Back to Knowing What Day It Is

Bye, bye beach.

And, just like that, Islamorada is in the rear-view mirror and we're cruising up Card Sound Road en route to the Miami airport, photos on devices and memories firmly in place, all conveying some ridiculously relaxing vacation time spent.

Books read: I finally finished the Playboy Lennon/Yoko interviews, read "Kafka Was All the Rage" and got a quarter into "The Tender Bar," so let's say I managed just over two and not dwell on my lack of reading time.

Favorite restaurant tagline: "Peace, love and hogfish" at Chef Micheal's. But what the chef really wants you to eat is the invasive lionfish because their only predator in the Atlantic is us humans. The restaurant's claim is that they're eradicating lionfish one plate at a time. Pshaw, I eat skate and puffer fish, so I've got no problem eating these invaders, too.

Typical billboard: "TIKI HUTS New or re-thatch." I bet the children of entire families have been put through college on those profits because tiki huts are ubiquitous around here.

Handwritten farmer's market sign, "Cold coconuts sold here!!" Just don't put coconuts in the trash bins because we've learned that's strictly forbidden in these parts.

Swankiest car seen: a red convertible Bentley, driving into a members-only fishing club. Who knew that Venn diagram overlapped?

Points for keeping to a theme: Because Islamorada's claim to fame is being the sport-fishing capital of the world, everyone riffs on it. When you head north to Key Largo, the sign reads, "Catch you later!" For a book on swashbuckling Jewish pirates, there's the local bookstore, Hooked on Books. Hungry? Check out the Reel Burger restaurant.

Most unexpected testament to Key West life: IVs in the Keys, a business that will fill your veins with just the right concoction to make the night before stop hurting.

Tie for most colorful Key West spots: a dessert cafe called Better than Sex and a clothing-optional rooftop bar called Garden of Eden. We hear tell of a brothel, but see no evidence.

Unexpected sighting: two gray squirrels chasing up a palm tree although we only saw them one time, so it could have been a mirage. Iguanas, on the other hand, are as omnipresent as, well, squirrels in Richmond. When you have all the windows open all the time, you just get used to occasionally seeing an iguana on the curtain.

Because the reentry to the real world begins at the airport and I'm hoping to delay that moment as long as possible, we make the requisite dive bar stop, just like we did on the way down, except this time arriving just as a handful of Harley riders do. Only problem is it's 10:15 and they're not open yet except for beers, so we cruise a bit, which is when we spot the rare Bentley.

Along the way, I notice a pattern of signs on the bridges. It's either a "No jumping, No diving" sign or a "No fishing" sign, meaning you never have to go very far to find a bridge you can jump off of or a place to catch your dinner.

Somehow, this sums up Florida for me.

Back at Alabama Jack's, I'm exiting the rental car as an SUV pulls up next to us and the guy immediately initiates a conversation with me. Seems he and his posse are just off a cruise boat but instead of  heading home, they've set their sites on a wild night in Key West. "Sort of a post-vacation vacation," he insists, smiling broadly.

Hey, I get it. Surely that's the smartest way to lessen end-of-vacation blues.

When AJ's finally lets us in, we see the bar is already full of people willing to drink beer until they opened officially. And because Cliches "R" Us at Alabama Jack's, "Don't Stop Believing" is blasting overhead as we slide into a waterfront table lower than the last time, but with a better view of the bar and its colorful patrons: serious cyclists with accents and day-glow hot pink socks, a table of self-important weekend-type Harley riders and a quartet of grizzly locals eating lunch and sipping Coronas.

Hard to tell who's coming and who's going from vacation.

Next to us is an older couple who not only know their server, but have brought their own Koozies - two each, mind you, one of which has no bottom - to encircle their bottles of beer in the sunshine. They also know to save bits of their lunch to feed to the fish under the deck.

The most I can manage from my double crabcake sandwich (not that I'm complaining, but who ever heard of two crabcakes on one sandwich?) is tossing the fish bits from the over-sized bun and not a bite more before we hit the road to catch a plane.

Le sigh. If vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it, ours was a major success. As for the adjustment to cold weather and the responsibilities of real life upon return, well, that's a work in progress.

For now, tanned legs and Mr. Wright's insistence on having "something to look forward to" will carry me forward. Or I could take Journey's advice and hold on to that feeling.

And I'm trying...with every relaxed bone in my body. Catch you later, warmth and indolence. Man, oh man, are you seductive.

Conch Fritter Life

Let the R & R begin.

The good news is, when you wake up on a Saturday morning at the Miami airport hotel, you can be at the "Welcome to the Keys" sign by 11 a.m., even if you take a less traveled route than the obvious Route 1.

Our arrival time meant we slid into Alabama Jack's before the lunch crowds, scoring a waterside high table with no effort. One of Mr. Wright's Vero Beach buddies had suggested the vintage dive bar as essential road eating, mainly for the conch fritters.

No one needed to tell us twice to stop at a place with a cut-out metal sign reading, "Harley parking only" and with two milkcrates inexplicably sitting on the roof.

Although we also ordered perfectly delicious spiced shrimp, Hugh had been right and it was the fritters that needed to be experienced. Instead of a basket of neat little balls of fried bread and conch, what arrived was an enormous fritter that overflowed the sides of the basket and had the shape of a tentacled blob. I mean that in the best way.

Two plastic knives were impaled in the fritter, the better to carve out bites of the monster while gleaning the history of the joint from our friendly server. Seems Alabama Jack's started life as a fishing camp across the water from a mangrove forest. It wasn't hard to imagine salty fishermen traveling dirt roads to get there.

Open to the elements on all sides, the railings were covered in Sharpie-scribbled declarations of love, the ancient fans mounted on the weathered walls were covered in rust and when food fell off a plate to the floor, the staff just kicked it into the water. Old license plates hung everywhere, from a  Florida plate reading "NO TAX" to a Maryland plate that had expired 3-31-70.

Every time the bartender got a tip, he rang a rusty old bell. That kind of place.

The first time I saw how food removal happened, it was a chicken bone the server jettisoned into the water. Immediately, a school of what I learned was needle fish - long, skinny, almost translucent green needle-nosed creatures - descended on it voraciously.

When I commented to our server about the feeding frenzy, she told us to wait until the mango snappers showed up, which was anytime a piece of conch fritter hit the water. Naturally, I immediately pulled off a piece of ours and tossed it overboard, only to see 30 or so fish shoot out from the wooden slats under our table and fight over it.

And by fight, I mean, out of the water, tails slapping each other and the water, and fish bumping into each other. Kind of like what I imagined eating at an orphanage was like in Dickensian times.

Shrimp shells had a similar, if not quite as frenetic, effect on the needle fish, but the mango snappers clearly wanted their lunch fried. Some rube tossed out lettuce and onion and the fish and I looked at him incredulously. These fish wanted the good stuff off our plates.

Surely this goes against every law of nature, right? What ecosystem supports cannibalism anyway?

But it wasn't all ugly competition. Boats passed by slowly, many of the occupants waving hello because the distance from us to them was so close. Meanwhile, across the water we saw a great blue heron standing calmly by the mangroves, his back to us.

Or maybe he was just disgusted with his fellow water dwellers.

By the time we left, new arrivals were having to sit far from the water and were happy to get that. We may have been ungodly early at Alabama Jack's, but our timing was impeccable.

Our next stop was as unlikely as it was charming. Tucked behind a Holiday Inn and hard to locate, we stopped to see the original African Queen. That's right, the boat used in the Hepburn/Bogart movie, which now docks behind a glass bottom boat in Key Largo.

Since it hasn't been all that long since I saw "The African Queen" at the Byrd, it was instantly recognizable.

Even more surprising was how small it looked. There was the boiler (recently replaced) in the center and the canopy that kept the rain off Hepburn as she slept. On the back was a wooden crate of gin like the one Bogart emptied in the movie. The smell of old water-saturated wood rose from the old girl.

A guy standing on the dock told us that the 1912 boat had been bought in 1982 and moved to Florida. Both an American and British flag were mounted on it and you could actually go out on a dinner cruise on it despite its petite size.

And while that would have been lovely, we had other places to be, namely Islamorada.

The digs for our winter getaway is called Leila's house and sits on the most placid Atlantic I've ever seen. When it's low tide, there's a little beach and when it's high tide, there's an ocean that ends near the downstairs patio and pool. From the main deck, about all we see is water that ranges from turquoise to bottle green to pale blue and palm trees constantly rustling in the breeze.

Best of all, it was 82 when we arrived, although the woman at the Visitors' Center warned us of an impending cold front, so it would be dropping to 75. Don't make us laugh.

Suddenly the past few weeks of non-stop deadlines are forgotten. Hello, warm days and nights. How I've missed you.