Day 4 got started quite a bit earlier than planned for Julie. She found herself in the staff's room on the bathroom floor at 1:45 AM dealing with what she at first thought to be food poisoning. But after several hours of the usual symptoms associated with food poisoning and the addition of pains in the lower back, it was time to go to the hospital.

After a quick update of Fran and Dale, Julie and Keenan set off down Espanola Way where they found Clay Hotel's head of security (a fine chap by the name of Santos) who quickly whistled a cab and sent them off to the South Beach Hospital.

Arriving at 4 AM there was a great deal of fear of the unknown, but after some haggling with Santiago, the hospital administrator, Julie got to lie down on a table in an exam room, which is pretty much where she and Keenan would be for the next 12 hours.

By 6 AM an actual doctor had been in the room and within a few minutes was quite confident that Julie was probably in the process of passing a kidney stone, which according to the doctor ranks with childbirth as one of the most painful experiences possible. A series of tests proved the kidney stone hypothesis correct. There wasn't much to be done but to take medication and wait for the pain to pass - the stone didn't actually pass until a day later.

Keenan was on the phone with Fran and Dale before the group got up for breakfast, and the plan was to stick with the plan...breakfast and then off to Parrot Jungle Island. The group took the news of Julie and Keenan's whereabouts quite well. A few tears of concern were shed, and there was a bit of stress on some faces throughout the early afternoon, but everyone managed to have a great time with the beautiful feathered creatures they encountered. Not to mention the white (albino) alligator. There were also snakes and even a panther - and he looked kind of hungry!

By dinner time Julie was feeling a lot better and the whole group went to Jerry's together. Dinner was made a little more interesting than usual because there was a film crew from the UK doing a travel video with a feature on the restaurant. Guess which group of diners got to be a big part of it all?!?

It was another beautiful night and Espanola Way was all lit up and full of diners, vendors, and people strolling by. There was a steady stream of trips back and forth to the little grocery on Washington Street. Nobody was buying all that much, but it was a good way to keep a beautiful evening going.

It had been quite a day. It was hard to believe there was just one full day to go!