A Lap Around America

by Shawn Inmon

  What he built and how he did it is fascinating: Using no electricity and only the most primitive of tools. he moved delicate coral rocks weighing as much as 30 tons to build his castle—all alone, under the cover of darkness. He never revealed his methods. Nearly a century later, there are wildly varying theories about how he accomplished this, but no one knows for sure.

  Mysteries abound throughout the site, for example the nine-ton gate he was able to move easily by himself. When it stopped working many years after his death, engineers using modern equipment were brought in to fix it. They could not, and it has been frozen in place for years.

  You may be thinking Ed was a huge, hulking man who moved these rocks with brute strength, but he was not. There is a life-sized cutout of the man near the gift shop. Dawn Adele, who claims to be 5-foot-3 (which would have to be when she’s wearing heels) was several inches taller. It looked like he might have weighed 110 pounds after a large meal.

  Dawn and Ed

  Ed himself said he had discovered the secret of how the Egyptians built their pyramids and used the same system. Other theorists suggest he used a strange form of magnetism, or alien technology. Me? I am happy to admit that I have no idea.

  Ed’s story doesn’t have a happy, or even satisfying, ending. He apparently stayed in contact with the girl he was obsessed with for years after he arrived. Eventually she stopped answering his letters. He died alone, having never married, at the age of sixty-three. Now that’s stubbornness. Or, a complete inability to move on from past injuries.

  As a man who was also in love with a long-lost girl for decades, I can relate. I simply wrote a book about Dawn Adele, though, and resisted building an immense shrine to her. I think I made the proper choice.

  We left Miami without ever seeing the part of the city that shows up on television, and we were good with that. We turned onto Highway 1, the only choice you have if you want to drive the Florida Keys.

  The Keys consist of a string of small islands curving southwest from the southernmost tip of mainland Florida. They are the stuff dreams and songs are made of. If you remember the old Bertie Higgins song “Key Largo,” (“Just like Bogie and Bacall”), that was one of the first we drove through.

  We were immediately drawn to the vibe that permeates the Keys. Everyone we talked to seemed relaxed, happy, as though they didn’t care much what was happening in the rest of the world—they were good with their little corner.

  We saw our first Keys sunset on the way to our hotel. A little side road off Highway 1 pointed west toward the sunset, so we pulled off. We almost gave up taking it when we spotted a sign that marked it as a private housing area, but other sunset-seekers immediately began showing up around us. They clustered in little groups, taking pictures, murmuring quietly and absorbing the wonder of the deep oranges and reds that soon filled the sky.

  Two years earlier, I had written a novella called Second Chance Summer. The cover for that book showed an idyllic palm tree silhouetted against an island sunset. It looked precisely like what was laid out before us. Glancing to our right we saw a home with a large deck built out toward the water, filled with people watching the sun slowly dip toward the horizon. How nice would it be to have that kind of an ending to each day? I wouldn’t mind finding out.

  We drove on to our hotel for the night, the Glunz Ocean Resort. It was relatively inexpensive, so I was a little worried it might be one of those places that call themselves a resort when they are … not. I needn’t have worried. The friendliest front desk person we had met on the trip checked us in and seemed genuinely sad that we were only staying one night.

  “You’re going to love it here,” she said.

  She was right.

  The room itself was pleasant, with a separate bedroom / bathroom / kitchen / living room. Much more space than we were used to on our trip. It was when I threw open the sliding glass door that things got really special. The Glunz’s owners advertise it as an oceanfront resort, and they are not kidding. It was pitch-dark by the time we got to our room, but we could see the opalescent moon shimmering over the Atlantic, the water just a few feet below. The soothing sound of rolling surf gently washing up below us was like music. I wanted to lie down and sleep right there on the lanai.

  Day Twenty-Seven

  When I woke up about 6 a.m., I hustled back to the sliding glass doors. I wanted to get a better view of what I could only glimpse the night before. I was not disappointed. Sunshine dappled across blue waves that stretched to the horizon. The surf continued to roll right below our deck, beckoning. I knew Dawn would be asleep for a time, so I slipped my swim trunks on and headed for the ocean.

  Our view from Glunz Resort

  A groomed white sand beach that belonged to the Glunz sloped gently into the water. The temperature was already in the upper 80s, but floating happily in the warm salt water, I felt as contented as I had on the entire trip. I’m not sure how long I spent floating the day away, but eventually Dawn joined me and we both swam until we were tired.

  When we climbed out, we saw our first iguana, scooting along the beach, casting sideways glances at us as we invaded his space. The woman at the front desk the night before was correct—we didn’t want to leave.

  But Key West awaited us. Since we had started in the far northwestern corner of the country, reaching Key West, which was as far south as we could go, felt like the halfway point of the tour. The trip was starting to wear us out a little bit, so making that halfway mark looked pretty big. Reluctantly, we left the Glunz and continued on toward the home of Ernest Hemingway and perfect sunsets.

  Just a few miles down Highway 1, we saw a sign that read Turtle Hospital. That sounded interesting. Dawn Adele loves turtles. She loves all animals, but turtles occupy the top rung on her adoration ladder.

  Like everything in Florida, which had been by far our most expensive state to tour, there was a $22-per-person charge, but The Turtle Hospital is a nonprofit, so all the entry fees go back to caring for the turtles. Unlike Big Cat Rescue, which we had visited earlier this week, these turtles don’t come from homes they have outgrown but rather a wild environment that nearly killed them.

  Turtles are injured in many ways—by ingesting litter from the ocean, by getting run over by boats, or by contracting diseases they cannot survive. Anyone who spots a turtle in distress can call The Turtle Hospital and its staff do the rest. Whoever spots the sick or injured turtle gets to name it. One fisherman has found so many that he has used up the names of all the characters on Gilligan’s Island. The hospital is serious about nursing these turtles back to health and releasing them back into the wild.

  I love the way it all started, as a tourist attraction at a roadside motel. Since that was in the eighties, kids who went through the attraction naturally asked about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When the man who owned the place investigated, he found out he needed to help turtles before he could display turtles. Thanks to a kids’ cartoon, The Turtle Hospital was born.

  Many patients have been run over by boats and barely lived to tell the tale. They can often be patched up, rehabilitated, and set free to swim once more. Others suffer from an unfortunately named condition: “bubble butt.” Bubble butt occurs when turtles get micro-pockets of gases trapped inside their shells. That causes the back of the shell to be lighter than the front, which means it rises in the water, making it difficult to swim. Imagine trying to swim comfortably underwater when you have large pockets of air in your swimsuit, lifting your hind end toward the surface. Eventually, this problem leads to exhaustion, stress, and often death. The hospital places weights on an afflicted turtle’s shell to counteract the air pockets and help him swim more normally, but there is currently no cure for the condition, so such turtles aren’t eligible for release back into the ocean.

  After a few hours gawking at the turtles, I was able to pull Dawn away, and we arrived at Key West in mid-afternoon. We checked into a cute little room in a 120-year-old hotel. I think people were smaller a century ag
o; I know their hotel rooms were, as there was barely room for a queen-sized bed in the room.

  Still, it was in Key West, and it had a sweet little swimming pool that we happily jumped into for our second swim of the day. We could get used to this aspect of Florida living.

  Eventually, we got dressed and wandered down to Mallory Square, where there is a celebration of the sunset every night. In a high-tech world, a gathering of people to watch a sunset seems like an anachronism. We saw it with our own eyes, though.

  With good reason, they make a big deal out of sunsets in Key West. A huge crowd gathers, and of course, where people gather, merchants gather to sell them things. So, it wasn’t quite completely low-key, but it was still nice. We grabbed a shaved ice and watched a few of the performers there, in particular a juggler I found impressive.

  Eventually, we found a seat right on the dock, facing dead west. As the sun dropped, a sense of anticipation built. Yes, many people had their cameras out to capture the moment, but there was kind of a contented, happy reverence in the crowd as well.

  When the sun finally touched the horizon, the crowd oohed and aahed as though at the grand finale of a fireworks display. When the last bit of sun disappeared, everyone on the pier broke out in spontaneous applause. For just a few moments, I felt a little less cynical and I was proud to be a human being.

  We walked back home via Duvall Street, which is to Key West what Bourbon Street is to New Orleans. If, that is, Bourbon Street didn’t smell like one of the outer circles of Hell. Duvall was actually nice and clean, with a million bars, restaurants, and ways for tourists to part with their money. Before we knew it, we were back at our hotel.

  Dawn turned to me and said, “You know what we just did, right?”

  “Saw an amazing sunset?”

  “Right. We saw an amazing sunset, then walked past about a hundred restaurants without getting dinner.”

  It was a fair point. I had been too busy gawking at everything to think about eating. On the corner right next to our hotel room was a small food truck that specialized in gourmet pizzas.

  “You go on to the air-conditioned room. I’ll order us a pizza and bring it to you in just a few.”

  “These are the times when I remember why I married you.”

  I’d like to think that’s a constant thought in her mind, but I’ll take what I can get.

  I approached the window and saw a pretty young woman, maybe twenty-five, taking orders. I ordered our pizza, then glanced at her. Her hair was pulled back, sweat was pouring off her, and she looked like she was about to pass out.

  It had “cooled off” to about 90 degrees by that time, but of course it was much hotter inside the food truck, where several pizza ovens were running.

  “Do you like this gig?”

  “Not really,” she said, “but it’s worth it to be living in paradise.”

  I took in her sweat-stained shirt and glazed eyes, and almost asked, “Can any place that makes you look like that really be paradise?” but instead, I smiled and nodded.

  The pizza was great, but the air-conditioning in our room was even better.

  Day Twenty-Eight

  For the first twenty-seven days of our trip, it had felt as though we were moving farther and farther from our home. Today, even though we would be driving first east, and then north, it felt like we had made the turn and were heading home.

  Before we could leave Key West, though, I had to stop and tour Ernest Hemingway’s house. It was just a short distance from our hotel, but we didn’t know that until we were already in the car and had checked out. So, instead of a short walk, we took a very short drive, then paid the price by having a hard time finding a place to park.

  Eventually, we found a spot on a little residential side street. I’m sure the locals all appreciate tourists like us taking up their parking spots. Mea culpa.

  We arrived at the little shed where the ticket taker resides and found that it is $13 per person to tour the house and grounds. I get that. A grand old house like this no doubt has a lot of upkeep to keep it shining. I handed the man my debit card. He shook his head and pushed it back to me.

  “Cash only.”

  I turned to Dawn. “Have you got any cash?”

  Between us, we had about $15. Any mugger that hit us was going to be severely disappointed.

  I turned back to the man in the booth. “Do you have an ATM?”

  “Of course. It is around the back of the house, in the bookstore.”

  “Okay, we’ll just run and grab some cash and be right back, then.”

  He shook his head. “No, no. One of you will have to stay here.” He pointed at Dawn. “She can sit there on the bench until you get back.”

  I nearly gave up on the whole idea, but I did want to see the house where the master wrote some of his finest works, to see the legendary six-toed cats. So, Dawn sat on the bench in the blazing heat, while I ran as quickly as possible back to the ATM, got some money and sprung Dawn from Bench Jail. Let me serve as a cautionary tale: Do not show up at Papa Hemingway’s house without any folding green. They will treat you as a suspect and give you the fish-eye.

  As soon as we entered the house, I forgot about everything else. A sense of history swept over me, and we managed to catch one of the tours just as it was starting. About Ernest Hemingway I will just say this: he led a diverse and messy life. Along with having read probably half of what Hemingway wrote, I knew a few things about him, but was no expert. I learned a lot as we toured his home. I didn’t know that just a few months prior to his suicide, he had undergone electroshock therapy at the Mayo Clinic. The guide said the electroshocks left him unable to think creatively or write. I don’t know whether that’s the case or not, but if it is, I can better understand why he took his own life.

  Have you ever seen the meme writers like to circulate? It says, “Don’t make me angry, or I’ll put you in one of my books and kill you off,” or some such. Hemingway did exactly that. While serving as an eighteen-year-old ambulance driver in World War I, Hemingway was badly injured and left with hundreds of pieces of shrapnel in his legs. He was nursed back to health by a woman he fell in love with—Agnes von Kurowski. He pledged his love, but she brushed him off, as she was several years older and thought him too immature. In his first bestseller, A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway wrote of a similar scenario. In the final chapter, he killed the character of the nurse. That is how a writer gets revenge.

  Hemingway’s house is beautiful, and when you think of how old it is (built in 1851) it is stunning. The thing I most wanted to see (aside from the cats) was his writing studio. It did not disappoint. It sits at the top of a staircase in a separate building at the back of the house. Since Hemingway created approximately 70 percent of his life’s work in the nine years he lived in Key West, he wrote a lot of stories in that private studio. Today, it is set up much as it was then. The walls are lined with bookshelves, his hunting trophies are on the wall, and in the middle of the room is a table with a beat-up old typewriter in the middle. I am betting writers would pay a lot of money to be able to sit in that room, commune with Papa, and write. I know I would.

  Papa’s writing studio

  Cats are everywhere in Hemingway House. Hemingway was given a six-toed cat by a sea captain. He believed six-toed cats to be good luck, so he kept her and she had many litters over the years, passing on the odd gene. Many of the cats living in the house today are descended from that original cat. Papa was, in fact, a kind of crazy cat man; he had as many as seventy cats living with him. If I end up being reincarnated, I would be happy to come back as a six-toed cat at Hemingway House. I’d have lots of visitors to ignore year ’round, and I’d be very well taken care of.

  One of the other funky things we loved in the house is a gussied-up urinal from a Key West bar that Hemingway used to frequent. After the bar was moved, the urinals were ripped out. Hemingway told the owner he had poured so much money down the drain of the urinal, he felt he should own it. The bar own
er agreed, and Hemingway brought it home, much to the dismay of his wife. She had someone put tiles around it to disguise it, but to my eye, it still just looks like a fancy urinal. Today, it is used to give water to the cats.

  We left the Hemingway House and swung by one last tourist stop in Key West—the “Southernmost Point Buoy.” The problem is that the buoy that is supposed to mark the southernmost point of the Keys isn’t really the southernmost point. The true southernmost point isn’t publicly accessible, so, as with so many things, visitors agree to close their eyes to the facts and pretend. Humans, as a general rule, are very good at this game.

  We drove by the Southernmost Point Buoy several times while we were in Key West, and the line for tourists to get their picture taken rarely seemed to shrink. Once again, we struggled to find a parking spot within six or seven blocks, but did eventually. Like most everywhere else in Key West, there was a mellow vibe in the line. No one seemed in too big a hurry. People traded information about where they were from, then took turns acting as photographer for the other. Very congenial.

  It's a law: You have to get your photo taken here

  When you stand at the buoy and look west, you see a large object shaped like a golf ball. That’s government land, and apparently, the real southernmost point. We were happy just getting our picture taken at the buoy. We pretended, just like everyone else.

  I kind of hated to leave Key West. It is my kind of place, aside from the baking temperatures and humidity. Maybe I should say that Key West is really my kind of place … in January or February.

  We got back on Highway 1, heading east toward the mainland, often on narrow spits. The Gulf of Mexico was on our left, the Atlantic Ocean on our right. On cold, blustery days in the Pacific Northwest, I will close my eyes and dream of that drive.