Archive for December, 2009

Key West during the holidays… who knew?

Woah.

It’s the week between Christmas and New Years Eve here in lovely Key West, and all I can say is WOW.. I have NEVER seen so many people here. Fantasy Fest was pretty crazy, but the vast majority of those people came out at night to crowd the streets and bump nakedly against one another with the relative anonymity of darkness.

The Christmas holiday travelers are swarming the streets in broad daylight; mothers dragging slack-eyed, Nintendo gazing  children around by the arms, huffing and puffing to get down the street to that next big tourist destination on their travel map, while the fathers lag a few yards behind, beer in hand wishing to themselves drunkenly as they stagger through the crowd that they were here without the family.

Duval Street is packed!

It looks like a Disney theme park out there. But I do have to admit that I find it pretty cool that 90% of the people I walk by aren’t speaking english, or even spanish.. the foreign folks are here in droves man, and they aren’t leaving without their T-shirt! It’s funny to me, and probably just because it’s new to me, but the family vacation dynamic seems to be the same for every culture; Dad just wants to plant it somewhere with a hot waitress and drink. Mom wants to see the lighthouse, Hemingway’s house, the little White House, the aquarium, the shipwreck museum, the secret garden, etc, etc, etc, and all before dinner at that Italian restaurant Frommer’s said was so good. And the kids just want to play video games in the hotel room. You gotta love it! The Key West motto is One Human Family, and this holiday season I’m seeing it in person, we truly are all the same.

Even my street a block over from Duval (which is typically pretty quiet during all the festivals and such) is clogged with more scooters, bicycles, and pedestrians than usual. Finding a parking space on the street is near impossible this week as thousands of rental cars driven by people who are most likely not only a bit tipsy, but more accustomed to driving on the other side of the road vie for open spots as close to Duval as they can get.

I lie in bed at night and hear raucous groups of drunks yelling and whooping it up as they walk from the bars back to their hotels and B&B’s at 4 A.M… something that even during Fantasy Fest and the Poker Run I didn’t hear much of. Sirens are wailing until all hours of the night; they seem to go on forever.. how is that possible? The island’s only a couple miles wide! Are they driving in circles??

Is it possible that Christmas holiday travelers are more unruly than Fantasy Fest goers? That certainly seems to be the case, although I never would have guessed in a million years. I can only assume that it will get worse as we creep closer to New Years Eve.

Christina’s brother Josh is coming Wednesday to stay through the weekend, so we’ll be doing our part to help crowd the streets Thursday night. Schooner Wharf Bar is having it’s ‘Wench Drop” at midnight. They drop a wench (A live one) from the mast of the schooner Wolf which is moored right next to the bar. I think we’ve decided that’s our midnight destination this year. There are other ‘drop ‘ celebrations happening at various bars on Duval, like the drag queen in the big red shoe, but I think we’re going to try to avoid some of the crazy tourists and stay close to the local’s haunt.

I’ll be sure and post some photos!

Mike

Eggnog of the GODS

Hey, it’s christmas…. and I’m feeling generous (or drunk)

This recipe was given to me by a co-worker at my last job. She grew up in Okeechobee, and the pastor at her church made this every year. It became a hard and fast tradition at our office, and when she left to go work somewhere else, she passed the recipe to me so the tradition would live on. I made it for christmas every year after that, but then I got laid off, and then that company got bought out by a big corporation, children screamed and dogs and cats were living together, so no more eggnog for them!

Learn from their mistakes…. drink the NOG

Father Luc’s Eggnog of the Saints as interpreted by theMike

Makes about a gallon and a half

12 eggs, separated

3 quarts heavy cream

2 cups Rum & 2 cups Brandy mixed together (I use Mount Gay rum and E&J brandy)

1.5 cups of cane sugar (you can use regular sugar if you’re a wanker)

whole nutmeg

I have a big kitchenaid mixer and it makes all this much easier, but you can do it with a hand mixer if you must, just drink more rum, it’ll make the time go by faster.

Beat egg whites until stiff (like merangue) – set aside

Drink some rum

Beat yolks till mixed well, then add 1 cup of booze mixtue SLOWLY while mixing on high, or the alcohol will cook the eggs – set aside

Drink some rum

Whip the cream 1/2 quart at a time until stiff, then pour in some of the sugar, and some of the rum/brandy. Whip until well mixed. Put this into a container large enough to hold about a gallon and a half, and repeat these steps until all the ingredients are used up. Then mix in the egg whites and yolks.

Drink some rum

Grate some fresh nutmeg on top and get snockered.

Rinse, repeat.

More Power Boats!

Here are a few more photos from the power boat races. We wandered around on Duval Saturday night after the races to take in the up-close-and-personal experience with the boats, and then caught the final race on Sunday. Once again, a street festival on Duval street.. always so much fun.. lots of people, food, and of course beers.

The boats were so loud while they were racing, I could hear them from my front porch and I could smell the nitro from their exhaust wafting on the breeze blowing across the island.. good times!

The Miss Geico boat won the race, and no surprise.. it was very impressive – it’s turbine powered instead of piston-engine powered. It sounded like a jet airplane when it went by, quieter than the other boats, but quite obviously faster.. it was like watching something out of a batman movie.. well except it was bright green! It shot by so fast on the water that I had a hard time snapping a photo before it was out of the frame! The photo up there is the victory pass, even at idle it sounded like a jet.. I get chills just thinking about it now.. it was very cool.

Still, as much as I enjoyed the Miss Geico boat, I think my favorite was the Cintron boat, it was LOUD and painted a very sober grey. Unfortunately I think it must have broken down at some point, because it wasn’t in the race on Sunday. When we saw it on the street Saturday night, I understood why it was so loud.. it had two 1500 HP blown V8 engines in it.. you can see the photos down the page a bit.. makes miss my gearhead days from high school!

MorePowerBoats (12 photos)
13 November 2009

Note: To see the pictures in the original Picasa album, click here