7 Mile Bridge

Like traveling anywhere in the keys, you have to drive over a number of bridges to hop from rock to rock. Going to Key West, however, means you get to travel over the 7 mile bridge. Supposedly there is a 7 mile bridge run every year….it’s now on my bucket list…

Southernmost Life

Key West, of course, is located in Monroe County, the southernmost county in the U.S. Thus, everything down there is the southernmost of its kind.

The Southernmost Queen Anne Windows

The southernmost slot machine on a porch

The southernmost mile marker...and likely the southernmost Bockfest t-shirt

The southernmost fresh squeezed OJ

The southernmostdelicious eggs benny

My favorite though, is the southernmost point. A mere 90 miles from Castro’s cigars, people stand in what I have dubbed the southernmost tourist line to take a picture at the southernmost monument.

The southernmost tourist line

Or they do what I did, sit on the wall in front and get a picture with someone else’s family behind you….southernmost jackass? Maybe….

The southernmost little boy with his mama! Love You!

Coolest sunrise of my life….

Crazier than that was getting on bikes and riding 38 miles back down to sea level. Rain suits come off about halfway down.

The Nautilimo

I have no idea what these were other than part of the cheap happy hour food.

Dino Bones

The local Moose Lodge (of which I am a member*)

The goofy ass smile one of my mom's dogs makes

The Flip HD cam is a pretty sweet, I just need a little tripod for it so I don’t have to rely on rocky ledges as a base. I shot this sunset for 20 minutes, and sped up it makes a pretty cool time lapse. I’d bet that will show up with some more original music here in the next few posts…

*Yes I am a member of the Order of the Moose. My mom used to work at the Moose lodge pictured above, and signed me up for shits and giggles (and in case I ever needed access to a group health coverage plan or cheap beer). So now that I’ve been to this one, I’m looking to get some people together to hit one around here. I know there is one in Middletown…..should be quite the experience…

Posting was light last week because I skipped out of town Wednesday to head down to the “Village of Islands” aka Islamorada. Located in the middle of the Florida Keys, these little strips of land are, at points, barely wider than the road that traverses them. And I do mean THE road, US1 which is the only way down. It’s a paradise of sorts, filled with plenty of oddities like the rocky beach pictured above, or concrete power line poles in the water:

But it’s hard to be anything other than relaxed when you’re on vacation and you look down the street at this:

Even if the sand was a little coarse, it didn’t keep me from planting myself on it for the majority of my stay.

The best part of my moms place is waking up to the sunrise on one side, and walking across the street to catch sunset and a Yuengling on the other.

Here are some other Keys Oddities:

Keys in the Keys

Aptly named

Fishy parking spaces

Neighborhood flora

Neighborhood Fauna

Bikes are everywhere

Everything I saw and experienced added to the allure of this place. It’s beyond South Florida (i.e. Miami and Ft. Lauderdale) both in geography and culture. $1500-a-night cabins next to trailer parks. It’s something outta this world, and well worth the trip…especially if you have a good captain….

Also don’t forget to get sauced early tomorrow with Kegs and Eggs starting at 6am at Arnold’s. But back to now….

Until 5 o’clock (or whatever time the paid responsibility portion of your day ends) feel free to take a mini 5 minute vacation to Paradise. Last September some friends and I went to Maui and I shot a ton of pictures and video. One of the highlights of the trip was the zipline tour of the hillside above the Ka’anapali strip. I’m still working on a video for the trip as a whole, but I did cut together the zipline clips. So lose yourself for a few minutes in Paradise……it’ll be 5:00 pm before you know it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkcqx5lQp3g

Running, on the other hand, has been an on and off part of my life ever since I started playing sports as a little kid. However it wasn’t until the end of high school that I realized I could run for for the sake of running–by myself–and enjoy it.

Recently I found myself comparing the two activities and their similarities. You’re asking yourself right now “How could running around outside and sitting in a chair getting a tattoo be similar?” For starters, they are things that people are–for the most part–either into or they’re not, with little to no gray area. There are other similarities as well.

Tri Swim Bike Run

1. Both involve a certain amount of pain that one must, on some level, find enjoyable.
With tattoos it’s obvious, that’s not a massaging needle they use to put ink in your skin. With running, I’m not talking about the pain from an injury (that’s just bad). It’s the pain you feel right before the runners high takes over and you stop thinking about moving your legs and just let them rhythmically churn. It’s gritting out the last half mile of a race, and kicking your pace up even though your muscles are about to issue a cease and desist order.

And when you’re done with a tattoo or a race, there is a great sense of accomplishment and relief. Which leads me to my next point.

2. Both are meaningful experiences that stay with you for life.
You’re never going to forget the experience of sitting/laying in the chair at the tattoo parlor getting a tattoo. And if you do somehow forget it, the tattoo will be there always to remind you.

Now I’m not saying I remember every run I’ve been on. But I remember all of the races. I remember the important runs where ‘something clicked’ or I was able to work through an important issue in my life. I look through the collection of routes I have and I think about the places I have seen and things I have discovered while running–it’s all a big part of who I am today. I once read an article about how to motivate yourself to run on vacation. I laughed–to me running on vacation is almost a necessity. Not only do I want the exercise, I want to see my surroundings and find new paths that I would otherwise leave unexplored.

I was recently in Maui with some friends, staying at a resort we had been to two years before. Last time I couldn’t run, so I was excited to explore more of the resort strip with my Nikes propelling me along the way. I ended up making my way farther north than I expected, and found myself looking back south over Black Rock and down the line of stately beachside residences. A glance up north showed a view of untouched beach that beckoned me to explore. And while I don’t remember every step of that run, I’ll never forget the feeling of rounding the corner to that lookout and marveling at where I was.

Editor’s Note: I realize this post drifts off at the end with no real conclusion. There is a follow up article in the works. But it kind of fits, because I drift off during good runs, and good tattoo sessions.

The Road To Hana

Will Hike for Waterfalls

This is about as urban as it got:

Downtown Lahaina

I Can't get enough of these shots

But the sun has set on vacation, and now it is back to the real world.