Florida Tales. The First Blog Post on this Site

You’re looking at the first blog post ever published on Adventures of a GoodMan.

Written. December 14, 2007
Updated. May 21, 2013

After years of sending family and friends travel updates via e-mail, I decided to add a blog to my existing photograph Web site in 2007.

I was especially excited, as I could instantly add thousands of unspoken words to every story.

having the photo alongside the story instantly added those 1,000 unsaid words to the story.

it meant I could now add thousands of words tell my stories using photography to enhance the story instead of just linking to a snapfish gallery at the end.

As it is one of the only ones coded the way you see below, I have decided to leave it’s formatting intact using the same code I wrote in 2007. Seeing this post today makes me reflect on how far the site has come and reminds me of

Shorts and Flip Flops in December … AKA, Florida Tales

Five vacation days that don’t carry over to 2008 could mean only one thing…vacation time! Don’t worry, this email won’t be as epic as my usual ones since not as much crazy stuff happens when you’re in Florida with a rent-a-car. YAAAAR, SAID THE PIRATE

I’m sure everyone has heard of a renaissance fair, where eccentric folks from all over dress up in medieval garb and live the lifestyle of the time for a few days. Well, in Key West they were having the Pirate Convention.

Basically, the same folks who usually take part in the renaissance fare ditch their frilly aristocratic clothes for eye patches, wooden legs and bandannas. It started at the park where people had set up a pirate community, just as it would have existed on the same spot hundreds of years ago. This was complete with tents, bonfires, guns, armor, war wounds, people polishing helmits, and everyone dressed the part. The “pirates” were very friendly and talked to us in their pirate-lingo.

My favorite was when I was told about how one pirate’s wench stole the evil British scallywag’s shoe the day before.Also a part of the fun was a replica pirate village, which you had to pay a real $4 to get into, inside an old fort. There the pirates went shopping for supplies for their ships, food, ales, and, of course, wenches. This was all to prepare them for the day’s afternoon affair…a full sea battle with the British.

We were a bit bummed that we were heading scuba diving that afternoon and could not stay to watch the battle, but happily boarded the boat to head out to the dive location. It was a minute or two after we passed the fort that housed the pirate village that we first spotted the pirate ship in the water. However, it seems that they spotted us too, as they began to fire their cannons at our ship as we passed by and we barely made it away with our lives intact. Well, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch…the cannonballs were blanks, but it was still pretty cool nonetheless. And then we went scuba diving. The end.

MOSQUITOES AND GATORS

After five days in beautiful and comfortable Key West, Carrie and I packed up the rental car and headed for two nights of camping in the Everglades. Despite a night filled with mosquitoes feasting on our blood, we decided to stick around and go for a hike. Literally, every other second I heard the sound of a mosquito buzzing by my head. We both had long shirts, pants, sneakers and lots of Off on, and it did nothing. We got bit through our clothes despite walking at a fast pace. When we stopped to tie a shoe or take a photo the mosquitoes would literally swarm us and we would have to swat them off the other person. Needless to say, not so much fun.

Shortly after we headed to a different, less swampy part of the Everglades where we went for a 15 mile bike ride through gator country. We must have seen at least 20 or so gators no more than five feet from us. We even saw one jump out of the water and just miss killing a bird that was misfortunate enough to fly a bit low. After that we found a remote camp site where we tucked ourselves in for one more night of being mosquito food. In the end, I had 109 mosquitoes bites on my body and Carrie wasn’t far behind.

SKY DIVING

As you may or may not know, I have a little James Bond obsession and Web site. Well, as some Bond movies were filmed in Florida, I tried to find various locations and take photos. One of them was an airstrip just north of Key West, which also happened to have a skydiving shop. As Carrie and I had both done it before, we decided to give it a go. I can’t even begin to describe how amazing the view was. It took around 15 minutes to fly two miles into the sky, all the time looking down on 90 miles in all directions of water, islands and beauty. Then it was out the door, 120mph for 50 seconds, then 5 minutes of parachuting down slowly looking over the land. No crazy stories, just the most amazing thing ever.