Cayamo 2020

Howdy Folks, Howdy. We’ve just got back from a week-long cruise and I’m giving lessons already, so it’s going to be a couple days in the writing of this one. But I’ll get it done. First things first…

Well, here it is almost a week from the time I started this entry. I feel like I’ve been in a fog, no energy, no incentive since coming back from the trip. I don’t know what it is. Part of it is that I’ve been going back and forth with a couple lady lawyers about this Monroe tunes release (unrelease?). Back to zero. Not having much luck finding out what this numb fingers thing is. It’s frustrating. I don’t know what the rest of it is. Just a lot of sorting going on, not sleeping much, which is new for me. Something’s up. All of that is whatever it is.

Monday was just a bunch of travel and busy work signing paperwork and checking into this and that, carrying luggage, hiring cars, finding rooms, etc. Our day here in Mount Juliet started at 3a. Up and to the airport by 4, flight out by 5:45a and into Miami at about 9:30a. We had made our way over to Terminal C to get checked onto the ship by about10:30a, but no one was allowed on until about noon so we had time to kill. We went through the initial security scan and had to forfeit our espresso maker because the folks on the boat do not want people making their own coffee or running electric gadgets in their rooms due to a very strict fire code (They were not kidding. I had my cpap machine plugged in in our suite and everyday that I went out and didn’t unplug it the room steward unplugged it while I was gone). Heidi did her best to persuade them to give the coffeemaker back to us but we didn’t see it again until the day before we left the ship. By the time noon was rolling around the waiting area was full of groups of people who obviously knew each other talking excitedly around piles of luggage and instrument cases. We were all soon taken upstairs to another ‘holding’ area to wait about another 30-40 minutes. In that time Heidi met a couple who were on the cruise to sponsor a new brand of moonshine out of east Tennessee from Sugarland Distillery. Nice folks (They seemed to have a popular product line judging from the crowd around their table on the ship). I think they might be going to sponsor a little ‘product’ for the MonManCamp. Before too much longer we all got moving and onto the boat. At the initial checkin we had been given our key cards so we could just go right to our suites and drop everything. I had forgotten what a long ways it looks like from one end of the hallway to the other on a ship. Our suite was next to Stuart & Dieta Duncan, next to Pat & Pattie Enright, next to Barry & Aliceson Bales. There’s 2/3rds the band right there. Seems like a lot of the bands were in our section up on the 9th floor. Ron Block and his family and Dan Tyminski and girlfriend plus tour manager/soundman Eric were both in a section of the boat near the aft-most part of the ship in a very luxurious and roomy option(approx. 4000 sq. ft. Both Dan and Ron said that it was bigger than their homes) and reserved for the likes of Rodney Crowell and Mavis Staples and others. There were two apartments left available when the room lists came around and I just couldn’t justify a suite with 3 bedrooms, a sauna, a grand piano, a private swimming pool, valet, bar, sundeck, etc. I just didn’t care about it so much. Fortunately for those in the two-person suites who really wanted to hang in a bit more luxurious environment, the Block apartment was generously used as a nightly hang for drinks and tunes and socializing. Heidi made short work of chatting up the four security guards who sat at the entrance next to the elevator and before too long she had a key to the place. There you go.

I had some good times, fellowship, tunes, on the cruise. The Cayamo cruise has been different than the other cruises I’ve been on. The clientele were there for music, music, music and seemed to know quite a bit about the players and groups on board. I heard a lot of chatting over the trip from tables around me where people discussed who they liked, what shows they liked, what they didn’t, who was their favorite, who they met and how “so and so is so down to earth and friendly”. There was a contingency of self-proclaimed music experts too. There’s always that and they were not shy about expressing their opinions on what would make this band or that better. But they were actively involved, not just sitting there. These folks were helping to make the scene what it is and it is a very successful yearly event. The audience came in from all over the place, flew in for their favorite acts, they were informed. From what I could tell they knew way more about the lineup than I did, frankly. I didn’t know at least half the players, never heard the groups. I did go and check out some of the ones I didn’t know and was somewhat pleasantly surprised, but sometimes not. I went to see one solo act that seemed good at first glance but was really edgy and not much fun to listen to. Too much, “this happened to me and then this happened to me and then I had a personal setback and then I had a really painful breakup in high school and then I was asked to be on this really cool project with these people I admire and that was really cool and then I’ve had these problems lately and…”. Eeeeek. I talked to Heidi about some of this and she said that there was a major shift in the 80’s from the “stone-faced-take-it-on-the-chin-and-no-whining” era to the “everybody’s got a story” (eg: full-blown whining in public) era. Seems like I was mostly conscious in the 80’s but apparently missed the shift. But then I was mostly unconscious in the 90’s (and I’ve had these feelings lately and I just wrote a song about my cat and…whine, whine). I could’ve missed most anything. Anyway, there was a lot of talent aboard, but not a lot of bands that I identified with. The talent was evident, no denying that. Time has a way of making a person feel out of touch with what’s going on especially if one does not watch television news or read newspapers or listen to popular radio. Of course, I have been feeding myself on a steady diet of older musical forms played by either dead people (I hear dead people) or nearly dead, so that has plenty to do with my lack of awareness of the current popular musical assortment. This is the talent list for this year’s cruise…

PARKER SMITH • BRIAN WILSON • JEFF TWEEDY • MAVIS STAPLES • RODNEY CROWELL • SOGGY BOTTOM BOYS • ANDERSON EAST • LAKE STREET DIVE • BUDDY MILLER • DEER TICK • DREW HOLCOMB & THE NEIGHBORS • WATKINS FAMILY HOUR • RAUL MALO • HAYES CARLL • SHAWN MULLINS • JIM LAUDERDALE • ASHLEY MONROE • STEVE POLTZ • WILDER WOODS • MOLLY TUTTLE • AARON LEE TASJAN • DAN TYMINSKI • DAR WILLIAMS • JILL ANDREWS • THE WAILIN JENNY'S • OVER THE RHINE • THE QUEBE SISTERS • ALLISON MOORER • THE MASTERSONS • DIRK POWELL • HUSH KIDS • ROB ICKES & TREY HENSLEY • AMYTHYST KIAH • MADISON CUNNINGHAM • LOGAN LEDGER • IKE REILLY • GRAYSON CAPPS • DELLA MAE • EMILY SCOTT ROBINSON • THEM COULEE BOYS

Mavis Staples opened the show/cruise as we left Miami. “Are we moving?” she asked. She proceeded to kick major ass. The thing that struck me most about her show was how she showed her appreciation for her audience. One man yelled up to Ms. Staples from the crowd and she said, “I love you too!” She loved them and they loved her back (note to self). I didn’t go and see Brian Wilson at any of his shows because I’ve never really listened to the Beach Boys and wasn’t even a little curious. But I didn’t hear great reviews. Some people were complaining that he did the same set over and over and there was disappointment from his fans (sort of the way I felt in the later years going to see Bill Monroe. Play a new tune or something, for pete’s sake. I know you’re writing them every day). I didn’t see any of Rodney Crowell’s sets, but I did reintroduce myself when we found ourselves in an elevator together. I walked in pushed the No.9 and said that I hadn’t seen him since the Down From the Mountain Tour about 20 years ago. I could see he put his thinking cap on and was going back through 20 years of sites and sounds. I laughed and told him my name and said that I worked with the Nashville Bluegrass Band on the tour. Bingo. We had a short and polite couple of howdys and that was that. But the next day Rodney came up after the Soggies set and said that we hadn’t lost a beat in the last 20 years. Thanks for that.

Lake Street Dive was pretty much a lot of the rage on the cruise. They are a group of talented folks with youth and energy, great singers and arrangers, but not my cup of tea. Buddy Miller is sort of the grand master of the cruise and a regular as is Jim Lauderdale (Jim was the first person I saw when we arrived at the terminal. He had just come back to re-board the ship, as he had just finished an outlaw country cruise the week previous. I walked up on him nearly every morning when I was looking for a cup of coffee). They do some collaborations along the way. The Soggies first contribution on Wednesday after we’d been to sea since Monday evening was on Buddy and Jim’s radio show broadcast live from the Nowegian Pearl. I missed seeing Ashley Monroe. I heard someone say something about Ashley MonROE and one of the band members turned and said tongue in cheekily, “That’s MUNroe” and rolled his eyes. I laughed because it’s the exact same thing that happens listening to people talk about Bill Monroe. You can almost tell what part of the country a person is from by the way they pronounce his name.

It was good to see Sean and Sarah Watkins. Sarah has been doing a lot of projects, not only working with I’m With Her. She seems to have herself really together and juggled playing a lot of shows as well as taking good care of her daughter whom she had on board. Sean is singing and playing well. Molly Tuttle has been on the last two cruises and seems to be really coming into her own as a prominent entertainer. I’ve never been able to have much of a conversation with Molly for some reason but we had a very pleasant greeting this time. She seems very much more confident and at ease. I got to spend a number of hours playing tunes with Triston Scroggins on this trip and just getting to know him a little. Also, Maddie Witler. She’s a great player with Della Mae (or at least on this trip she filled in and did a good job of it). The three of us…Triston, Maddie and I had a good mando-heavy jam up in the Ron Block penthouse on the 13th floor on about Wednesday night. Many notes were played.

The Quebe Sisters. Always polished and professional. Dirk Powell did a lot of work on his own and as a sideman. I had not seen him for some time and was surprised to see how much variety he brought to the cruise. I think he had been working for Joan Baez for quite a while but she’s backed way off of her touring schedule. I’m guessing that means Plan B for Dirk. He played fiddle, banjo, piano, guitar and did more singing than I’ve seen him do. I talked to him a little bit about that and he said that he never wrote much but lately he’s been doing a lot of writing. He said, “I guess I had a lot I needed to say”. I guess so. It was interesting to see Logan Ledger on the show. I had not seen him for years. Logan took mandolin lessons from me for a while and I hadn’t heard from him until a couple weeks ago. Now he’s doing mostly songwriting and singing what sounds to me to be traditional country style. Logan is one of TBone Burnett’s current musical interests. I remember those days.

On Sunday afternoon early Rob Ikes & Trey Hensley did a tribute to Merle Haggard set and had a bunch of guests on the show. Backstage Stuart Duncan worked on the Quebe sisters fiddle bridges and checked setups. They were in awe of the boy as much as the rest of us. I talked a bit with Rob Ickes about his work with Trey. He said that from the time he met Trey he could see doors opening and they’ve been opening ever since. Rob said that Trey connects with a crowd and can play pretty much anything that he can hear in his head. I get the feeling that Rob is the steady force in the duo. On a side note, I mentioned that I had started writing a blog again. Rob laughed and said that the Blue Highway boys used to read my old one and laugh. I get the feeling that I was probably a lot more dwelling on the dark side then than I am now. I’m really trying not to be a cocky horse’s ass or come across short and be more considerate (Yeah, this is the new me, a very privileged white boy in sensitivity training. Pass the beef medallions). I told Rob that I hoped I wasn’t as blunt (eg: a dick) as I thought I had been and he chuckled. “Nah, you were honest”. Tactful.

I met and talked to Madison Cunningham at one of Ron Block’s gatherings. She was accompanied by a guy named Austin. “Oh, you’re both named after towns”, I said in my razor sharp wit. No wonder I’m invited to so many parties. Madison is a pleasant young woman. I didn’t see any of her shows but looked her up on the web. Seems to be quite the singer though I can’t decipher who her influences might be. Joni Mitchell perhaps? She does seem very comfortable in her own skin. As for the rest of the acts on the cruise, I either saw them and didn’t care a lot for their material/vibe/message or I didn’t see them work. I did meet a few people that were in different bands that seemed like decent folk. Most anyway. I was in the artist lounge about the day after we set sail to get a cup of coffee or something and kept hearing a youngish male voice saying, “Fucking this” and Fuck that” and “No fucking way” and “What the Fuuuuuuck” and so on. I was a nickel’s worth from walking over and asking the kid (not a kid actually, an artist on the boat. He was old enough to know better) if he kissed his mother with that mouth and I just decided that this was not a battle for me to fight, that it would do no good, that if the boy had no more manners and class and awareness of his surroundings than that, nothing I could say would be looked upon as anything except me minding someone else’s business. I wonder if the flippant use of the “F word” in general conversation was one of the things that came with the 80’s shift? I made a point NOT to go see the duo with this dude in it. I’m really sure there is nothing he can say to me that would leave me feeling enlightened or entertained. All I wanted to do was get away from him.

What did we do? Mostly walk up and down that long hallway in the ship and try to figure out what restaurants to eat in, where all the venues were, walk around the deck a bit. Heidi sunbathed a lot. I played the mandolin a lot on my private little porch and watched the water go by. That was the first two days. Then on Wednesday the Soggies played the Buddy & Jim radio show at the Stardust in the evening. Thursday we stopped at Frederiksted on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands and got off to walk around a bit. After a few minutes walking around the small touristy area near the pier Heidi and I were stopped by a local man who decided to help us figure out where we wanted to go. After a bit of talking we decided to catch the local bus and head to the botanical gardens. So on the bus for .50. We found a place to sit in the back and bounced around from stop to stop. The road crew in St. Croix isn’t working much apparently judging by the condition of the roads. It was noted that every person that got on the very small bus said “good morning” to the rest of the passengers. They all carried on like they knew each other pretty well and they were constantly giving the driver some sort of grief and he was giving it right back. We road the bus for about half an hour after being told the trip would take about 10 minutes. The bus was going all over the local countryside and backroads. At this point we realized we wouldn’t be able to walk back and decided to just stay on the bus until we got to Christiansted which was 2/3 the way to the other end of the island. Our total time on the bus turned into 45+ minutes. The countryside was very lush and green, covered in flowering vines and tall grasses and big leafy plants and then other times covered in grass and run down houses scattered willy nilly over the landscape. I saw several horses tied to trees here and there, only one horse at a time. Most of the houses were modest to say the least and a lot in a state of disrepair. Heat and humidity. When we got to Christiansted we hopped off and started looking around for some lunch. This side of the island was a little more nice, better kept up around the small town area, but going towards run down just out of town. We were in the middle of taxi central and the bus ran back to Frederiksted every 1 1/2 hours so we knew we could get a ride back. We met a woman that people referred to as Miss B. She seemed to pull quite a bit of weight around town, at least with the cabbies and local day laborers. She gave us a good tip on some local food at a place called the Seaside Market and we made the walk up and back. It was a local grocery store with a steam line in the middle. We scooped up some various things to try and walked back to the place where we started which was situated in a small park next to a historic fort which was closed for construction (and surrounded by disappointed tourists with cameras) and ate lunch while fending off wild chickens. It’s not as exciting as it sounds, at least the chicken bit. There seemed to be chickens wandering freely everywhere we went. These had obviously been fed by tourists before because they just hung around our feet like dogs waiting for a handout. After lunch we walked around town a bit and walked into a few stores. One had an advertisement outside for hot sauce so we went in, but it turned out that the most interesting thing inside was a lady named Georgia from Ohio that had moved to St. Croix to live.

By the time we got done and ready to go the bus had come and gone and we started haggling with taxi drivers to take us back to Frederiksted. Most would have nothing to do with it, but we finally got hooked up with a taxi (van) that had about 8 other people in it and we rode back across the island. On the way back I listened to a couple from Minnesota talk about all the bands/band members they liked and didn’t like, who should work on being an individual instead of being part of a group, who was better when they had so and so in the band…real experts. I didn’t say anything but sat with my back to them all and kept quiet. I heard them say Soggy Bottom Boys a couple times and I could see Heidi glance back but I acted like I was taking a nap. When we got back to the pier I turned around and made sure to get a look at who the experts were. We had time to walk along the coast there and take a few pics. Heidi got in and swam a bit before we walked back to the boat. Oh yeah, and we got ice cream. You gotta do that. The Soggies were in the Stardust Theater on Thursday night, our first of three. We had a good full house that night. It was a good time and I felt like we played well considering we had done no rehearsing. We did the one set list we have. I looked for the Minnesotans but they were sly and evaded my search.

Next day (Friday) we ended up in Antiqua/Barbuda after an overnight cruise. Lots of locals set up to capitalize on people walking in from the ships. It was like walking through a mine field. By the time we got through all the ‘vendors’ I was dazed. People were selling everything you can think of from vegetables to rental cars. Groups of taxi drivers congregated and all yelled out at tourists trying to make the deal above the others. I found it to be a little much right off the bat. Not the way I want to start a sunny day. Heidi and I walked past the fray and saw a church steeple (St. John’s Cathedral) sticking out above the town so that’s where we headed. It turned out to be a welcome rest from the beginning of our visit. Up a couple of short streets with questionable water content draining on both sides, up through a very old cemetery and into one of the most beautiful wooden sanctuaries I’ve ever been in. The wood work and joinery were superb. The actual layout was a little odd as far as seat orientation, but the feel, look, and smell of the woodwork was heavenly. There was hardly anyone inside so we just sat down and enjoyed the serenity for a while. We sat until a man came in with scaffolds and started putting them together to make a way to clean the light fixtures that hung high up way out of reach. On the way out the door we talked some with a man who seemed to be there in some official capacity and he gave us some history of the building. Turns out all the wood the church is made of came from one of the Carolinas and maybe Texas or Virginia. I forget now. We bragged on the craftsmanship in the building and another man sitting quietly nearby said that he was the building/restoration supervisor and that he would pass along the compliments to his crew. A small museum with exhibits on past plantation life and some interesting artifacts from ancient peoples was just down the block so we went there for about an hour. Apparently until the mid-50’s the island population lived predominantly in straw huts until a hurricane came and blew it all down. From then on the construction changed to what is there today. After the museum and a water break we went off down the hill to look for a beach for my Piscean companion.

We walked out of downtown and towards the outskirts where there were a lot more locals shopping and working farmers markets. Now, we’re getting somewhere. Yams, potatoes, large avocados, all sorts of green vegetables, local strains of spinach, and of course lots of fruits I didn’t recognize were sold on almost every table. “If this is what these people are eating then it’s a very healthy diet”, I thought. I was not seeing many white faces at this point and we were getting a few curious glances. Apparently we’d gone past the tourist areas. I talked to a lady the next day on the cruise that said she and her husband had taken a walk deep into the town only to be stopped by a woman who asked if they were lost and said that they should turn around because they were in an area where people lived. I did get the distinct feeling that we were just being tolerated. But I was hoping that it was just me being paranoid. At that point we still had only been gone off ship for a couple hours and Heidi was itching for a beach, so we started looked at a map at which point a man driving a taxi pulled out of traffic and parked along the roadside to stop and work a deal to take us somewhere. The rate for taxis is reasonably low as long as there are 7-8 other people to ride with you, but if there are only two then the cabbie has to make up the fee and charge the two for the full van. So we made a deal with our driver named Jimmy J to take us where we wanted to go for $50. It wasn’t that much to us but quite a nice payday for him beings the US dollar was worth about 2.70 EC (eastern Carribean). Heidi told him to take her to a private beach and off we went over hill and dale. The countryside outside of town varied in vegetation but mostly it was very easy to look at. Random chickens here too as well as the occasional horse (what is it with horses?) tied to trees. Fruit stands along the way. We rode for about 20 minutes and came out on the southwestern coast of the island. Jimmy asked about a few beaches that were more touristy and Heidi declined. He finally came to a place near Urlings and turned off onto a relatively washed out dirt road and drove for 1/4 mile into a clearing where there was only one other car. About as private a beach as was to be had. Heidi seemed happy as a clam and she went of to swim in the Carribean/Atlantic while me and Jimmy sat under a tree on some pallets made into chairs and caught a really good breeze. I guess we stayed about an hour. Jimmy J is a very thin and fit looking man with tight skin on his face although he is a man in his early 70’s. He looks 50. I asked Jimmy what he liked to cook, did he have a garden, did he fish, etc. He had very specific things that he did according to what he told me. He eats only one piece of chicken when he eats. Cooks rice with herbs and vegetables, beans, sometimes fish. He said he has a garden with yams, several kinds of bananas, greens, avocados, etc. While we sat there a couple women dressed for work came walking up the road and started more or less giving Jimmy grief about sitting there in the shade. “Why you not working?” He explained that he was indeed working, that he’d brought us to the beach and we were waiting for the other person in the party to finish swimming. We were also enjoying a very nice breeze and shade which she apparently didn’t approve of. Jimmy was very polite to them and after a few minutes they wandered off to clean a big house just up the hill. Before another 30 minutes went by a car came down the road and the scenario repeated only this time they turned around and drove away. I didn’t quite figure out what it was that Jimmy was doing that the others objected to. I’m sure there is a lot more to the story that I will never know.

Once Heidi got done swimming we loaded up and went looking for food. Jimmy dropped us at a place he said served local food, but when we got there a number of buses were parked in the lot and Jacqui O’s Beach House was crammed full of young white folks slamming beers and eating fried food. Nope. Won’t do. We turned around and went back to the van only to see Jimmy having his own lunch with some other drivers. He offered to buy us some chicken and rice from the driver’s eating area but we’d had enough by then and just wanted to get back to town. Once Jimmy ate his lunch we left and headed back. On the way Jimmy stopped twice at fruit stands looking for something. At the second stop he bought a fruit that looked like a large lime-green avocado with spines all over it. I forget what he said it was called. I asked him what it tasted like and he said ‘nothing’. I asked what it looked like on the inside and he said ‘white’. Then he said that it was good for preventing cancer. Okay, interesting. “How does it prevent cancer?” He started into a rather lengthy explanation and then said that what the fruit does is to “clean out the mess and keep the body clean, keep everything flowing”. He said that if the mess does not flow then it backs up and makes you sick and causes cancer and so the mess has to flow. Okay. We’re looking at a laxative here, yes? Jimmy said that it was necessary to eat about half of one of these a day.

When we got back to town we got out at about the place we got in and walked back towards the ship. I was starving at this point and looking for food. We remembered that there was a bit of food around the cathedral so that’s where we headed. Along the walk back I spotted a very modestly furnished chinese restaurant that we had passed earlier. Chinese food it is. 4 tables inside. We placed our orders of twice cooked pork, fried chicken, fried fish. All served with some sort of seasoned fried rice. While we were standing there a man and wife from the ship came up and started talking to me about the Nashville Bluegrass Band. They were looking for wifi. After the day we’d had so far it seemed so random. We finished a brief conversation and they were off and we found a seat. My hands were really funky at that point and I asked the woman behind the counter (complete with bars) if there was some place I could wash my hands. She said something and disappeared. I went and sat down and she showed up in about 5 minutes with a 5-gallon bucket full of water and set it out on the street and then gave me a handful of napkins. Okay. A minor improvement but an improvement nevertheless. I was having thoughts of amoebic dysentery about now and hoping that it was all going to work out that we made it through the next day or so without the Caribbean version of Montezuma’s Revenge. When the food came out it was a huge portion, enough for about 4-5 people and delicious. We ate all we could hold and left the rest. On the way back the navigating wasn’t nearly as difficult due to all the dealers having cleared out. We stopped in a small ladies wear shop on the sidewalk and spotted Pattie Enright sporting a new hat and trying to make a deal with the proprietor for a new dress. The lady wanted cash and long story short, Heidi loaned Pattie $10 to buy the dress and then of course the game was on trying to sell Heidi a dress too. The lady running the place commented on how she liked my ‘jumper’. I told her we call them overalls. She said whatever they are she thought they look cute. It’s been a while since that word has been used in association with anything I’m involved with. So be it…cute. Back to the boat. The Soggies were off on Friday, all save Dan Tyminkski so we didn’t get in any hurry to do anything. Nothing to do now but turn around and head back to Miami.

Saturday was very slow and spacey day for me. I sat on the porch and played mandolin a lot and watched all the cruise ships pass going north and south. We must’ve been in a major lane because I’ve never seen that many ships in such close proximity while at sea. None, to be accurate. It was a good brain dump for me. At one point during the day I was sitting playing and around the corner of the porch Stuart Duncan’s head came and then a Kalamazoo A model mandolin. He’d played it with Buddy Miller and I commented on how good it sounded so he let me try it out. Standard A model budget Gibson/Kalamazoo that Stuart bought along side the road coming back from an NBB gig some years ago. A very nice little mando for playing electrified or playing fiddle tunes on. The Soggies played the second of three shows at the Stardust that night. Barry had come down with something on Friday and laid in bed all day. He did the evening’s show but he looked like death eating a cracker the whole time. I think if I’d felt as bad as he looked I’d have just called it off.

Sunday rolled around and we were to play a show on the pool deck about 3p or so but it clouded up and we ended up being moved to the Stardust at the last minute. It was the last night of the trip and a sudden venue change so not as many people showed up but we had a good time taking requests and just winging the set list. Some of us did the Rob Ickes/Trey Hensley Haggard tribute that I mentioned earlier. It was a good time. I spent the afternoon playing some and packing my suitcase for the next morning’s getaway. Nothing left to do but put on my overalls and shoes, grab my belongings and leave. When Monday morning came Heidi and I got off the boat by about 9a I guess. I forget now. But we did get a Lyft (our second on the trip and our second driver named Eduardo) to the rental car facility at Miami International and got us a car to give us some freedom for the rest of the day. We made our way over over to the Best Western Plus (woo hoo) after we got the car. When we got there it was about 10:30a and we couldn’t check in but we were told we could check in at 11a if we wanted to pay $60 extra. So they did have rooms available at 11a. But we had to wait until 1p to check in if we wanted to get in without paying the $60. We decided to go get something for breakfast and come back at 1p. Heidi found a Cuban restaurant that had supposedly been visited by Anthony Bourdain and we agreed that we just had to go there. It turned out to be a great place to get a sandwich but looked like a second hand Denny’s to me. Now, back to the hotel to get rid of all the bags.

We pulled back into the Best Western Plus parking lot about a quarter to 1p. The lady we originally talked to was no longer at the desk but another hispanic woman was. We started trying to check into the hotel on the information that the other clerk had given us and this one was having none of it. She went from 0 to asshole in about 3 seconds. With that came selective hearing and talking over us. I repeated to her what the first lady told us about when we could check in and told her that I knew the official check in time was 3p but blah blah blah blah and I didn’t need to be told the policy, I use lots of hotels and blah blah blah. Heidi was doing her best but the woman was not going to budge. I said to the clerk, “I’m not going to argue with you” and just walked away from the counter to try and gather my wits and calm down from the onslaught. Heidi kept talking to her. When we did get a room it was not on the floor we had been promised. So we went up and checked in. There was a wave of mildew in the air that pretty well shut Heidi’s sinuses down (she’s allergic) and she said, ”I can’t stay in this room” so she called the front desk. I guess the clerk had been sharpening her teeth while we were gone because I could here her on the phone giving Heidi the business. When Heidi got off the phone she said that the clerk was meeting her on the second floor, still not the floor we were promised, so the clerk could check the room for herself for mold and mildew. While Heidi was gone a maintenance man came by the room I was sitting in and wanted to know what the problem was, that they had been called to come do something to the room. I could already feel my throat getting raw from the mold and my head closing up. I got a call from Heidi a few minutes later saying that they had moved us to the fourth floor and meet up there. When I got there she gave me a key and said that the clerk at come up and given her a really hard time, was disagreeable and called Heidi a liar about the dialogue that went down earlier with the other clerk. Whenever Heidi said anything back to her she kept saying, “Have a NICE day”. Apparently after she’d gotten on the elevator to go back downstairs to the lobby she stepped out one last time to say, “Have a NICE day” before the door closed. Thankfully the fourth floor room was clean and didn’t stink of mildew, but by then both of us were exhausted and angry from dealing with the clerk from hell. Heidi put in a call to Best Western’s corporate office to file a complaint. Basically after about 20 minutes talking on the phone with someone at some supervisor level the word was they would send the details to the hotel manager to review and verify the employee’s story with ours. I kept thinking that maybe we had been dealing with the manager. It was clear nothing was going to get done about the dismal customer service and rudeness we had experienced over the last 30 minutes. The man on the phone began talking about us getting compensation and he had to be told that we weren’t trying to get something for nothing. We wanted an apology for being treated like trash. Long story short is it’s not happening.

The rest of the day we spent out of the hotel walking in smallish parks and swamps with walkways built over them. Some very nice areas to just chill out around Miami Springs. We stayed for a while at one place and watched dozens of turtles swimming around a covered gazebo at the end of a walk way. Bluegills and Redears the size of your hand. It has been a long time since I’ve thought of bream. The last place we were had a forest of wild orange trees and huge live oaks that spread out like giant umbrellas and left the woods shaded and cool, peaceful. Finally, mellow. Both of us were hungry after all the walking and found a small Italian restaurant on the way back to the hotel. We had gone about 45 minutes out of the way and were ready to eat a frozen dog by the time we got to the restaurant. We ordered a pizza and I think it has spoiled us for any pizza in Nashville or Mt. Juliet. Outstanding.

Nothing much happened the rest of the day except sleep. Early up the next day and back to Nashvegas. We were home by the end of regular rush hour traffic. Another trip done and back home. We keep thinking that maybe we picked up something while we were gone because neither one of us has any energy or stamina. Just sleepy and unmotivated. Maybe it’s the calm at the end of the trip. Maybe it’s that we’re back in gray, rainy, cold weather. I guess it will pass soon enough. I hope so. There’s a lot to do.

Life is good. MC