The Miami hotel was surrounded by meticulous golf courses dotted with dramatic fountains. Everywhere were well tended shiny green shrubs with swells of florid flowers. Crows cawed evilly, otherwise the noises were of the cars swishing around the circular driveway where valet-parkers formula-oned at perilous speeds.
Walking from one hotel structure to the next I met with wafts of cigarette smoke, like streaks of dirt stuck in the humid air. Sunday, when it was time to leave, I could have dawdled and taken advantage of the spa facilities, had a massage, been pampered.
Instead I set the navigation thingy and pointed the car southbound. Obeying the instructions I thanked the bitch for each suggestion, and reclined my seat like a gangster, and settled in for the long ride home.
Any other time, any other place, I generally get seized by the need to travel as fast as possible, even though I know full well this means I will arrive at my destination feeling horrible. I’ve never questioned this urge, only ever given in to it, like some demented homing pigeon.
Soon the madness of Miami and a thousand lanes of racing machines dwindled to one lane where the speed limit is 45mph, which is almost impossible unless you have a clear visible view of the police.
And then I saw the sign, ‘Exit left for Card Sound Road’. I’d heard of this road and I was tempted. So instead of my usual tunnel vision, I flipped up the turn signal and was promptly delivered into a scruffy forest.
The forest remained dense and there wasn’t much to see and I wondered if I’d made the right decision. Suddenly on either side of the road were a cluster of shops, all fish themed. This short busy stretch was a town comprised of maybe five shops and a lot of pickup trucks with fishing poles like rooster tails.
Then a toll booth, one dollar and I was heading up a bridge so steep it could have been at an amusement park. Thin humped bridges from which families fish, and all around is an endless spread of blues and greens of glittering ocean, under sultry multicolored skies and huge slow moving birds and far away puffy pink clouds. All so beautiful, making it impossible to want to hurry.
The road is a ribbon of white satin bumpily connecting uninhabited islands of tangles of mangroves, so that one is bounding over shimmering aqua in what feels like zero gravity giant strides on a world of water. It was an incredible treat. Eventually the road ended and rejoined the main highway connecting the Keys.
Home in Key West I am all the more appreciative of the glamorous natural beauty, of the sounds of the cheerful calypso of birds, of the robust smells of flowers and sweet soft air, and the jubilant crowing of the roosters. I’m back in Paradise, which reminds me, now I must attend to that snake.