Followers of Contigo – I’d like to start this guest blog entry by thanking Hank, Adam, and Paul for being outstanding hosts. If you ever have a spare few days, I encourage you to fly out and join them for a short bit. It’s worth every minute and penny. Lastly, I want to provide a disclaimer – what follows is not the usual progress updates. This falls just short of a full blown story. And it’s about partying. Day 1 Part 1 (mildly edited for family consumption) So there I was (no shit) fresh off the plane from nine grizzly months in the Sinai Peninsula. I had 3 weeks of leave with no plan. I was shopping some ideas around with the guys back home but nothing was coming together. Then Hank chimed in. All it took was “dude, you should come hang with us on Contigo,” My response was pretty simple – something like “F**** yeah.” After a small amount of limited coordination Hank told me they’d be somewhere in the Keys around the time I would take leave. That was all I needed to know. Right away I booked a flight to Miami and the Keys Shuttle to take me to Marathon Key (Marathon was the estimated rendezvous at the time.) Unfortunately for Contigo, but fortunately (and selfishly for me) they got stuck with engine issues in Key West. So bam, easy answer – boys I’m coming to KW on Monday, and idgaf what happens from there as long as I find a way to Miami by Thursday, and that’s where day 1 of this log begins. I flew into Miami around 10:30am with the plan of preloading at an airport bar before a 1pm shuttle. After I grabbed my bags I walked to pick out where I would be picked up by the Keys Shuttle. Luckily, the driver for the 1100 shuttle was an old confused man who hadn’t taken off by 1120 so I said “Hey, I’m here. Can I just get in and go?” He made the call to his office and they said ok so I proudly declared shotgun and hit the road with a full shuttle. The 5 hour ride wasn’t so bad, except for the first four hours and 50 minutes riding shotgun with a senile retiree. I swear we made a u-turn for every stop we made, even though he had a Garmin GPS mounted on the dash. We stopped and let off people at about a dozen stops before I made it to Turtle Kraals and he drove like and asshole the entire time. An old asshole who doesn’t know what conventional traffic laws are. But to his credit he retired ten years ago to Marathon Key and just drives the shuttle for fun. I hate because I want. So after 5 hours of pulling 2 G’s every time a light turned green and trying to keep my head from flying through the windshield every time there was a red light or even a hint of traffic, he let me out at the Contigo home base bar – Turtle Kraals.
Day 1 Part 2 I got myself a beer and some lunch at Turtle’s while I waited for Adam and Hank to show up with Paul. They eventually came storming into the bar and we had a hell of a bro love reunion for the entire place to enjoy. Hank and Paul had to then run off and find some stuff for the boat and mail some items so Adam and I started impatiently drinking waiting for the turtle races – which are exactly what they sound like. 
Adam practiced what I call alcoholic social excellence and began making friends with everybody who occupied the three seats beside us for about 4 hours. We met a bunch of people from Omaha, they sure were nice. 
Then we met two couples from Baltimore that included a former marine who lived vicariously through Adam’s stories. He had them entertained for at least 90 minutes. But the best was your classic two friendly gay dudes and their sister accompaniment. They were probably like 40+ish. I did not understand the dynamic there but they were hilarious. No doubt I could tell the gay guys had their radar on trying to figure out me and Adam. I’m not sure what they figured out in the end, but I did get free drinks. 
Kinda weird looking back, but I like beer and it was free. 
Towards the end Adam got into an argument with one of the guys – Jimmy, about whether or not he can actually crochet. Adam swore up and down he had a pot holder he made himself on the boat. We later took a picture of it and sent it to one of the ladies as proof. Unfortunately I lost the picture at sea. PS shout out to Thomas Cole, we bragged about him being a pageant winner and they started asking a lot of questions about the authenticity and prestige of the pageant that we were not equipped to answer. All I could say was that Thomas wasn’t dressed like a girl, apparently that was an important detail. Finally their time at Turtle’s came to an end, we took farewell shots of Fireball (free again) and said goodbye. They left the bar, we didn’t.
DAY 1 PART 3 Hank eventually came back to meet Adam and I at Turtle’s. 
Adam and closed out for probably the third time, but this time we actually left afterwards. The three of us headed out to Duval street to find some more entertainment. We had the genius idea to call Eric Duskin along the way to talk about what we really thought was some deep stuff at the time. Luckily for him he didn’t answer and the three of us just left a loud incoherent message on his answering machine. I think we actually left two messages. Sorry Eric. We hit a few quick bars and got the crappiest liquor drinks ever made, like worse than what we probably served at the Nutmeg drive house in 2009. If you know what I’m talking about, then you know what I’m talking about. We took the party to Irish Kevin’s to see a band that promptly hit an intermission the second we walked in. But, we really wanted to see these guys for some reason so we stuck around and had some more drinks and that’s when Adam hit that next level making it a mostly memorable night. I’ll hit a few of his highlights. One of the best was at Irish Kevin’s a girl had her hands full of drinks and beers she was carrying, leaving her defenseless (figuratively). Adam grabbed a straw, dropped it into one of the beers, had a nice taste, thanked her kindly, and she moved on. She wasn’t even mad. I love Key West. After Irish Kevin’s somebody decided we should get pizza. They were 100% correct. But en route to getting pizza we made two unlikely friends. 
I say unlikely, but honestly at this point in the night nothing was unlikely. One had a guitar and no shoes plus an unlit cigarette he literally never took out of his mouth the entire 15 minutes we hung out with them (except the above picture). I guess he can just breathe through his nose really well. He was leathery tan and withering away. Classic Key West. We’ll call him “Silent K” for the purpose of this story. His buddy was an even older and more haggard looking guy, but he hand a nicely trimmed snow white beard. Like it was impressive grooming for a bum. He also wore sunglasses with one lens popped out. I guess it was so he could actually see at night. We’ll call him “The One.” They asked for us to buy them a beer. I agreed on the grounds that it would be Budweiser and they would have to share it with me. So I grabbed a frosty can and ceremoniously offered it to our new friends. Politely, they demanded I take the first sip. I was honored. And it was the best first sip of Budweiser I’ve ever tasted. Those that know me understand those words carry weight. After the first sips, the Truth gave Adam his missing lens as a gift. I guess he just kept it in his pocket to pop back in during daytime? 
Anyways, that’s when The One started his whole “I’m the one, man. I’m the one.” speal. Silent K started playing guitar, what song was debatable, but The One decided he could sing Wish You Were Here along with it. So that’s what we did. We stumbled through the “two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl” line over and over and over, with every break in words being filled with “I’m the one boys. I’m the one.” After what was apparently a ton of pictures and videos we didn’t even know we had until a day later, we decided it was time to move on and let The One continue trying to find his next beer benefactor. As we got closer to wanting to leave and started hitting bars en route to the dingy, Adam and Hank got into an argument about where the dingy was parked and how to get there. It escalated really quickly. Listen to Hank talking and Adam screeching. Love you Adam.
