So, at long last, the promised Key West entries.

All in all, I had a great weekend. It was the first time I’ve been camping in my adult life (for some value of “camping” that means “sleeping on a queen-sized bed with electricity and refrigeration”), and I definitely want more of it. We stayed on Bahia Honda Key, which is no end of gorgeous.

Of course, every silver lining has a cloud around it–in this case, a cloud of mosquitoes. Not just any mosquitoes–killer cybernetic mosquitoes that are immune to bug spray. These mosquitoes also violate the Man-Mosquito Covenant, signed in the days of our forefathers, that say mosquitoes stay away during the day, and come out only at night. Oh, no, these were equal-opportunity mosquitoes, as unafraid of the hateful daystar as they were undeterred by Deep Woods Off.

Still, the campsite was absolutely stunning, mosquitoes or no:

Shelly and I went there with smoocherie, and met up with our former roommate Eric, his girlfriend Sofia, their friend Jen, alchmst and his partner, and some friends of smoocherie‘s I hadn’t met previously. So, now that you know that… On to the bandwidth-destroying pictures! (These are safe for work.)

One of the most enjoyable parts of the trip to Key West for me was on Sunday, when Shelly, smoocherie, and I spent some time exploring the ruins of an old, wrecked bridge. The bridge was built in 1912 as a railroad passage, then later did double-duty as an automotive bridge before a new bridge was constructed parallel to it. The old bridge was left standing, as it would have been too expensive to demolish, but was broken at each end; the remaining structure is kind of slowly rotting away.

There’s urban decay visible everywhere in Key West, but as with everything else, they don’t do it quite the same way that any other town does. In most towns, the rot starts in industrial areas, and spreads outward as people flee the inner cities for the sterility and monotony of the suburbs, but Key West has no industrial areas and no suburbs, so things just kind of fall apart randomly.

So, without further ado… On to the pics!