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"IN MEMORY OF MARY LOGSDON" - IN NOTE SECTION OF CHECK

JUNE 30, 2006 - "OFF THE FLORIDA KEYS, THERE'S A PLACE CALLED KOKOMO, THAT'S WHERE I WANT TO GO, TO GET AWAY FROM IT ALL….."

The weather tonight in Key Largo is hot and humid. Getting here was a journey that needed to be undertaken thereon, but thereto forgone to …… oooooooh, I am STILL thinking about that guy from NASA. I am SO glad he's not a mission controller.

Anyway, I left Titusville and headed straight for here, only stopping to take advantage of a needed gas station or lavatory facility that would allow me to pee therein. The heat and humidity combine to create some wild weather patterns that could be seen all around me. I never had to worry about that today though. I only had one 10 second cloudburst that hit me. It was only 10 seconds because it was only one cloud, and I was moving along at a pretty good clip when I went under it. I put some miles on today, well over 350. While on the way here, I stopped at Peterson's Harley Davidson, on Route 1. It is the southern most Harley Dealer in Florida. I find it interesting that each dealer has ONE THING that they are world famous for. In this case they aren't the world's largest, but they ARE the southern most dealership in Florida. They were very nice and offered some good advice to me for traveling down to Key West.

As I moved down Route 1 and got closer to the Key Largo area, it was evident that I was leaving the mainland. The terrain got much flatter, and looked much wetter as solid ground gave way to swampy "Everglades" like topography. That gave way to the two lane being the only solid ground visible to the left or the right. It looked weird on the GPS to see only a very narrow band  of "brown" and to look up and see only a very narrow band of earth. Open water was visible on both sides of the highway. For those of you who travel from Algonac to New Baltimore, this area looked like St. John's Marsh (I know that is the second time I have alluded to that, but it is the only one that most people will be familiar with). As drivers leave the mainland there is a huge 12 foot by 8 foot warning sign that reads:

HIGHWAY 1 - 194 FATAL ACCIDENTS SO FAR THIS YEAR Basically, people are killed trying to pass. At least that is what I was told by the locals. When I traveled Maine's Hwy 1, I saw tons of signs that said "Moose Crossing". In New Jersey, the signs said "Deer Crossing", in Key Largo, the signs on Hwy 1 said "Crocodile Crossing" I certainly would not wish to argue with one of them.

I have only seen one alligator or crocodile so far, and that was in a drainage ditch next to the road on the Space Center grounds. He looked "handbag" size to me. Maybe he was a size 12 shoe too, I don't know, I was going to fast to be sure.

I booked into the Holiday Inn in Key Largo. It seemed to be the least expensive and yet, still decent place to be. I went out to the TIKI bar (yest, it is the island, so it has to be a tiki bar) and ordered a drink and a burger. The one band band started playing and it soon became readily apparent that this truly was a holiday inn.

Does anyone else other than me remember Dan Ackroyd's portrayal of a Holiday Inn lounge singer? Remember "Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars, ….." Well, tonight I had the personal delight to hear the 21st Century equivelant. This one man band was having a good ol' time trying to run his computer, play the keyboard, play the bass guitar, sing and program his sequencer all at the same time. The end result was, of course, that nothing came out right. I literally heard half of every song. This was because lyrics would be missing, part of the bass line would be missing, part of the keyboard melody would be missing, the drum track would be missing, the horn track would be missing….. you get the idea. It was MADDENING. I was having such fun hoping that there wasn't a cover charge for this. And THEN, some couple sitting down the bar asked the bar tender if he had any CD's for sale. I must have looked at them in horror, because the bar tender asked me if I was ok.

Did I mention that E V E R Y T H I N G  he sang had a Reggae bent to it? Oh, and he squeezed in such popular Reggae hits as I AM A LINEMAN FOR THE COUNTY, and WELCOME TO THE HOTEL CALIFORNIA - as well as - I WENT TO THE DESERT ON A HORSE WITH NO NAME - and who can forget that reggae hit, COPA CABANA …… oh, and one more thing………..

This marketing genius of a half a one man band, when he took a break, played CD's that were far better than he was. People actually got up and danced, for heaven's sake.

Speaking of marketing genius, besides playing artists that really brought home how untalented he really was, when he took his break, he also took his dreadlocks off and hung them on the microphone stand.

I THINK I NEED TO GO BACK TO THE    M   O   T    E   L    back in New Jersey.