Miami Spring Breaking --13 March 2008

For me a trip to Miami and The Keys was significant even if it was crowded with all the Spring Breakers. The thought of going to Florida had never entered my head until Pat moved there. With the intense desire to meet Pat's fiance Patricia that became the when. Fortunately it coincided with Sam's graduation gift to Joe. Everyone knows Pat is a devout bird watcher (go to his web sight http://www.bio.miami.edu/pze/index.html). Joe and I also became birdwatchers watching those two birds- lovebirds. Pat hasn't ever cut the girls any slack but this was the first time I have seen anyone hold their own with him. Now she can put him at a loss of words-- a 1st. Now back to the trip during Spring Break, since I am still the Dad, it is important for me to protect my kids from harm & danger. So my original plan was to scope out any beaches all by myself for any visual harm that might come to my kids. But dangit I never got to do my job. When we arrived at the beach I was way too slow for those long legged juveniles. Fortunately for them Pat had strict instructions from Sam to not let Joe go near South Beach. We stayed at beach a little north of Key West 200 miles from So Beach and any visual harm. So I was feeling pretty good about keeping my kids safe until the last day when we were like penguins standing on the edge 2 inches above the water each trying to be the closest to get the best pictures of the 5-6 ft. alligators (seen here) when one lurking out of sight under the small ones (5 footers) suddenly broke the surface. Its eyes were 12" apart and could have eaten 2-3 of us at one time. He had to have been a 15 footer maybe even a 40 footer. (40 just for effect of putting my point across of HUGH). Patricia got it all on video. As we realized walking away what had just happened we all got scared and I realized instead of keeping them from harm I was right in the middle of the pack. On 1st day Joe got toasted b/c he said he needed evidence for fellow Boeingers who never see the sun all year that he had in fact found some sun.
Some random comments on the trip: 1) We were on the go the entire time eating out of an ice chest as we went. All four us stayed in the same small tent--1st off that is a 7 footer and two 6 1/2 footers plus a pint size lady. 2nd was the Dad supposed to be snoring in between the two lovebirds just to make things at least half kosher? 3rd we had to tie a string to the little lady so the mosquitoes wouldn't carry her off. We were like kids holding on to a balloon. But they do have good taste since she is awfully dang pretty. But Pat is the only one who can truthfully speak to the good taste however!! 4th had we known on Saturday when we were a stone's throw from Cuba what we found out on Tuesday morning on the way to the airport we would have preferred the alligator, the mosquitos, the sun toasted hides or even the visual damage to our souls that we some how missed out on. On Tuesday after we had changed a bubbled tire on the way back from alligator alley the night before we had the donut spare go flat then a few more miles the bubbled tire back on another tire went flat. So out of 5 tires we had 2 good ones left (well that is not entirely true since they were just as bald as the others). Had this happened down at Key West any of our other perils just mentioned would have been preferred to the Cuban commies, thugs, hurricanes or drunken spring breakers we would have had to contend with way down yonder.
The chapel has a spectacular view on the harbor and made out of coral limestone. Everyone is jealous as heck of Pat at church.
Joe says "Kiss her Pat for a pic" so Pat goes "You mean like this?" Joe says: "well do you think I am going to show you how!!"