These are not our tents. Ours are fancier.
Camping. It’s something I love. It is a time when you can be
in the wilderness indefinitely, it is a time when you feel safe and calm, no
distractions. It is also a time when you literally live on top of other people,
and there is an elegant comfort in this. You feel like a single unit when you
camp, an unbreakable bond of humans who could depend on each other, trust each
other and count on each other’s limitless faith. This is everything I ever wanted. This is the
feeling of humanity surpassing evil and danger and fear. This is humanity at
its finest moment. And that is why I go camping.
Now that I showed off my writing skills, let's move on to more important things.
We are tanned and exhausted. Can't tell we're tanned? That would be because this photo is in black and white!
Funny enough, we got the
physical Companion Pass after our
trip.
Having a tan and being exhausted kind of comes hand in hand
with an amazing trip full of wild stories and not-so wild stories. There is so
much to tell; I don’t even know where to begin! How about the first day? I think that sounds pretty good.
Tuesday May 21, 2013
Our day started like any other day in the Diamond-Kadi
household. Half an hour late. It was really all my fault; unfortunately, the
Sephardic gene for timeliness was passed on to me with a raging force. But, we
made it to the airport with enough time to spare, especially because we were
the only people on the flight who are agile and below the age of 75. Here’s proof:
We became friends with a lot of these people. Some were even on our return flight!
By the time all the old people made it on to the plane, it
was 40 minutes after our scheduled departure. We were sitting in the airport
bored. And what do the Diamond’s do when we’re bored? You got it! We take
pictures.
EXHIBIT A:
My fedora is pretty cool. Just sayin'
EHIBIT B:
This is Dani and his new haircut. No, really.
The flight was rather uneventful. We got to sunny Florida,
and made our way to the campsite in Key Largo. First, a word about our car. We
rented a Chevy Aveo.
It looked like this:
It sounded like this:
I thought the tires were going to fall off. Ironically, and
not so coincidentally, we had Connecticut plates. I found that very cool. Along
the way we saw so many fascinating things. Where I’m from crossing deer is
normal. Deer generally cross the highway, right? But in Florida, on your way to
the Keys, CROCODILES cross the highway. You heard me, crocodiles. Here’s proof:
John Pennekamp State Park is a beauty. But we encountered a slight
problem. Usually, we have a blowup mattress with us however, we wanted to
minimize the amount of things we schlepped so we had sleeping bags. The issue?
Our campsite was gravel. Imagine sleeping on gravel. Not so fun, right?
When we set up our tent it was almost dark, the bugs came out
and by the end of the night, no matter how much OFF! we used, Dani had
accumulated close to 70 bites just on his arms. I think it's fair to say that
the bugs liked Dani. They didn’t like me very much. Whatever. I’m over it.
Our home away from home. It's an amazing thing.
Now, our tent is super cool. It has two layers, there is the
actual tent, that sets up and the roof is made of mesh so you can breath at
night in warm weather and simultaneously enjoy a (spectacular) view of the
stars and in case of rain and cold weather, there is a cover. It was really
hot, like really really really hot and humid in Key Largo. In fact, it was so
hot and humid that when we walked, it felt like we were walking through a very
deep kiddie pool full of hot water (you know, the gross hot water that is generally
associated with kiddie pools. Exactly. Eww.) So we decided to leave our tent
uncovered for the night. Can you guess what happened? I bet you can.
Wednesday May 22, 2013
At about 6 o’clock in the morning, after a fitful and sweaty
night of sleep, we were woken up by rain. Truthfully, it was an amateur mistake;
you’d think we’d be smart enough to check the weather for the night. I can only
attribute this moment of insanity to the overwhelming heat. Thankfully, like I
said before, Dani and I are quite agile so we covered up the tent quickly
enough that we were the only things that got wet.
The mangroves. It's not Dani's picture. You can say you don't like it.
In the morning, we decided to discover what the activities
the park had to offer. We decided that kayaking through the many wild mangroves
channels sounded like fun. The channels beauty begged to be explored. The sky
was immensely blue, with white puffs of clouds gliding across it, continuously
changing shape. Kayaking across these marvelous waters was more than fun. It
was an incredible feat of teamwork and resilience. At first, we were so
terrible. We were veering right into the mangroves. My bruised forehead is
evidence to how many times we collided into the branches of the mangroves. At
one point, we were headed straight for a branch and there was nothing we could do
about it. All of a sudden, this gargantuan thing
greets us with its lengthy tongue. We found out at the end of the trip that it
was an iguana.
The iguana is like "I'm sexy and I know it!"
Eventually though, we got the hang of it and we paddled our
way along the many creeks and paths. Funny thing, there’s a creek called
Jewfish Creek. The fish that inhabit this creek are called gefilte fish. You
know, because they’re Jewish fish. (That was my attempt at a joke.)
Physical exertion has a way of emptying stomachs. We got some
ice cream and searched for a spot to watch and obviously photograph the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean. Here is
Dani’s unbelievable shot of the sunset:
Dani obviously had to trespass to take a picture. DUH!
We grilled hotdogs on our very cool grill from Mexico called
anafre. We got it for something like $5. I like to think that we got the most
bang for our buck, wouldn’t you? By the way, they were the best hotdogs I have
ever tasted. That might be because we were starving.
Thursday May 24, 2013
Today was a day like no other. It was a day full of firsts, a
day full of unwanted and unwarranted excitement. But I’m getting ahead of
myself.
My brother-in-law, Effy, said that the one thing we must do
while in the Keys is go snorkeling. Dani and I decided to go deeper into the
south and visit the other islands, mainly making our way down to Key West. The two-hour
drive was spectacular. Many of the different islands are made of one single
road called US-1, you see both sides of water while on the road. The water is
so clear and so blue we were able to see the ocean floor.
We took a boat that was going to make two different stops an estimated 7
miles off shore to see the coral reef. They provided free drinks. I was excited
to drink many cans of coke from a supposedly unlimited supply of coke and I
don’t even like coke. But what can I say, I like free stuff.
As the boat’s captain and first mate explained the different
things we would see under water, they mentioned in passing that there are
sharks and barracudas in the water. They also mentioned in passing as though it was unimportant that panicking would be the worst way to react
in case we see them. Apparently, sharks don’t like humans as much as humans
don’t like sharks and if they are left alone and don’t “smell fear” they won’t
strike. Well, way to calm a person down, huh? Basically tell a person don’t
panic when that would be the only natural way to respond. That’s like me
telling you “don’t think of chocolate.” I bet you’re thinking of chocolate now.
But I digress.
I am about to reveal a very dark and deep secret, that is
quite frankly rather ridiculous and embarrassing. I am also asking that you
don’t laugh at my face the next time you see me, because, well, you might want
to. I should preface this confession of sorts with some background information.
I first learned to swim in deep waters when I was about 2 years old. I have
always loved pools and swimming. For most of my teenaged years, I spent my free
time lifeguarding in various camps and establishments. I also will not go into
a pool unless I have goggles that allow me to see the expanse of the pool. I
was about 4 years old when I first saw the movie Jaws. I don’t remember the
movie well, nor do I care to. But the one thing that has attached itself to my
mind is that there are sharks that live in pools and attack people. And as a 4
year old and as a grown adult, I cannot get those images of the sharks chomping
on people out of my mind. I have an insurmountable fear of sharks. I try to understand it, I
try to overcome it, but I can’t. (If you want a great story that has to do with
this silly phobia, ask my sister Sarah about the time we went swimming in my
grandmother’s pool late at night.)
You can imagine
that I was petrified of snorkeling, but I thought it would be worth the
experience. We geared up:
His hair grows back really quickly.
The first stop was unbelievable. It was magical. The reef,
the fish, the water. We were able to see twenty feet below us into a world that
most people never have the opportunity to bear witness to. We saw teal fish, vibrant
yellow, and lavender ones. We saw schools of small fish making their way
through the cracks and crevices of the coral and big fish being eaten by even
bigger fish. I loved every second of it. I was excited for the second stop;
this stop was to take us to a section of the coral reef that would be
shallower, we would see things we missed in the first patch of the reef. Dani
and I jump off the ledge of the boat, we made our way to the coral, and it
was amazing. We saw fish in even more vivacious colors, bigger fish, smaller
fish and they were about 2 feet below us. I even saw the Little Mermaid! Or something that looked like her. Kidding!! Seriously though, the current was also much stronger.
And as the coral was getting higher and higher, closer to the surface and closer to
us. It was getting to a point where it was super overwhelming. I just had to reach down and I would have been able to touch the coral. But instead of looking ahead of me, I decided to look directly below me. I swa a shark. I saw a nurse shark that was just as big as me. I saw a shark swimming directly below me.
This is not the shark I saw but it very well could have been. It also could have taken a bite out of me.
Did I panic? Heck ya I panicked. I think I was close to a psychotic break. In those moments, I lost total and complete control of myself.
I stopped swimming, I stopped moving, and it wasn’t because I wanted to
voluntarily stop and admire the shark. I literally COULD NOT MOVE. I never understood the
phrase “paralyzed by fear,” but now I do. Dani had not realized what happened
yet, but in those few moments when I was paralyzed and Dani was admiring the
world below us, the current pushed us to a place where the reef was literally
at surface level of the water. Dani sensed that something was wrong and he saw
me, pale and afraid. Like a hero, he went straight into lifeguard mode and
helped me gain my senses.
He's the new Clark Kent.
We started swimming back to the boat. And we did not
get off that boat again until we docked. Seriously, my heart still beats furiously
when I think about it. Gosh.
After that little ordeal, we walked around the streets of Key
West. We saw the southern most point of the US and Ernest Hemingway's home. You can bet that I geeked out when I saw that!
We caught him and barbecued him for dinner.
And roosters are to Key West as pigeons are to Brooklyn. How
cool is that? On our way back to Key Largo, we stopped along the way to see
sunset.
I know this is not during sunset. But it's a fantastic photo Dani took. It's so good that the Reach Hotel should ask him for the rights to this picture.
Also, we may have trespassed to get this picture.
We arrived back at the campgrounds bushed, exhausted. I never
slept on a gravel ground so well. We
needed the weekend to recuperate and rejuvenate after a full week.
Stay tuned for part II of our trip. Deerfield Beach, the
Everglades, Naples and Miami Beach next!
