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Jane and I arrived noonish Monday, after a smooth and uneventful flight from Albany. Unless you consider getting up at 3:30 am to make a flight an "event". Our B&B on southern Duvall turned out to be an excellent choice, as only a short walk to the Casa, and yet still on Duvall. Turned out to be the "quiet end of Duvall", which allowed us peaceful nights. Peaceful nights for sleeping that is. As you see the older we get, the more we discover that waking at 5:30 am does not give one much chance of making that 9 pm Jerry Jeff Walker concert at the Casa Marina! This turned out to be a familiar theme all week, as we struggled to sleep later(failed), and struggled to stay up later(also failed). But don't let me paint a negative picture of our 2nd MOTM experience. Of course we had a wonderful time and were able to experience several excellent restaurants that we had not been to before. Did you know there are 380 restaurants in Key West??!! We had arguably, perhaps, the best fried fish sandwich on the island at B.O.s Fishwagon, a dumpy looking shack that your parents would've warned you against going into. Alas, the food was great there, and it was always busy....no secret to the masses. After a very filling lunch, Jane and I saw Pepe's just across the street, another famous Key West tradition, doing business since 1909. We went right in, and believe it or not we ate lunch AGAIN!! Like Hobbits, we had "second lunch"!

Native oysters($1 each), with a chunky homemade cocktail sauce, a Portobello mushroom sandwich, and a grilled grouper sandwich for Jane. I have never seen Jane eat like that before. It must have been all the walking we had done that morning. We were determined to do at least one "cultural " thing, so we could say we did not just drink and eat all week.

On Wednesday, we found ourselves at the Conch Republic Seafood Co. where most of the Chartered Sunset sails deport from. It also seems to be a popular spot to find other PHeads from NE. We ran into several members of the CT club, as well as Moby and crew from Maine. Most of them were there to go on Eric Stones Sunset cruise. We had chose to go on a different cruise with Kelly Maguire, the following day. As luck would have it, Eric had a few no shows, and invited us to go for FREE! Free beer, wine , music, and sunshine! What a day! Things got very strange from this point on, and the convention had not even officially started yet.

Thursday's weather was determined to remind everyone that mother nature was still in charge, Hurricane or not, she was to remind us all of her mood swings(Ha ha), It rained off and on, and then around 2pm decided to really let it come down. Key West got over 2 inches in a few hours, and many of the streets flooded, some up to 6 inches deep. We headed to the Casa to see JJW, but after standing in the rain for an hour, we were soaked to the bone, and gave up, trodding through dirty, dark, street backwash, that made you hope you didn't have any open cuts on your feet!

Friday started out with the realization the our Friday cruise with Kelly Maguire was actually Thursday!!!! D'OHH!! We missed it, but we consoled ourselves with the fact that we had the free cruise with Eric, so we were even. Our next reality check came when we arrived at the Casa for the Brunch, and discovered that it also was on Thursday. We thought it preceeded the Golden Coconut Award ceremony, which we were there to observe. D'OHH

AGAIN! We did listen to the heartfelt thanks given by the Wellesly House(Monroe County child services), the Blood Bank, (they collected an all time 3-day record), the KWPD, Toys for tots(Jane brought with her 3 toys/games) and several other thankful reps of the other MOTM charities. After the Tidewater (Fla.) PHC won the club of the year, we watched a very exciting and entertaining auction of signed Buffet posters, artwork, signed sandals, shirts,and even a pair of Jimmy's shorts(insert joke here), all autographed and beautifully framed. Nothing went for less than $500, and one framed, signed Barometer Soup poster went for $1500!! A PH husband and wife team did the professional auctioneering and it was alot of fun to watch the frenzy of bidding, and whose wallet and willpower would crumble first.

The rest of the weekend went as one would imagine....alot of great music, great food, and hanging out with PH friends old and new. We spent a ton of money, gave some back to the community, supported dozens of musicians, restaurants, and bars, and pretty much did what PHeads do, including the occasional screw-up.