After years of talking about going to Key West, we finally booked a trip to coincide with a half marathon that I planned to run. When I signed up last February, I had just completed another race and was feeling pretty good, not realizing I would spend most of the summer and fall plagued by injuries. As the trip approached, I wasn't sure I would be able to run in Key West, but I pulled together a few months of consistent training in November and December, so I felt reasonably confident that I could make it through this one. Whether I ran or not, we were going to Key West!
We stayed in Old Town, where the houses are close together and the streets are narrow. I admired the old brickwork and the chickens, who could be found everywhere. They all looked healthy and happy as they bobbed around, busy doing whatever it is that they do to occupy their time. I thought about this post on Instagram.
I also thought about the billions of chickens being tortured in industrialized farming operations. I imagined each one hoping (in an animal way) to have a life with some kind of meaning beyond a few hellish weeks of being stuffed with feed and antibiotics. Why do we have to eat so many chickens? And why are we so blasé about it? I wanted to apologize to the chickens for not doing better.
As we had hoped, a large percentage of the Key West population was made up of gays, which meant that we saw many fantastic gardens. Key West is a place where you see many of the same plants as you do in the north, but here they are in the ground instead of pots. Except for the orchids, which wrap around trees. Maybe I need to be apologizing to my plants, too.
On Thursday morning, I woke up and did some stretching on the deck of our bed-and-breakfast. The sky was perfectly, cloudlessly blue. I had forgotten what it was like to be warm.
I jogged to the beach, where I had to wait in line behind several CARS :( to pay the $2.50 entrance fee. I couldn't resist complaining to the agent in the booth -- 'a state park should be free to pedestrians and bikers, charge the cars double or triple!!' -- but she was clearly like 'whatever, get out of my face, the beach is to the right.'
Speaking of cars, I'm sad to report that like 99 percent of the country, Key West is overrun with gigantic SUVs and pickup trucks that have no business occupying narrow streets. There are tons of cyclists, but rather than give over dedicated space to bikes, the city has allocated most of the space for private car storage. There are painted bike lanes, which are worse than nothing. It wouldn't take much to make the old town of Key West a biking and pedestrian utopia: let's hope it happens before the island is underwater.
The beaches in Key West are not amazing -- there's more coral than sand -- but my expectations were low, so I wasn't disappointed. I resolved to quit complaining about anything, not permanently, but for a few minutes.
It was nice to listen to the water and watch the birds. And to ponder the bones of civilizations that were once alive and are now dead.
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