Soylent Green is People!!!

RIP, Charlton Heston. I think my favorite role of his may have been in Mother Lode. He played twin gold miners. I think one ends up killing the other. What an awful movie. Good stuff.

Yesterday my Dad asked if I thought we should take a family vacation. By "Family Vacation" he means all of us. 15 total. 8 Adults, 7 kids from 15 years-old down to 17 months. This is what you call a monstrous undertaking. Or maybe you could just call it monstrous. We bounced around some possibilities. Las Vegas (including Death Valley & the Hoover Dam), a cruise, New York City (YES!!!), Disney World.

Our last family vacation was about 14 years ago. At that time there were 8 of us. Only one grandchild who was just over a year-old. We still have several funny stories from that trip. One of the lasting memories of that weekend was my Brother constantly fighting with his ex-wife (they were married at the time). A few highlights: Running out of Gas, the Glass Bottom Boat, Big Wilbur & Sarah, the missing beach, Alligator Alley, the Fu King Restaurant, orange juice. Funny how the worst trips can generate the best memories. I'll just tell one of them.

My parents decided to take the whole family to Key Largo, FL after Christmas.. The whole family included my parents, my brother, his wife, their one year-old, my sister, Misty (my fiance at the time), and myself. When we got there we were ready for sea, surf, and sun. We had the sea. We had the sun. One thing was missing. The Beach! We spent a day or so enjoying the pool and other amenities of the Key Largo Holiday Inn Resort. Misty, my sister, and I were ready for a beach, though. Actually, they were, I just went along for the ride. So we decided to go find a beach. 

We got in the car and drove south on Highway 1 toward Key West (2 hours away). We drove, and drove, and drove looking for a public beach. Finally an hour later, around Marathon, we came to a public beach. I use the term beach very loosely. It was a beach in the sense that there was an area where the water met the shore and swimming was allowed. The similarities ended there. We walk out onto, not the plush white sand of the Gulf Coast that we are used to, but mud. Brown sticky mud. We decided the water was better so we went for a swim. Again, I use the word swim very loosely. We were in the water, but it is rather difficult to swim in shin deep water. We waded out a good 100-200 feet and the water got no deeper. worse than that was the ocean floor. It was that same mud from the "beach." It squished between your toes. Which is not so bad, until your foot hits something hard and sharp. We stayed about 10 minutes.

Moral of the story... well there is no moral. Just don't go to Key Largo expecting a beach.