hollywood, Florida, day #1
If we left on the afternoon on 3/1/80, then it had to have been late evening by the time we reached Karen’s cousin’s house in Hollywood Beach, Florida. Per Google, the drive is 1,177 miles from Media to Hollywood Beach and takes 18 hours and 17 minutes. That’s with today’s roads (I-95 was still unfinished in parts back then) and without a major snowstorm. And I have to believe we stopped for the night, although I suspect it may have just been at a rest stop. So I figure it took us at least 28-30 hours to reach Hollywood Beach, which would have us getting in somewhere about 8PM to midnight. For that matter, I’m not certain we didn’t stop somewhere else, and thus arrive in Hollywood Beach the following day, but I don’t think we did. And I’m not even sure it was her cousin; all I know is that he was related either through blood or marriage. Maybe he was a very young uncle. At any rate, we showed up late as I recall, partied a bit, and then went to sleep in a small bed (or the floor) in a small room in his small untidy house.
vvv Monday, March 3, 1980 vvv
Hollywood, Florida, day #2, on the boardwalk and beach with Karen.
As I recall, Karen’s cousin, or whatever his relation, was a friendly beach bum kind of guy. He showed us around town, notably to the beach and boardwalk. I had of course been to Ft. Lauderdale for two days less than a year before with Jeff Rightley during our cross country travels. But my experience there was quite different than on this trip with Karen. Above all, it wasn’t so seamy. In fact, Hollywood Beach seemed rather wholesome. This could perhaps have been because Karen and I weren’t drawn to the places or people that Jeff and I were. Beyond that we were in another place. Hollywood Beach is 8 miles or so south of Ft. Lauderdale, and that made a world of difference. I don’t remember much of what we did other than the usual day at the beach stuff—lounge in the sand, walk along the boardwalk, but I do remember that I very much enjoyed the place and the girl.
vvv Tuesday, March 4, 1980 vvv
The Florida Keys day #1, setting up camp.
We left Hollywood Beach and drove on down to the Keys. I’d been there less than a year before with Jeff, and loved it, so it was good to be back. I was very surprised, however, by how much it had changed in so little time. The water was still its incredible blue/green shade and the sun still shone brightly in that blue Florida sky, but the entire place it seemed was under construction. In particular, U.S. Route 1, aka The Overseas Highway, was being expanded from two lanes to four. And in the process the sleepy, out-of-the-way nature of the Florida Keys would be forever changed, and not in good way as far as I was concerned. And because of the construction, there were some horrendous traffic tie-ups particularly on the bridges—and if you’ve ever been to the Keys, you know that The Overseas Highway is mostly bridges. (Refer to Wiki: Overseas Highwayfor more information about this final stretch of U.S. Route 1.)
We may have stopped briefly at the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park and perhaps even camped a day there, although I certainly doubt the latter. As best as I can recall and based on the scant evidence available, we drove straight for the spot where Jeff and I had camped the year before. That spot was on Crawl Key between mile marker 56 & 57 beside a man-made lake or lagoon.
Per Google maps, it’s 128 miles from Hollywood Beach to Crawl Key and takes about 2 hours and 48 minutes. I’m sure it took us a lot longer then, but even if it took 6 hours, we could have arrived at the camp about 4 or 5 PM. I believe we did get there in the late afternoon and went right to work setting up the tent and gathering wood for a campfire.
I’m sure the well-picked over wood remnants were hard to gather, as they had been for Jeff and I. And our tent was the same orange piece of crap one that Jeff and I had used. We’d pitched it in the Keys, and I don’t believe we set it up more than two or three times afterward. It was just a cruddy tent. And also akin to my last camping expedition on Crawl Key, it rained mightily at night. But I believe that was the second night, not this one. So for this night at least, we slept in the tent under the starts in the Florida Keys.
Note: A spiral notebook can be seen in a couple of the photos I took, once being held by Karen hand as she gets out of the car and a second time on the rear bumper of the car. I wonder if she took any notes during the trip.
http://www.southeastroads.com/us-001sb_fl.html
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Overseas_Highway
vvv Wednesday, March 5, 1980 vvv
The Florida Keys day #2, running into Dave.
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I don’t recall what we did during the day. Perhaps gathered more firewood. Maybe took a drive into Marathon to get something to eat. One thing I recall next to nothing about this trip, and it was the same for the 1974 Florida trip with Van, et al., is stopping to eat. I guess it wasn’t the event back then that it later became. All the same, we still had to eat, and I doubt we cooked every meal at the campsite, so we must have driven somewhere to dine.
The evening I do recall. As we were enjoying ourselves in the Florida dusk drinking beers and chatting by our fire, the most remarkable thing happened. Somebody else had decided to camp at this remote, not-on-the-map spot. They drove around the area and parked about 25 feet from our spot. I went to greet them, and lo and behold, I knew the guy. It was Dave Nocella, accompanied by his girlfriend, whose name I don’t recall. Dave was a friend of Jules DiSimone, and we’d crossed paths a few times at Jules’s house. He was a preppy sort of fellow, but very nice and capable. His girlfriend was nice and pretty. We had a good laugh about meeting up in such an out of the way location—what are the odds of this? Then we had a fun and spirited evening of laughs around the campfire.
That night it rained like heck, and my meager tent was not up to the task. Water got in. The sleeping bags got wet, so we abandoned ship and spent the rest of the night in the car. It may have been that we left together or that Karen left first and then me as it neared morning.
vvv Thursday, March 6, 1980 vvv
Key West day #1, the Southernmost Rip-off company.
In the morning we draped all of our soaked blankets and towels all over the car. There’s very good proof of this because that morning and/or early afternoon, Dave took several photos with his 35mm camera, which he later gave me a set of. Those photos were, of course, far better than the few instamatic shots I took during the trip, and ended up being the best photos I have of Karen.
As best as I can figure, we must have broken camp sometime in the early afternoon, said our adieu to Dave and his lady companion, and continued our trek toward down U.S. Route 1 toward Key West. Two of the instamatic photos I took (totaling 10 in all and of which 5 were taken at the Crawl Key campsite) depict our next stop at a narrow beach believed to be on the far side of the Seven Mile Bridge, probably on or near Bahia Honda or Duck Key. The photos show a couple of towels spread on the beach, but they don’t show our tent. My guess is that we didn’t spend the night here but rather just a few hours on the beach and in the ocean. One of the few distinct memories of the trip is going in the shallow ocean water. It was near dusk, no one else was around, and so we had a little fun.
As I said, I don’t remember camping along the beach, which I think I surely would have. And its possible we camped in a nearby campground, but my best guess is that we drove on in to Key West and stayed at the Southernmost Hotel.
We checked into the Southernmost Hotel, which was within a hundred yards or so of the famed “Southernmost point buoy,” which marks, as one might guess, the southernmost point in the continental United States. The hotel at the time was as I recall pretty much standard fare—certainly nothing special but OK. It certainly met our needs that first night. We planned to take a little nap and then explore the city. After a long day in the sun, the little nap turned into a very long one, perhaps stretching through the night. I don’t recall if we got to see any of Key West that evening, but I’m inclined to think not.
Note: As of 9/2009, there’s still a motel in Key West called the Southernmost Hotel. From what I can tell, it looks to be the same place, although it appears to have undergone extensive remodeling at some point in the last 29.5 years. The current hotel can be seen
hereà http://southernmostresorts.com/index.html
and hereà http://www.seearoomkeywest.com
vvv Friday, March 7, 1980 vvv
Key West (may have stayed only one night in Key West)
I don’t much recall this day until the sun set. Perhaps we hung around South Beach near the Southernmost Hotel, or perhaps we camped at the campground on Bahia Honda last night and didn’t even get into town until today. I sort of doubt the latter version for two reasons: I distinctly recall Karen and I taking an afternoon nap at the Southernmost Hotel that stretched well into evening and cost us to miss out on a night on the town. And secondly because the list I compiled in early 1981 of the most memorable days of 1980 included at #14 “Key West day #1, the Southernmost Rip-off company.” But even so, I suppose it’s possible that we didn’t oversleep as much as I think, and were able to go out in time to catch the sunset at Mallory Square and the nightlife in downtown Key West, including a couple of cold concoctions at the famed Sloppy Joe’s Bar. I just don’t know, but I’m going with the version that we spent two nights at the Southernmost Hotel in Key West and no nights camping in Bahia Honda. And even though yesterday was our first day in Key West, I’m probably referring to this day as “Key West day #1.”
Before we set foot on Mallory Square, I’d never heard of the place, much less its famed "Sunset Celebration.” Jeff and I missed it altogether in our brief ramble through town in 1979. Karen and I just stumbled upon it. And I swear we took in the whole sixties time-warp scene that goes on there every night, but I have to admit that my
memories are jumbled with my more freshly recalled visit in 1988 with Sharon. But that’s to be expected since I don’t think the place changed in the slightest during the interim. The same hippie types, whom I thought were long gone, were there in droves. Groovy, man. And the showmen, contortionist, magicians, hucksters, and charlatans put on the same show, and it still free. Dig that! And what a show it was—one for all ages and for the ages—and just like the one the night before and the one there’d be the next night and all the nights after that. And the star of the show was that big old sun. We all watched, enraptured, when at the appointed hour, she slid down into the ocean water just as pretty as can be. And all the hippies, and tourists, and hucksters, and Navy guys, and gay folk applauded. It happens every night of the year at Mallory Square.
Then we wandered around town in the evening hours taking in the sights and the people. It was a zoo. A great big people zoo, reminiscent of Telegraph Avenue by the Berkeley, CA, campus, when I visited in 1977. We stopped in Sloppy Joe’s Bar at the corner of Greene and Duval, and perhaps other establishments as well, and soaked it all in. Oh, what a night!
http://www.sunsetcelebration.org/history.htm
http://key-west-fl-florida.com/
vvv Saturday, March 8, 1980 vvv
Heading home (did we swing by Orlando?)
I remember only one thing about this day. It involved a decision that probably had a huge impact on the way my life has unfolded in the ensuing 29 years. The choice was simple—should we stay or should we go? The decision was excruciating. Karen and I had become instant suckers for the Key West lifestyle—that easy going, sun-worshipping, live-for-today, take-no-prisoners approach to life. The only problem was neither of us, as with most Americans, was raised that way.
The plan had been all along to start the long drive home today. We had to get going in order to make it back in time for class on Monday morning at the Lima Campus of the Penn State University. So we checked out of the Southernmost Hotel, which by this point we had dubbed the Southernmost rip-off joint, presumably owing to some unforeseen charge they foisted on us or their generally high rates. Then either during breakfast or soon after, one or the other of voiced the idea of what if we didn’t go back? What if we just stayed in Key West? I don’t recall who mentioned it first, but it doesn’t matter because it was immediately obvious that we both had the same exact thought in mind. I don’t know if I ever had a harder decision to make in such a short period of time. We talked excitedly about how she could get a job waitressing and me doing construction and live the great, carefree life that we presumed was lived here. Had either one of us been at all insistent about it, I’m sure we would have stayed. But neither of us was, so we didn’t. Instead we just sighed, got into the VW Rabbit, and drove out of Key West.
I can’t remember another single thing about the day. Obviously, we drove out of the Keys and headed north. Did we stop in Orlando? Who knows? Where I don’t remember any of it because my mind wasn’t on where we were or what we were doing; it was back there in Key West on what we weren’t doing.
Since things have turned out good in the interim, I could say I don’t have any regrets, and in a way that would be the truth; I wouldn’t trade my family for anything, and the odds are, we’d have ended up doing jobs we hated and getting more and more tired of one another and all those beautiful sunsets. But in another way, I’d be lying. I’ll always wonder what might have been if I’d had the balls to find out.
vvv Sunday, March 9, 1980 vvv
Karen’s car breaks down in Virginia.
If this were a fictional story, it would have ended here because there’s nothing more to our tale but the mundane and the humdrum . . . which was the long haul home from Florida, spiked in this episode with a heavy dose of car trouble. But whether it fits the story or not, you’ve got to cover those 1,350 miles, the quicker the better. In our case, it wasn’t as quick as we would have liked because along the way, somewhere in Virginia, sometime around early evening, as I recall, the VW Rabbit broke down. It being late in the day, and a Sunday to boot, we couldn’t do anything but wait till tomorrow to get it fixed.
So we were laid up with the unenticing hassle of garages and stuff life that waiting in the wings. All we could do was check into a motel and wait till morning. I wasn’t too bummed by the car troubles, but Karen took it pretty hard. Maybe it hit her harder than me because she was younger and hadn’t gone through such ordeals, or maybe because it was her car, or maybe because she figured she’d have to pay for it. I don’t know why. But I do know that our journey, which to this point had been easy, fun, and hand in hand, and that extends beyond this trip to our entire relationship, showed the first signs of stress. They weren’t huge cracks, they were tiny fissures, and at the time there was no telling how deep they ran, but the thing was they were the first cracks in our relationship. They spelled to me, then and there, and I presume to Karen as well, that maybe we weren’t destined to be forever. And that was a very sad end to a trip that had been so full of joy and promise. So we spent our last night of the trip in a Virginia motel. Things were OK. but not really. Like I said, it was the first crack in our paradise. Karen professed to be impressed with my calmness, but I didn’t buy it. Something was missing. I don’t know what that something was, but it must have been something we left behind in Key West.
vvv Monday, March 10, 1980 vvv
CODA:
Other than the few instamatic photos I took, the 35mm ones Dave Nocella shot and gave me, and one drink coaster from Sloppy Joe’s Bar, I have mo mementos of this trip. Everything was paid for in cash, so there are no credit card records, and I never kept a journal or wrote a log. So besides this trip and the one taken in the summer of 1974 both being essentially Florida trips, they both produced stirring memories and almost no traceable record of having ever occurred. If anything, the excursion in the summer of 1974 with Debbie, Van and all, left more of a print: I kept a very barebones record of expenses, on which I jotted down a few other things, and of course, I have Van & Steve to help resurrect the memories. I don’t have that here. But I do have the photos and my list of the most memorable days of 1980 (something I didn’t do in 1974).
Running into Dave at our campground on Crawl Key was listed as the third most memorable day of 1980 and was certainly the most memorable event of the trip, not to mention one of the most improbable of my life. But the event of the trip that had the greatest impact on my life was leaving Key West. In and of itself, of course, leaving Key West had little bearing on how things would unfold in the years to come. Rather its effect can only be understood in juxtaposition with the alternative course we came so close to taking. If either Karen or I had said let’s stay here, then we’d have stayed in Key West. Maybe we would have tired after a few days or run out of money and had to limp home, but the odds are, we would have managed for at least a few months, may be a whole lot longer. But even if for only a few weeks, my school semester would have been shot, and after dropping out of college a second time on a lark, it’s hard to believe I’d have ever gone back a third. And it very nearly happened.
Wait around for car to get fixed, drive home.
As garages do, the one we found fixed the car and got us back on the road. I don’t remember what the problem was, how much it cost to fix, or who paid for it. I suppose Karen did. In fact, I don’t remember another thing about our journey. I guess we got home sometime in the evening, I guess I kissed Karen goodnight, and she went home, and the next day, we were back in school, having missed classes on Monday because of the car troubles.
Not only was running into Dave and his girlfriend memorable and improbable, it proved to be enriching. The photos he took are real treasures since the few that I took on the trip are not nearly as good, and along with one other photo in my collection, they are the only ones of Karen and I together. But the two biggest things about this trip were not Dave Nocella and his camera. The two biggest things were, of course, the Florida Keys and my companion. As mentioned above, I had been in Keys for the first time less than a year before on my around-the-country journey with Jeff Rightley. We traveled up and down that string of islands several times, camping at a campground in Bahia Honda and at the make-shift place on Crawl Key. In all, we spent four days in the Keys, and although we didn’t explore Key West to any great extent, probably owing to the fact that it was never easy for us to manage in confined spaces since were living out of our Chevy Impala, I nonetheless found the place intriguing. Obviously, I liked the Keys so much that I went right back there on my next vacation—that being this one with Karen. And I loved them the second time as well, evidenced by the fact that Sharon and I went back in 1988. But they weren’t the same in early March 1980 as they were in late April 1979. Something fundamental had changed in that short span. I think it was all that construction that was going on. Jeff and I saw no evidence of it. Converting US Route 1 from two-lanes to four-lanes would forever alter the Keys in a way that diminished their other-end-of-the-world remoteness, and it was largely this remoteness that was the Keys’ most enchanting charm. Of course, the dazzling blue-green water is also part of the charm, but it too didn’t seem as dazzling in 1980 as it did in 1979. Perhaps it was just my perception, clouded by all the construction going on, but I suspect it had more to do with seasonal fluctuations—Karen and I were there a month and half earlier in the year than when Jeff and I visited. But even if the Keys didn’t quite live up to the memories I had of them, they were still a wondrous place to be, and Key West in particular ran away with my imagination.
Every vacation is marked by how you go, when you go, and where you go, but probably more than anything by with whom you go. No exception here. This was my one and only extended journey with Karen. We’d been dating for only little over a month yet were quite comfortable with and very much taken by one another. And our travels through southern Florida and the Keys were the most intense, romantic, and binding time of our relationship. As I’ve noted repeatedly, we almost never came back because what we found down there was something so attractive we didn’t want it to ever end. What we found, along with the blue-green water, the palm trees, and the sunshine, was each other. Of course, we didn’t last, most relationships don’t, but for a brief spell we were truly happy in each other presence, and that is something that will always be treasured.
THE END
