Since arriving on this island Rick and I have quickly realized that the silverado doesn't quite fit. It is hard to get around in.. especially with the road construction.. and the parking is kind of a joke. So we decided to purchase bikes! We have been here for seven days and of these seven days we have talked about buying bikes for at least 6 of them. Case in point our desperate need for bikes reared its head last Saturday after my Mom and Sam had left for home. Cher had invited us out to meet people and to take our minds off of Mom and Sam leaving. We headed for Duval around 8 PM.. I do not know this but I feel that we were doomed from the start because it was "lobsterfest" and Duval street was blocked off toward the northwest. After almost 40 minutes of driving around.. getting lost by the cemetery.. and not having enough change to feed the meter for more than 2 hours we headed back home to hoof it back to Duval. Key West is known to be a "small" island.. but let me tell you all when you come visit walking to Duval street from our house is not recommended unless you would like exercise :) We started our journey and made it to Fogarty's Bar 45 minutes later. All the while we both were cussing all the happy people on bikes.I need to back track here for a minute because I have
to tell the story of "Jack"
Cher had found an ad in the paper for bikes starting at $45 dollars. We called, and found ourselves at the foot of a very lovely Conch style home. The house was really cute and had great landscape and palm trees. We stood on the front porch waiting for Jack to answer his door. After two attempts a man opened the door.. he was in his late 70s and had great bright blue eyes and an ornery smile. He was quite pleased that we actually showed up because well "most key westers say they are coming now and don't show up for three days"... at that comment Cher and I both pipe up to let him know we were Iowans. This man was something else... he was funny and nice with just the right amount of quirky... he takes us to his back yard to show us his women's bikes. As we came into the backyard there was a little pool and no less than 10 bikes along the fence line.He told us that people bring him bikes from dumpsters etc.. and he fixes the ones that are worth fixing. You can get $5 bucks for a decent bike (whoo). The two bikes were okay, they were rusted but had great handle bars and nice cushy seats but I decided to pass. On the way out of Jacks place he commented on Cher's top and then may or may not have "pretended to try" to feel her up..... he never got close but seriously dirty old man!! Cher went back three days later and haggled him down in price and snagged both bikes. Rick is going to repaint them something awesome! The point of this story was that most of those bikes were definitely stolen... in fact that is apparently the Key West welcome. "Welcome to Key West.. Bike Locks Only Kinda Matter"
okay back to Duval...
At our destination you can imagine what shape we were in.. I was a sweaty sweaty mess and Rick, well as usual he looked great.. a glistening god :) I was such a mess that a very nice girl in the group had to get me napkins to wipe the sweat running down my nose... so embarrassing!! Thank goodness I had some of them before because otherwise my first impression would have been not been impressive.
So on Tuesday we bought our first bikes. I hope these don't get stolen.. I will be very upset. My bike is a "Huffy" it is red and yellow and came equipped with a cup holder and a basket. I think I am going to name it "the stater" since it has Iowa State colors. Rick got a badass bike. His is all black (surprise surprise) Kent Shogun 29".
We absolutely love our bikes and have already road them to our work areas and to the beach. They are probably going to be the best thing we purchase.
"haggled him down" is that what you call it in Key West? :)
ReplyDeleteYep, that is the Key West way :)
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