I am convinced there is no bad coffee in the Florida Keys. The coffee’s Cuban flare lifted my spirits after a two-day-road-trip from Chicago to Marathon on Vaca Key. Me, Zach, and Corbin would sit in seafood diners where the waitresses called you “hun” and colorful Cuban cafes set between dive shops and chum docks while drinking in our daily cup(s) of coffee before setting out for the day. Knight’s Key Campground was home base for the week; our home away from home mixed with other tents and RV’s. The only time we spent there was to catch a quick night of rest before grabbing more coffee.
The Keys in March are thick with snowbirds poring over colorful maps with their leathery hands, milling about the seaside inns and tourist hotspots – driving at their leisurely pace on the overseas highway. However, beneath the veneer of boats and shops, there is still some wilderness in the Keys and the spirit of what the Keys used to be. A turn down an unmarked street could lead to ancient Calusa fishing grounds or a pirate’s hideaway. The land holds many stories and many of ours are added to the long epilogue of forgotten names and faces.
The three of us chased the sunset one night and ventured down one of these roads. Walls of subtropical hardwood hammock – mahogany, poisonwood, and mangrove – encased the road to Big Torch Key. Knee-high Key Deer scampered from one wall to the other. Dense forest gave way to thatch palm marshes where the water touched either side of the road. We found a secluded beach on a map we wanted to watch the sunset from and tried our best not to veer into the marsh trying to find it. The western end of the road stopped just before a narrow trail cut off by the rising tide. This was our beach trail and we were forced to take another path leading into what appeared to be a jungle.
We never made it to the beach. Our trail tumbled into a clearing of an ancient coral bed strewn with succulents. I can’t speak for Corbin or Zach, but personally, I loved every bit of that mad marsh and jungle. The dusk sky broke with fleshy pink and orange while ring-necked doves cooed in the bush. We discovered the unexpected and witnessed something beautiful.
“One who walks a road for its gift of footsteps discovers unwavering fullness that requires no destination” (Walt Whitman).
Enjoy the path you are on now for the what it is without worrying about what may or may not come. Take things as they come and go. That is what I have learned from the Keys last week.
In general, the Keys were what we needed to escape Chicago’s winter, even if just for a week. We were running the Keys from sunup to sundown. Sand Spur Beach at Bahia Honda State Park will give me visions of turquoise waters lapping white sands for weeks. I’ve got enough vitamin D for the next year and the burns to go with it. I have one more story and a new memory to think about before graduating in May. And all the while, midnight mint skies of stars burn, burn, burn over the Keys.
Santiago Camping 