WHEN IN ROME . . .

I laid in bed, brooding, while the Blue Light Special went to the gym for his morning workout. Whatever possessed me to take this vacation with an inconsiderate porn addict? What am I doing with my life?

My mood grew even darker when we went downstairs for breakfast by the pool. He didn't think twice about ordering orange juice, a couple of eggs (one yolk only, please), an English muffin and yogurt even though he knows I've been trying to keep our expenses as low as possible. Resentment and the shirtless, fat men at the table next to us forced me to look down as I martyred myself with granola, fruit and free coffee.

Equipped with a map we started our exploration of Old Town at the end of the Bight Harbor closest to the Island House. A statue honored Henry Flagler, the 19th century industrialist whose railroad began the Florida real estate boom that even he might have second thoughts about today. But what I had thought was picturesque upon arrival curdled into manufactured charm for the masses by the time we reached Duval Street and Mallory Square.




While the Blue Light Special agonized over the perfect post card, I stopped at the Sebago Tours booth to inquire about the cost of renting personal watercraft (PWC) for an afternoon. Hard Sell, a very persuasive salesman with a pierced ear, informed me that their Power Adventure was a much better deal. It lasted from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and included snorkeling, parasailing, time on a PWC and a banana boat ride, plus a full breakfast and lunch.

I'm not much of a bargainer but when I told Hard Sell that I wasn't sure if the weather forecast was warm enough to do everything he had described comfortably, he said that he'd throw in a pair of wetsuits.

I have to discuss it with my friend, I said, suspicious of his high-pressure tactics but eager to find an outdoor alternative to the Hemingway and Audubon houses, the only commercial tourist attractions that remotely interested me.

Guy or girl? he inquired, instantly assessing my sexual orientation.

The Blue Light Special didn't seem particularly enthused at first. He changed his tune when I dragged him out of the souvenir shop and he saw the video presentation and the binder of photos.

Can we sign up tomorrow morning? I asked.

Desperate to secure two more passengers (We don't like to go out with fewer than 10 people), Hard Sell offered free passage on a Sunset Champagne Cruise that evening, a $39 value. I told him we'd still have to think about it and walked away grateful that this scenario would limit our options for getting into trouble at the hotel.

I've been in this business for 15 years and I can tell you that you don't have to worry about the weather, he shouted after us. The temperature will be in the low 80s.



Before reaching the most southern point in the United States, which is marked by a large concrete buoy, we had decided that the package, at $119 each, couldn't be beat. $60 cheaper than swimming with the dolphins, it also would be a non-gay activity that we both could enjoy but as we walked towards Key West Garden Club, the Blue Light Special nearly spoiled my growing excitement.



If you want to do it, then we should. But I'm only going for you and if you're worried about the cost, you should go by yourself he said walking into a restroom.

We were near Higgs Beach, currently populated by several homeless families. They had struck camp with their shopping carts near a picnic area with barbecue grills. Nearly everyone had a deeply tanned face but few had a complete set of teeth. I averted my eyes and photographed the tropical mural on the restroom and the tiny teddy bear a child had left behind at one of the tables.





The Key West AIDS Memorial offered another unavoidable reminder of social issues and may have explained why the Blue Light Special, who is concerned about his HIV status, changed his tune about the Power Adventure. As we walked out onto adjoining White Street Pier, we caught sight of a boat that was towing a couple of parasailors and dipping them repeatedly into the water. Who can resist floating in blue skies over turquoise water, especially if you're worried that you may never have another opportunity?



You'll be joining a wedding party of 35 on this evening's sunset sail warned Hard Sell back at the Sebago Tours booth on Duval Street. Things might get a little rowdy, but you'll be OK he said. And you're going to have a great time tomorrow.

I grudgingly accompanied the Blue Light Special into a gallery featuring the world's foremost dolphin "artist" but I drew the line when he started to look for t-shirts.

This is the only time I'll be able to visit the cemetery I said.

It would have been better had we split up to do the things we each wanted to do on our own but the Blue Light Special doesn't like shopping without someone to discuss his purchases.

The cemetery, an historic landmark, would make a great location for a horror movie because at least twice as many people are buried there as live in Key West. The lush tropical decay and overgrowth added to the creepiness factor but my camera battery and the Blue Light Special's patience for my ghoulish hobby ran out before we found the self-guided tour brochure.



I'll come back tomorrow morning while you're at the gym I announced, resentfully.

En route back to the Island House to pick up some warmer clothes for the sunset sail, he confessed that I reminded him of his grandmother.

She made me go to the cemetery with her when I was very young. I used to get scared he explained.

Why didn't you just say so? I asked, sympathetically, not really caring if I was being manipulated again or not but less than thrilled with his comparison.

Given the number of occasions the Blue Light Special has kept me waiting, I'm always amazed by how quickly he can get ready when he has to be somewhere on time, like for a flight to the Pines or a sunset cruise on a 60 foot sailboat in Key West. In fact, we arrived a little early. I felt more than a little self conscious about being the elder half of the only gay couple as we boarded and found seats below deck amidst a much younger crowd clearly waiting for the party to begin.



Still, you get to be a certain age, and you just don't give a shit about what other people think, even if you have dressed as inconspicuously as possible while your companion is wearing a bright red jacket that says Hamburg along with a matching pair of sunglasses. No, you just take his picture when the captain asks if anybody would like to steer the boat and then you take some more photos at the prow as he strikes a Kate Winslet pose from Titanic, a Kodak moment that none of the others think to capture in spite of the buttery light and peachy skies.



And then you're so thankful that the crew members keep filling your plastic cup with free booze and making polite conversation that you tip them $10 when most of the other passengers are shoving singles in the proffered jar at the conclusion of what has been a romantic if slightly dull evening with the man who drives you absolutely crazy.

Then you take the free drink coupons Sebago Tours provided when you signed up for their package and take them to the Half Shell Raw Bar, one of three marina restaurants where they can be redeemed, and you listen to your companion call his former lover and current means of support to describe what he has been doing.

And then, in an effort to make small talk and demonstrate your limited command of German, you ask him why the number 96 came up in his conversation. When he insists that it didn't and your entrees arrive, you offer a taste of your fried conch or white rubber and then you drain your margarida like everyone else in Key West.



Once we had examined the various license plates that adorned the restaurant, we returned to the Island House with a pleasant buzz and hung out for a bit in our cramped, but cozy room. The Blue Light Special used the needle and thread he had purchased in Ft. Lauderdale to repair his suitcase while I edited my digital photos and listened to bath house-appropriate music in i-Tunes. Eventually, the Blue Light Special joined me on the bed writing postcards in German. Because of our easy comraderie, I was hurt he hadn't mentioned me or used the first person plural pronoun when he translated what he had written.

Outside our door, the pudgy new guy with whom we were sharing our bathroom kept clearing his throat. Earlier in the day, just after checking in, he had made it abundantly clear that he would have slept with us in any combination by nodding and looking back over his shoulder whenever our paths crossed, alone or together. I felt like we were starring in The Ritz, Terrence McNally's pre-AIDS Broadway farce, set in a gay bath house with our neighbor playing the Jack Weston role.

He probably thinks we're having sex I giggled. Instead you're sewing and I'm on the computer. Let's have some fun and really get him going.

The Blue Light Special eagerly obliged. He turned the porn channel on up to full volume and began humping the bed so that the springs squeaked loudly while I moaned ecstatically. The throat clearing stopped.

A little later, almost as if life were imitating art, we did make full, if unfulfilled, use of the facilities. We wrapped the standard light green bath towels around our waists, checked out the dark room, rebuffed an unsolicited grope in the tepid steam room, moved into the very hot sauna, frolicked naked in an empty pool and then hit the ground floor hot tub where a sweet but not particularly attractive white boy from Washington, DC tried very hard to seduce us.

Instead, I settled for the best night sleep I'd had yet despite the flickering of the TV screen and the shaking of the bed next to me as the Blue Light Special watched "Deep South." Who could blame him with Jason Hawke opening wide for Chris Steele in the New Orleans pokey?

PIGS & DOLPHINS

How much to tip? The question always vexes me in an unfamiliar situation. I resented the $10 to $15 per day suggestion that the Blue Light Special spotted in the Cabanas "rule book" which also itemized the cost of every possible guest infraction. At $189 per night, I didn't see why I should be so generous. Of course the "maids," at least one of whom looked as if he had gotten high to do his job, collected far fewer tips than those at straight resorts where the operations are so much larger. But the snob in me countered that the women who work there have fewer opportunities so I left the $2 per night that I would have given them.

And was I supposed to tip Barely Sober, who had been very helpful, too? I decided against it on the grounds that he was acting in place of the owner whom I certainly wouldn't have tipped.

He seemed disappointed when I shook his hand and said You do your job very well handing over the ethernet cable he had loaned me when I couldn't access the advertised wi-fi network.

During breakfast on the patio, a new arrival chatted us up and told us that the Cabanas was dead in comparison to the Island House for Men in Key West, where we were headed.

You can't help but have a good time, he said. There are 200, maybe 150 men walking around in towels and they keep the beer flowing during happy hour to make everyone more friendly.

After I excused myself to take a poop, he invited the Blue Light Special to smoke a joint and inquired if we were partners.

When I told him that we were, the Blue Light Special reported, after declining, he said sometimes it's more difficult for partners.

Uh-oh. The Blue Light Special had used his student discount to manipulate me into making the reservation. I reminded him, not for the first time, that he wouldn't be swimming with the dolphins until Friday and that the reservation was in my name.

We got on the road earlier than I would have guessed but quickly lost the time looking for a post office where the Blue Light Special could buy stamps and stopping at Walgreen's to pick up some needle and thread. He wanted to repair the tear in his cheap luggage which was filled with at least a dozen changes in outfits, almost as many bathing suits, a sleeping mat and special pillow, and cosmetics.

A $5 admission parking fee at Haulover Beach in North Miami dissuaded us from shedding our clothes along with the nudists and gay men. Instead, we continued south on US A1A to South Beach where preparations already were well underway for the Super Bowl game between the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts. I stopped an old woman on the street to ask where the Fountainbleau Hotel was located to give the Blue Light Special some sense of the area's history before condo conversions and traffic swallowed the beach. Even at midday on a Tuesday, the line of cars crawled for miles.

It's over there she said, pointing to yet another construction site, but it closed years ago.

Sad.

The Blue Light Special noted the Traymore, where he and Thug Lover had booked a $99 room on the internet for the previous Friday and Saturday nights, and Loews, the gorgeous white hotel that had captured his fancy when he walked past it on the beach.

It can't compare to the Delano, I insisted, parroting the hype, as if I actually had stayed there instead of the Royal Palm or the old Kenmore (now a Best Western) during my two previous visits.





No trip to South Beach in a convertible is complete without a cruise down Ocean Drive with the speakers blaring Madonna. The Blue Light Special ignored my suggestion to look for a parking space and grab some lunch.

OK, then find the quickest route to Key West I said, handing him the out-of-date Rand McNally's road atlas. It won't necessarily be the most direct.

My request fell on deaf ears. After five miles of stoplights on US 1, I exploded. With Key West still more than a 100 miles south, I wasn't interested in repeating the experiment he had tried during our first summer in the Pines. Holding me hostage in the passenger seat on a Sunday evening when I had to be at work early the next morning, he failed to prove that we could return to Manhattan more quickly along the Sunrise Highway than the parkways I always took.

Fortunately, we found the Florida Turnpike shortly after he replaced Madonna with West Side Story, advancing through the songs he didn't like. That left "Maria," "Somewhere" and a highly irritated show tune queen in the driver's seat. I thought Bye Bye Birdie might lighten the mood but Hurricane Andrew's devastation in Homestead, mostly evident from the lack of tall trees, made it hard to sing What's the story, morning glory? What's the word humming bird? Did you hear about Hugo and Kim? next to a clueless German passenger who had no interest in a musical about American teenagers of my generation.



In Key Largo we stopped at what appeared to be an indigenous alternative to fast food for lunch. Although everyone seated at the Captain Shon's Seafood, Grill & Pub obviously had driven there, our waitress seemed surprised when we decline to order a drink. Welcome to Margaridaville, I guess. The prices on the menu screamed tourist trap but our fish sandwiches weren't bad and the coleslaw was first rate.

The Blue Light Special took the wheel. As we drove farther south, the skies grew overcast and I became more apprehensive about the sex hotel that awaited us, fearing that jealousy would rear its ugly head if any of the patrons started coming on to my companion. It didn't help that aside from the long bridges that connected the various keys, the ride wasn't as scenic as I had expected. But with Cher and Kylie helping to fill the comfortable silence between us, I nodded off briefly before we reached Key West.

Happily, Old Town turned out to be as picturesque as the tourist brochures we picked up had promised. We found a parking spot right in front of the Island House For Men. A couple of young gay men showed us where to enter through a back alley around the corner. The lobby reeked of chlorine.

The staff wasn't as friendly as it had been at the Cabanas and the guy who ran my credit card seemed put off when we refused to let him help us get our bags even though he wasn't quite sure where to find our room on the second floor. It was behind not one, but two locked doors. The first opened into a small foyer with two rooms and a shared bathroom.

A welcome video played continuously on the television in our small, but comfortable room that faced Fleming Street. Narrated by the kind of guy who would have done very well on a phone sex line and regularly punctuated with double entendres, it urged us to relax, wrap a towel around our waist and swim naked in the pool.

Despite my nervousness, I was eager to explore the place. The more expensive rooms faced the outdoor pool. It was completely enclosed, with a bar and covered deck at one end where people dined. We were on the same level as the sunning deck and dark room, one floor above the hot tub and two floors above the workout area, sauna/steamroom and second hot tub.

We've booked a room at the local bath house I observed, not without a little excitement.

The Blue Light Special agreed, thrilled that the gym was well equipped. I felt a little bad for him. It can't be much fun to be the most attractive guy in a gay environment with a low cal sugar daddy who is threatening to cancel your swim with the dolphins if you act like a pig.

Don't worry, he said, ever intuitive. I'm here with you.

Translation: if an opportunity did arise for the Blue Light Special, he would let the catch of the day know that I was part of the package.

Once I got a gander of the happy hour crowd gathered at the pool, however, my insecurity vanished. Most of the guests were older than me. More than one was crippled.

We kept our bathing suits on for a quick dip before the Blue Light Special grabbed a couple of light beers. The space really did look lovely at night with a nearly full moon shining above the gently swaying palms and a disco ball reflecting tiny squares of light on the water and chaise lounges. I finally relaxed.

The night attendant recommended El Siboney's, a Cuban restaurant, with only the vaguest of directions. It had begun to drizzle when we stepped outside. I made the mistake of wearing flip flops and by the time we finally found the place, in a residential neighborhood, the straps had worn a bloody groove in the skin above my right toe.

The simple food was cheap and plentiful and a couple of diners who looked as if they could have spent the day shooting a porn movie on location at the Island Club provided a welcome diversion. Too bad the Blue Light Special, who made good on his earlier promise to "invite" me to a meal (his term for treating), had his back to them while I leered.

We left dinner in a very good mood. It didn't last long when we ended up getting lost with each blaming the other for our predicament. Though this became the refrain of our trip, my injured feet intensified tonight's squabble. A bicyclist finally directed us away from the naval base back to Fleming Street.

The Blue Light Special borrowed a couple of porn videos at the front desk, each of which required a $20 deposit on my credit card. It took him longer to select his "bedtime stories" than our dinner entree. Daddy wasn't pleased.

Why don't you just watch the 24-hour porn channel in your room? asked the night attendant.

My sentiments exactly but I have learned not to try to reason with the Blue Light Special who studiously examined every cover before making his selection. Two hours later, the light from the TV awakened me. He finally had fallen asleep.

BEDTIME STORY

I didn't sleep nearly as well as I had hoped, realizing I had forgotten to use my WNET membership discount at Alamo and worrying about my unemployed future. The Blue Light Special took a brief run before we made our morning appearance on the patio just steps from our room. A very modest, entirely pre-packaged breakfast awaited us in the kitchen area. Some hot guy who kept checking out The Blue Light Special gave me a more powerful rush than my morning dose of caffeine but we never saw him again once we set off on a pair of bicycles that the manager produced for us. They were the second reason we had decided to stay at the Cabanas instead of another comparably priced guesthouse where the clientele might have been more to the Blue Light Special's liking but where I feared the intimidation factor would be much higher.



We pedaled to Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, an under-maintained picnic and hiking area with beach access that was worth the $2 admission fee if only to see what most of Ft. Lauderdale looked like just a little more than a century ago. Faded signs educated us about how the Seminole Indian tribe had used the lush, overgrown vegetation to survive. We both wondered how the basic staples of their diet, which seems to have vanished, must taste and if there were a place for it in a specialty food market.

Sebastian Beach, where gay men congregate on a narrow strip of sand that runs parallel to US A1A, was about a mile south. We locked the bikes with a combination that spelled MEAT, stripped down to our bathing suits and plunged into the 72 degree turquoise water with a strong northern current. We dried ourselves in the sun on the concrete embankment separating the beach from the sidewalk, much like the lizards we had seen the night before. The contrast between the incrediblue sky, the Blue Light Special's red bathing suit and matching sunglasses, and the white paint screamed photo op just as loudly as his look-at-me posing. Aside from the curious glances of a young woman nearby who appeared to be using her cleavage, (almost as impressive as the Blue Light Special's abdominals) as a hitch hiking aid, his exhibitionism did not, however, stimulate much interest.



After an hour or so we pulled our shorts back on and headed for the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Had it been a little earlier in the day, I might have forked over $4 to swim in Olympic size pool of champions but I wouldn't even consider paying the $8 admission fee to enter a sports museum, even if most of the record setters were only partially clothed. Nor did I offer to buy the Blue Light Special a t-shirt. It surprised me when he bought one with his own money, just as it had when he told me that he had paid $50 for the new camouflage shorts he had found at Lincoln Road Mall in South Beach. I made a couple of cracks about his spending priorities. He ignored them.



We toured the beachfront a little while longer before crossing the channel at Las Olas Boulevard, the main drag in Ft. Lauderdale where I had dined with a friend several years earlier when we went to the White Party in South Beach. The McMansions that lined the much smaller dead-end canals didn't appeal to me nearly as much as the palm tree motif that decorated the bridge railing supports and spoke of an earlier time when real estate development was more civic-minded. Nor did they contrast very favorably with the Stranahan House, the residence of the man responsible for settling Ft. Lauderdale, that was erected in 1891. It had some personality and history, two qualities that the multimillion-dolllar homes lacked despite the SUVs in the driveway and yachts docked in the rear.



A slice of pizza a the Riverfront Mall gave us the energy to take the back way home, which included a quick stop at the Museum of Discovery & Science where a colorful, ball-operated clock as big as the building itself qualified as one of the city's major tourist attractions. I never quite trust the Blue Light Special's navigational skills as his preference for meandering is decidedly greater than mine. For this particular journey, we ended up going through Ft. Lauderdale's black neighborhood where the houses and landscaping looked nothing like what we had seen in Wilton Manors.

Why don't they paint their houses and take care of their yards? the Blue Light Special asked.

Because they're primarily employed in the service sector of the economy where wages are so low that they can hardly afford to pay the rent, I answered.

A front-page article in USA Today later confirmed the high cost of living in Ft. Lauderdale, where rents are expected to rise more than 21% this year.

We got back to the Cabanas in time for a free beer but the cool weather dissuaded me though not the Blue Light Special from repeating our routine of the night before. I kept a close eye on him while he frolicked nude in the pool and the hot tub but only a much older couple en route to their parked car took any notice.

We dined at an overpriced, nearly empty Thai restaurant near Georgie's Alibi. We both devoured everything on our plate including the decorative flowers as if we hoped the cute busboy with a brilliant smile might offer us seconds. He didn't.

The Blue Light Special didn't show any enthusiasm for a movie, so I suggested that we try Dudes, a bar that advertised nude dancers in the Fun Map that he has collected for every gay destination in America. We spent nearly an hour looking for the place and when we found it, in a strip mall near the beach, I refused to pay the cover charge. We spent the rest of the evening checking out every other bar on the map in addition to searching for Leather Werks, the store that had sponsored the booth at the 2006 International Mr. Leather contest where I had bought him a studded codpiece.

The Blue Light Special doesn't get how little gay night life interests me and seemed disappointed when I didn't want to go inside Boardwalk, the only place that had drawn a crowd on a Monday night with the promise of a drag show. A healthy dose of porn, which he calls his "bedtime story," helped him get over it even more than the slideshow of our trip so far that I created on the computer before falling asleep.

A FLATTERING DEMOGRAPHIC

For the first time, I took the C train to 125th Street and transferred to the M60, the bus to LaGuardia. Even at 6 a.m. on a Sunday, the trip took less than an hour, saving me at least $25 and giving me plenty of time at the Spirit Airlines terminal to observe the crowds, most of whom appeared to be Hassidim or families with lots of children en route to Ft. Lauderdale. I felt like a foreigner.

The Blue Light Special, who had flown down from Chicago earlier in the week, and I had arranged to meet at the Alamo car rental agency.

Over here he shouted from the head of the line, slightly tanned and eager to begin his all-expenses-paid trip. He wore his trademark red sunglasses and a new pair of Quiksilver camouflage shorts, purchased on sale in South Beach. It cost me an extra $100 to add him as a driver, but my first case of sticker shock faded when the agent offered us a VW Beetle convertible.

Shall we take the yellow or the silver one? I asked before overruling him and choosing the silver one on the grounds that it would be easier to find in a parking lot.

But the silver one looks more sophisticated he said.

Paying the tab has its privileges, I thought, ignoring his plea.

That’s German engineering he said proudly after showing me how to move the seat forward and open the trunk.

The Blue Light Special’s luggage wouldn’t fit in the trunk through no fault of the engineers in his homeland. Once everything was loaded, we barely had enough room for a 12 pack of diet Dr. Pepper and a box of Snyders pretzels, let alone a smokin' white trash hitchhiker. After inserting Madonna's Immaculate Collection into the CD changer, I took the wheel with the Blue Light Special telling me how to operate the vehicle, directing me to Wilton Manors and searching for Spanish music on the radio.

We stopped at a Dunkin' Donuts on the Federal Highway for coffee and a muffin. The Blue Light Special excitedly told me about his Saturday night out at Twist. Apparently, the fleet was in. Gay cruise ships, that is. He exchanged e-mail addresses with somebody. Maybe the bison farmer, the only detail of his TBM (trip before me) that stuck.

With at least an hour to kill before check-in, he insisted on showing me the Pelican Grand Resort where, upon arrival Thursday in Florida, he had stayed in a $1200 suite with Thug Lover, his roommate, who was in Ft. Lauderdale on business. He took me to the roof where we could look down at the meandering waterway near the large swimming pool, where he had floated away a cloudy afternoon and chatted up the lifeguard about his own experience making Lake Michigan a safe place for swimmers last summer. Then we had to drive by the Blue Dolphin, a gay guesthouse near the beach where he and his roommate had stayed on an earlier trip. It looked like a dump.

Let's pop the top I suggested, beginning to sweat a little in my jeans and long-sleeved shirt.

German engineering proved to be a little less intuitive here; it took both of us to figure out how. Then we headed to a mini-mall in Wilton Manors where the density of rainbow flags reminded me of 8th Avenue in Chelsea. Except that men of a certain age and vintage automobiles filled the parking lot. We had stumbled upon a meeting of the local car club.



A lime green '57 Thunderbird convertible brought back memories of an aunt and uncle picking me and my mother up at Idlewild Airport when we were returning from Munich after my father's first peacetime tour of duty in Germany. Somehow, the four of us AND our luggage managed to fit in the two-seater for the ride back to White Plains. I guess Mom must have traveled a lot lighter than the Blue Light Special or the drag queen who proudly displayed a red stiletto heel in the rear window of a Caddy with fins the size of swordfish.



The Blue Light Special obligingly posed for a photo beneath the Humpy Pizza sign to document our arrival in a much warmer gay ghetto than we were accustomed to at this time of year. I think I read somewhere that the gay male population is denser in Wilton Manors than anywhere else in the country. Even more comforting, the retiree demographics in the parking lot almost made me feel like chicken.

Our guesthouse, the Cabanas was minutes away, separated from a heavily trafficked street by a wooden gate that made "clothing optional" everywhere except the area facing the canal. Two guys were sunning themselves nude outside the jaccuzi, just a few steps from our nicely appointed room. Had they been as young and semi-attractive as Barely Sober, the tipsy manager, we might have lingered after he gave us the tour. Instead, we wasted no time in requesting use of the amenity that had appealed to us a lot more than the thread count of the sheets: kayaks to tour the waterway that surrounds Wilton Manors.

The Blue Light Special delayed our actual departure by borrowing some DVDs that were separated into porn and general interest categories, with the latter having far fewer selections. Ever the porniseur, he carefully examined the packaging of each before selecting three, the maximum number allowed, while I whined that we didn't have much time before the sun set. After the amused Barely Sober made me sign for the DVDs, he helped us launch two kayaks chained to the dock and suggested that we go against the wind to make it easier on our way back.



Most of the houses had been lovingly restored and beautifully landscaped with bermuda grass, colorful flowers and palm trees. We didn't see many people but more than a few crested lizards the size of small dogs lazily sunned themselves on the concrete bulkheads and in the mangroves that lined the canals. Signs posted on the occasional highway overpasses warned motorboat operators to watch out for manatees, a species new to the Blue Light Special. Only the cries of a couple of black kids when we pulled up one of their crab pot lines to investigate and our occasional comments broke the late afternoon stillness.



With only the sun as our guide, we eventually made the mistake of asking a woman who obviously had consumed too many cocktails where, exactly, we were. She gave us directions that might have sent us to the Everglades if not for a family in a small outboard whose father gruffly informed us that we were only at the half point in our tour and steered us straight.

By this time, the sun had begun its rapid descent in the cloudless sky. We both were a little chilled and exhausted. Sightseeing gave way to finding our way back before dark which we did, barely, with some help from an attractive kayaker who smiled when he overheard our bickering about which fork in the canal to take. He seemed impressed by how far we had come already. Fortunately, our back pain disappeared as soon as we stood up straight for the first time in three hours.

I'll bet not many of the guests at the Cabanas do what we just did I observed, stretching gratefully.

The Blue Light Special decided to take advantage of the amenities offered by every guesthouse we had seen in listed in the Spartacus guide that we had consulted.

First the steam room to get nice and warm, then we'll jump in the heated pool and finish our wine in the hot tub he commanded.

I think both of us hoped the presence of a hot guy might add some excitement to our first night at the Cabanas but no other guests were present for the happy hour that had been extended slightly until our return by Barely Sober.

We dined outside at Rosie's where the Blue Light Special already had eaten and fallen in love with the quesadillas. We shared a plate of these along with a Cobb salad, gossiping about who might be HIV positive or using steroids among the other patrons, a frequent topic between us. When the wind shifted, the waiters lowered the plastic curtains that protect the patrons from the semi-tropical weather. It was time to move on to Georgie's Alibi, your standard gay video bar with a Sunday evening crowd that was drinking beer for a buck.

This crowd doesn't look anything like the one you see at tea I observed. The guys aren't as attractive and seem a lot friendlier.

The Blue Light Special agreed, possibly for the first and only time of the trip.

We stayed less than hour. After a stop for ice cream at Maggie Moo's that cost five times as much as the two beers we had drunk, we sank into bed at the Cabanas where I fell asleep even before the Blue Light Special loaded the porn.