Day One of our Trip to the Florida Keys - Enough Eventfulness for the whole week!

This is 5:58 a.m., just prior to pulling out of our yard on Monday morning, July 4, 2022.

 

If you have wondered how we get so much done here at Quilted Twins, it’s because we are dedicated to the task of providing as great of fabulous fabrics as we can find at the most reasonable cost we can.

This has meant that we have taken very few days off, and little time with our family. Even when they come to visit, we’d bring them into the office, and have them help us.

Therefore, we decided that we’d take part of a week over the July 4th “week” and head South to the Florida Keys.

This was on my bucket list as something I’d been wanting to do for at least 5 years.  We have limited our trips and vacations to “close by” once my parents have gotten older. Having Mom get so seriously ill last year meant that I haven’t felt comfortable on a major trip, like we’ve done in the past, to explore international locations. Staying close to home, like visiting St. Augustine, or even the Bahamas, which was only a 1 hour flight from the Orlando airport, seemed a lot better than driving 10 or 15 hours away from home.

So, it just seemed right, this year, to realize my dream of seeing our Florida Keys.

Our oldest son, Andy, said that he and his wife, Emma, could come down from where they are planting a church in NYC, and that he’d like to get one last trip like this in before their little one comes in September. Our son, Peter, is always up for a trip to anywhere, and he also hadn’t taken any real vacation time for two years.

So, on Monday morning at 5:58 a.m., we pulled out of our yard, here in Dade City. I was wired for sound, so Ken suggested that it would be a great idea if I’d drive, as I certainly wouldn’t be resting. The rest of the crew had had very little sleep, what with a late flight, airport run, etc.

Google said it was a 6 hour, 4 min. drive from our house to our Air B’n B, about halfway down the Keys.

Everything went extremely smoothly until 10 a.m., at which time I was looking for a place to get off, so I could switch drivers. We were 4 hours down the road, hadn’t stopped yet, not for food, or bathroom, or to stretch our legs, or anything. But, to my chagrin, the turn “off” was really a turn “onto” the Turnpike down near Miami. I was excited to be on the turnpike, as that was our last leg, before getting on the road that led to the Keys, but I was terrified to drive through the big city of Miami with all of that traffic. For the past 2 years, I’ve stayed so close to the store, and so busy, that my driving has been limited to extremely local.

We decided to take a picture at the service plaza! We were just minutes away from being stranded on the Ronald Reagan Turnpike, but at least we were together!

So, at the first Service Plaza that I came to, I told the rest of the van that I was pulling into it so that we could switch drivers, stretch our legs and plan our next move, as in food, etc. We knew that we wanted to find a Walmart before heading down to the Keys themselves, figuring things would cost substantially more down there.

Little did we know what would happen next.

After a much needed leg stretching and bathroom break, Ken took over driving. He had no sooner pulled out of the Service Center when we heard this horrific thwap, thwap, thwap and the van started to pull very hard to one direction. I was ever so thankful that it was July 4, and still relatively early for a holiday, so the road wasn’t packed with people yet.  He got us safely to the side of the road, and Andy stuck his phone out of the van and said, “Yep, the tire is gone.” It was shredded. I mean, there was no going anywhere on that thing. No limping anywhere, and we were on a very narrow shoulder on the turnpike. It wasn’t exactly the spot where you can just get out all your stuff and change your tire!

So, we did what all good Americans do who have AAA, and we called them. I was at least confident that that was current, as the night before, I had confirmed that our membership was up to date and I had printed out some current cards, in case we could use them for discounts. Alas, no one accepted them for discounts where we went, but we did get the ultimate discount, which was a tow to the Florida City Super Walmart, where they were able to get us a new tire.  At first we had set up our tow truck driver to take us to the closest Walmart Super Center, but thankfully, we thought to ask if they had an Automotive Center. We found out that they did not, so Ken asked him to take the van to the one in Florida City instead!

The tow truck driver told us over the phone that he didn’t have room for all of us, so Andy called an Uber for us. That kind of thing is “old hat” for NYC residents. For us in Dade City, however, I don’t even have an UBER app on my phone!

“Calling an UBER” is the simplified way to say that we had to find someone who spoke English, someone who get on the Turnpike, and someone who could hold four guests in their vehicle.  That was a minor miracle to get someone who could manage all three things at the same time. We had one who was close, but not “up” on the Turnpike, and couldn’t figure out that we were not down where ordinary people drive! We are incredibly thankful for Google, as it helped Andy to tell the driver exactly where we were, so he could find us.

Ken stayed with the van, and the Uber driver took off, and we prayed that we’d see each other eventually 12 miles down the road at the Walmart.

But, shopping at Walmart was on our list of what we were going to do, and visiting the dead last available Walmart before you get on US Hwy 1, and heading into the Keys was fun! It was a HUGE Supercenter, and we managed to find sand shovels, a trash can for a bucket to move sand at the beach, and multiple other things that we Floridians needed to enjoy a true Florida vacation. See, even though we live here, we never get out in the sand to enjoy it! So, yes, we had to find some spray sun tan lotion, some flip flops or water shoes for the guys, and goodies like that. Of course, I had to check out the fabric section to just confirm that we totally outshine most stores that I see, in comparison to how much quilting cotton stores have! We won with just one of our rows in our store! Here’s what they had!

Ken eventually pulled up with the tow truck driver, and then Andy pulled me aside and said that we had a new complication. While Ken was outside arranging with the automotive department, Emma, the 7 month pregnant wife of Andy, was experiencing some bleeding and what we came to believe was a UTI. Well, bleeding when you’re 7 months pregnant is not something you just ignore. After calling Emma’s nurse Mom, they decided that they needed to find an Urgent Care. Now remember, this is all happening on the Fourth of July.

Finding places open so far, had not been too difficult. But our needs were small – and not totally out of the ordinary – until now.

But, once again, with google to the rescue, and the Lord watching out for us, they found a very close by Urgent Care that was open on the Fourth of July.

By now it was 12:15 and we hadn’t eaten a thing all day. I suggested that we eat lunch, first, since perhaps just having some food would help us all to cope with things a little bit better. Both Sonny’s BBQ and Golden Corral were in the parking lot of the Walmart.

As we ate at the GC, I could see that Emma was looking worse and worse. I looked up at her, and she was starting to glisten, and she felt clammy. Now I was starting to be concerned. Andy decided it was time to wind us the meal and get her to the Urgent Care. Another Uber took them there. We stayed and lollygagged around the table at the GC until the call came to come and get the van.

I wasn’t sure if this would be our last “couple” shot with these two… so I snagged one just prior to the Uber coming to take them to the Urgent Care.

So, we did. With the new tire on, we decided to drive around and see a bit of Homestead and Florida City while waiting for Andy and Emma to get done at Urgent Care. I was positive they’d test her, get her an antibiotic and send us all on our merry way.

Well, about 1 hour later, we got the call to come and get them.  “Great, I thought, we can head south to the Air B n B”… We might still have time to do something there, as the place seemed to be full of touristy type things to do.”

So, we pulled up to the Urgent Care, and Andy opened the van and dropped the bombshell. He said, “We need to get to the hospital. We have to go to the closest ER.” That happened to be the Baptist Hospital in Homestead.

Now, none of us is a regular hospital visitor, unless you count pastoral visits. So, now I was starting to get very concerned. In my life, we don’t go to the ER unless you’re dying, or have a broken bone and no one can set it.

But, what we found out was that she had too much protein in her urine and with her bleeding, they were concerned for her and the baby. Since they didn’t deal with OB cases, they needed her to see someone who did.

So, we did.

We spent the next 5 hours in the ER waiting room, making friends with the fish, resting, looking at our phones, sleeping and resting some more, while Andy and Emma went up and she was examined. Thankfully, they found nothing out of the ordinary, other than a UTI, and after another 2 hours’ worth of waiting, we finally were heading down the road again by shortly after 7 at night!

I asked the group in the van, if we could wait until we got onto Key Largo to find some food, and we could just get it “to go” and we could eat and drive, as I didn’t want it to be pitch dark when we drove. They were all in agreement! We found a Wendy’s in Key Largo and got it to go!

This Wendy’s was delightfully quick and wonderful. Hunger is always the best sauce, however, for any food you eat! Hoorah for Key Largo. We were thrilled to see so much life and activity on the Key.


We entered “the first Key” around 7:15 or so.. I don’t really remember much, because I was so happy to be on the road again! We were incredibly thankful to be all in tact, no baby born early, no serious complications and only a prescription which we could get filled at any Walgreens we could find on the Keys the next day!

I was a Key Newbie, as was everyone in the van. We had expected it to be mainly bridges with water on both sides of us for the whole 1.5 hours that we had to drive to our destination on Duck Key.

Instead, we were delighted with beautiful vegetation, a delightfully stunning colorful sunset and lots and lots of land, with only a few bridges that we had to cross.

We got to the Air B’n B around 9:15, and were greeted with this beautiful sight out our back sliding glass door.

We decided to dig out our first puzzle and get started while we talked, after picking rooms!

We had no idea this puzzle would be this hard, as we had not tackled a totally shaped puzzle like this before!

What a day our first day had been. We had left Dade City 15 hours earlier, and had seen the Lord protect, guide and keep us as we traveled south. We made memories, visited a Walmart, an Urgent Care and an ER, all in the same day!

Check back in for another Update about the other days. The second day was our quest for the antibiotic for Emma!

Rachael Woodard5 Comments