Key West: The conch quest...

I consider Terre to be a really good friend.  You know, someone (other than the wife) who you'd try to save in an earthquake or a blizzard... maybe even a nuclear holocaust.  Though I'm guessing he'd be rounding up all of his friends and family himself if he could.

Rae and I have vacationed with he and Deb several times, including time in Mexico, Florida (St. Pete's and Orlando), and a couple of weeks trippin' around the land of Oz.  He's an energetic guy with a big heart(they are an energetic couple!), a real go-getter, which is great for us as we're much more laid back and casual.  We probably wouldn't do even half as much on trips if it weren't for them.

But he does come up with missions... very specific goals with (at times) elaborate rules.  Like, he won't say he technically visited a place unless he spends a week solid there.  

I'll say I've visited a place if I drive through it.  "Seen it!" I'll exclaim as I check it off the list.

Hell, I've visited Nebraska several times, rarely staying for more than 24 hours as I drive along I-70.  I get it.  It's flat, and there are a lot of farms.  It seems nice in parts, crappy in others.  Moving on!

His mission in Key West... to eat 20 orders of conch fritters in eight days.  The rules:  Order at least one batch of fritters (essentially hush puppies with bits of conch inside) and take one picture with the full order still on the plate alongside a logo, wait staff with logo shirt, or other memorable visual cue.  Then he would try one, and try to place it amongst the best or the worst of the category.

As with most of his missions, at first it was cute.  Terre puts all of his energy behind these things, and sells it... making it fun, especially at first.  The only problem is with the longer missions, the more difficult it becomes to keep selling it.  Even to himself.

Along the way, we became a lot more informed about conch.  Each couple brought a laptop except Rae and I.  I had my iPod, which given the power of wi-fi is a great travel tool.  And when we had down time, you could find any number of people sitting in front of a screen, usually with a drink

Terre wanted more information on conchs and the conch industry, and proceeded to read off several things from the glow:

1. It's illegal to take this endangered animal from U.S. waters.

2. All conch brought to Key West is frozen.

3. The Key West is called the Conch Republic.

He would read aloud from his screen about this and that, usually skipping the boring parts and hitting the meat of it.  Sometimes he would ask if we wanted to hear, but even if we said no he would usually start reading anyway.

Again... because of him, I came away with a new appreciation of something that I probably wouldn't have if it had just been Rae and me on vacation.

In a way, this plot unfolded similarly to Brewster's Millions.  At first, it was easy to get an order, a picture, and a judgement.  We had all the competition stacked neatly from best to worst.  Toward the end, though, people were falling off the conch fritter bandwagon.

It really started Tuesday night, 4 days in on the trip and my birthday.  The group of us: Tom, Gwen, Deb, Terre, Rae and I went out along Duval Street, stopping by bar after bar to get a drink or a shot before moving on.  We walked a few blocks up from Front Street on one side of Duval, only to return to it on the other.  Toward the end of the night, we needed food to calm down our drunkenness.  

Terre ordered the fritters, and Tom turned to him with a slurred smile saying, "You must have a strong constitution or something because I just can't eat that shit anymore."  The table erupted in laughter, a part in our liquid reaction, a part in disbelief, a part from Tom's delivery (very droll indeed), and a part in the truth of the statement.

We were on #13 or 14 at that point, and Tom had tried most of those.  I think he and Terre had spent a good chunk of time earlier that day on the "Conch Quest" while Rae and I were off at urgent care.

After that, the quest took a back seat to the rest of the trip, though Terre did manage to get 16 orders in before Tom, Gwen, Rae and I headed back to Minneapolis.  I haven't gotten a full report from him since returning to the Great White North, so maybe he made it... we'll see.

TO BE CONTINUED...