My keys journey…
Today I am sitting here at my favorite place on the island Fort Zachary Taylor. Or as some of the locals call it Elizabeth Taylor since it got a reputation as THE place for gay men to hangout. I first heard that term from my landlord David. He is a very nice old man who used to own the Florida Keys magazine. I guess I should start a from the beginning. I left home on Sunday April 21st, 2013. At the time that I left Chicago, I had a possible house sitting job but all of the details were up in the air and I didn’t know if I had a job or not. I drove all the way to Bowling Green and finally stopped to get a hotel room. If you don’t know where that is its about an hour north of Nashville.
I then continued onto St. Simmons Island in Georgia. Stayed there for 2 nights and then headed down to Key West. While on my way to St Simmons I got a call from a guy I had contacted on CouchSurfing.com, he said that he had a place for me to stay and would help me find a place to live. I thought about it and I had a 50/50 chance of it working out great or I could be murdered and end up in a ditch somewhere. You only live once so I planned on meeting him in Key West on Wednesday. But first back to St Simmons island, a friend of mine works at a hotel down there and she arranged my stay. Wonderful place if you are ever in the area it’s called King and Prince. (www.kingandprince.com)
She took me over to Driftwood beach and we were just walking around and playing in the water. I looked a little bit ahead of us and saw this big mass just sitting in the sand and thought could it be … A real life sea turtle? Yes indeed it was! He was actually injured and was missing part of his back flipper. My friend Coleen called the sea turtle rescue hotline and they said they would come out and get him. I’m sitting there thinking to myself this kind of stuff only happens in the movies right? Since we were only planning on being out there for 10 – 15 minutes we didn’t have any sunscreen on. Biggest mistake of my life! From that day forward I will ALWAYS carry it with me. (As I am sitting here writing this I have 3 different types with me!) I never want to get a sunburn like that again. The worst part is I didn’t even realize I was getting burnt because I was so excited and worked up about the sea turtle. After an hour and 15 minutes the local rescue squad drove up in a super size ATV. They jumped out and were yelling “He’s Alive!” I’m sitting there thinking to myself um yeah he’s alive… Why would we call you if he wasn’t? Apparently they get A LOT of uneducated tourists that think they are alive or even that its a sea turtle and it isn’t. We appropriately named him Bruiser. Sadly all that waiting and work was for nothing. He ended up dying the next day at the Sea Turtle hospital. It was defiantly an experience that I will never forget. The next morning I was checked out of the hotel and on my way to Key West.
That’s just the first part of the story! Stay tuned!
Peace, LOVE and Tweeting! -tOr
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