Quick note: If don’t know why I am walking the Keys… you might want to check out Day 79 – Body Trust.
I met Mike on the plane, he was my seat mate. It turned out that we built trust pretty fast, it helped that we had lots of time to talk. Our plane hit a flock of birds on the way in and our pilot told us that we needed to have a maintenance person sign off before we took off. I know this story… that’s fine with me, take your time.
Mike and I sat in First Class. I do it because I am getting close to being too fat for coach. You know…that guy in the middle seat people have nightmares about… ha (this needs to change, hence my walking trip in the Keys). Mike and I had some fun joking about him sitting in First Class as a black man. Then we learned we had a female pilot, and we made more jokes about that. It’s great when people see prejudice for what it is and can laugh about it. That’s where the world needs to get to… this is so ridiculous that it’s funny.
I found out that Mike worked with my friend Kevin from B. Braun and my brother in-law Jim, small world. Things turned a little serious when we talked about his childhood
in segregated South Africa. He lives here in America only because as a young man he was awarded a scholarship to Lehigh University. He graduated to be a chemist and now works for DSM. We talked about affirmative action and equal rights, I enjoyed his perspective. I recorded some of our conversation but we were interrupted several times by either crying babies or safety announcements, airliners are not the best place to record an interview. I leave it here for you so you can get a sense for the conversation we were having. Mike posed for the (almost famous), Trust Tour “look up” photo.
A mini bus took 7 of us to the Keys from the Fort Lauderdale airport. I did not get any walking in because we arrived so late. Sitting in front of me was a retired orthopedic surgeon, turned comic who had me laughing much of the trip. When I told him I was walking the Keys for my health, he turned more serious saying that humans have only discovered a tiny percentage of what there is to know about medicine. 
He believes today’s doctors know little about natural remedies and have turned us into a pill society. I agreed with him. On the other hand, an antibiotic saved my life a few years ago so there is a balance in there someplace.
Since I am teetering on 300 lbs I won’t preach about health right now. Let’s move on to some more pictures. The tall guy pictured here was Tom, our driver… a cool dude, easy going, defiantly someone that has spent some time in the Keys.
I also met John who commuted from his home in Jamaica and works in Key West at the Casa Marina resort which he says is THE place to stay in Key West – at $700.00+ a night I guess so…
I on the other hand, decided to be frugal on this trip and book a room on the internet. I picked out this simple but very nice looking place. I wanted some local flavor. This motel had the word resort in it’s name and some very attractive pictures on the internet, how could I go wrong?
Here’s a photo of my room door, not what I was expecting. I had to laugh at the situation as I stood in front of my resort room. It is actually a fisherman’s moldy motel… I will let you imagine what the room smelled like, oh well, all part of the adventure.
