Dry Tortugas

... or DRTO as it is referred to those who live out here.

I went home, packed my bag and staged all my pre-purchased stuff for the trip to be loaded quickly, then I headed out to do some last minute stuff while waiting for the PC… She had a baby-sitting gig on Tuesday, so she was due to be home at 3:30. I got back at 3:20 and loaded up my car, picked up the PC and we were on the road by 4:15.

We took our time on the trip- after all, the only deadline we had was load out on the Yankee Freedom at 6:30 AM.
We got dinner on the way down, stopped a couple times for gas. Hunter watched “Pirates of the Caribbean” on the DVD in my laptop was we drove down…
We hit Homestead/Florida City at midnight. I got a monster cup of coffee and kept driving. We arrived in Key West at 3:00 AM sharp.
We both snoozed until 5:00AM in the parking lot of the Winn Dixie and at 5 we went in and loaded up on all of our consumables/perishables- bread, hot dogs, lunchmeats, chicken, steak, fruit etc… Lots of tasty stuff…
We headed over to the harbor and moved all of our stuff to the Yankee. We went over to Harpoon Harry’s for breakfast- (passable, but I’ve had much better at worse places…)
They loaded up the passengers at 7:30 and we left the dock at 8:00…
Smooth ride- glassy water...
Many hands of 5-card-draw later we were disembarking at Garden Key.

Now comes the real fun…

BTW- Just for those keeping score-
Sunday night - 4 hours of sleep (Home)
Monday Night – 3 hours of sleep (Charlotte)
Tuesday night – 2 hours (in the car in the parking lot)

Guess who’s really really really tired…

TBG Out-