Recovering from Keys Disease (02-16-13)

Our leaving the Florida Keys coincided with a cold front that arrived.  Both events served as a “wake up” call to me. I literally felt like I was coming out of daze that had gripped me for the 6 weeks that we were in the Keys. Life in the keys is slow, warm, sunny and revolves around eating, drinking, and the water.  Low temperatures at night were in the 70s, so putting on pants and a jacket were a fairly rare occurrence. When we left, the temperature at night dropped into the 40s, with a high in the mid 50s the next day.  What a difference!

Luckily, before that all happened, we were able to squeeze in a few fun outings.  We took a snorkel trip out to Sombrero Lighthouse one day.  It’s a half hour boat trip out to the reef, and I enjoyed every minute of the trip.

   Not everyone did, however, because by the time we got to the reef, the seas were a bit rough and a few people weren’t feeling very well.  I had a little trepidation about heading into the water with 2-3 swells, and Paul could tell I was a little nervous.  I put on a BC vest to keep me more buoyant, even though he and I had both opted for full wetsuits. The water was pretty warm, but any water can feel cold  when you’re in it for an hour.



  I was completely surprised by the whole snorkel experience.  First, the water roughness wasn’t much of an issue. It was “swelly” but it wasn’t too “choppy”.  Secondly, having snorkeled in awesome snorkel locations all over the Caribbean, I wasn’t expecting Florida to measure up.  I was pleased and surprised by the quantity and variety of fish we saw. 

   We had dinner out another couple of times, taking advantage of the warm weather and all restaurants on the water. 

We also enjoyed the wildlife that came to visit while we were eating our $.25 shrimp at Sparky’s Landing. Actually, Paul ate the shrimp- he said they were great.  I don’t like shrimp.

 

So, immediately after leaving the Keys, life snapped somewhat back to normal.  At least, what we consider to be normal for us.  One of the perks of the cooler weather was that we could sit by the campfire.  The weather actually felt nice, kind of like “Fall” was in the air.

We  took advantage of being near Everglades National Park to hike several of the nearby trails.  The 2 mile long Marsh Trail took us past a flock of Roseate Spoonbills, beautiful pink and white birds.... 

 ...

 and a small meadow full of butterflies.


 

  Big Cypress Bend Boardwalk is a mile long walk through a swampy area.   In addition to the turtles, alligators and exotic birds, we saw a young Bald Eagle.  Unfortunately, neither of the parents were around, but it was still neat to see the eaglet.

We’re on Island Time, Mon! (01-07-13)

   Our playlist consists of Buffett and Marley down here in the Keys.

Usually when Paul and I get to a new place, we immediately start exploring, but before we arrived in the keys, I reminded him that we were going to be there for a long time, and it was just a place for us to relax and wait out the winter months, not so much a place for us to explore.

  I needn't have worried.  The minute we hit the Keys, we both flipped over to Island Time.  The first few days, the truck didn't even move- we rode our bikes and walked the beach, and in general frittered the days away.

Coffee and cocktail hour are both outside on the picnic table. 

Why on the table?  Because this is the view:

We've also taken care of some household chores.  Paul installed our new Fantastic Fan-the vent fan that is in our ceiling.  This one has a remote control, so we don't have to reach up 8 feet to change the fan speed. The real bonus is that the "old one" got moved into the bathroom, so it can now be opened with the flick of a switch instead of reaching all the way up to open it manually.

We don’t have satellite TV, which can make watching TV very frustrating sometimes.  If we’re going to be without it for a short time, it’s not a big deal, we just read books, but some of us prefer TV.  I looked again recently at prices for Dish etc, but it just isn’t worth it for us- especially since you don’t get local network channels.  Since we’re going to be in the Keys for a month and the stations we can pick up with our antenna keep fading in and out, we ordered something called Sensar Pro, which should boost our reception.  We’re in the perfect place to give it a good test. 


  While he's been busy with that, I have been taking care of the year end paperwork and sending my camera back to Panasonic.  For some reason, the lens cover doesn’t open and close properly anymore and it’s still under warranty so off it went. 


 

Speaking of warranty, while we were in Orlando, our two nice Coleman chairs developed tears in the seat.  Much to our surprise, the tag says there is a 5 year warranty on the material.  We called Coleman, and after sending them the specific pictures that they asked for, they shipped us two brand new chairs! They were very accommodating when we told them we move every week or so, and got them shipped quickly.  Great customer service!!

I've never worked so hard to make campground reservations.  I started making reservations for the Keys 11 months ago, as soon as the window for booking opened.  Campsites sell out within seconds of being available, and since we were on the west coast at the time, we had to get up really early to try to book sites at 8 AM EST. Once I got what I could at that point, I have checked for cancelations almost every day, sometimes up to 3 times a day, ever since.  Why bother?  because the state parks are about $43 a night, and the private parks run about $80-100 a night.  I had to book a couple of private parks to fill in some gaps, but have been able to cancel some of them when I picked up more state park sites.  So, from now until mid February, we'll be moving around a bit between Marathon (the middle keys) and Key Largo, but we'll be in the keys for about 6 weeks.