“We Interrupt This Blog…” (04-19-13)

  The last few days have been difficult for a lot of people and devastating for others.  On Monday April 15, two bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.  Most people know that I grew up in a suburb of Boston, where Patriot’s Day is an extremely important holiday, and the marathon is considered to be one of the first signs of spring.  It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that the whole country didn’t celebrate Patriot’s Day as a holiday!

Like many people, I’ve been following the news, watching the search for the culprits, listening to reports about the victims, and waiting for new details on an hourly basis.  I guess our lack of privacy in this modern world actually helped lead to a resolution of the situation. The subjects were videotaped, showed up on multiple surveillance cameras, and police asked for any and all witness’s digital pictures that might show something of value.  Within a day or so, we knew what these two guys-brothers- looked like.

Throughout this ordeal, my Facebook page has been littered with “Boston Strong” pictures and messages of solidarity.  The New York baseball fans sang the Fenway theme song “Sweet Caroline” at the Yankees game. 

At the Boston Bruins game, when Rene Rancourt started singing his usual rendition of our National Anthem, the sound of his voice was drowned out by the singing from the Boston fans. He shut off his microphone and turned it over to the crowd.  An amazing moment.










Last night, after a police chase and firefight, one of the two suspects was killed, and the second on was on the run.  He ran to the town of Watertown, a town I know very well.  I have had friends from there, my brother used to live there, and I have shopped many times at the Arsenal Mall, which was on the edge of the 20 block police perimeter.

empty streets of Boston

It is amazing to me that Massachusetts police and FBI were so committed to catching this guy that they essentially shut down the city of Boston and many of its suburbs, to cut off his escape routes. No school in session, no busses running, no mass transit, no trains, and no taxis were on duty.  Businesses were asked to stay closed and citizens were asked to stay in their homes and lock the doors.  Absolutely unprecedented. My son lives in one of the towns that was in “lock down” mode.

So today, even if I had wanted to go out and explore, I felt glued to the TV as the more than 9000 police officers held a perimeter while conducting a house by house search.  In fact, I installed a police scanner app on my ipad so I could listen to what was happening, as it was happening, even before the media reported on it.  I am exhausted, and I wasn’t even there! I had the scanner on one Apple product, and the map on the other, so I could track the movements of the police. 

Early this evening, after completing the 20 block search and finding no one, the police were getting ready to close that particular operation when they received a call from a local resident who noticed blood on the tarp covering the boat in his back yard. Soon after confirming that he was indeed hiding in the boat, “suspect #2” was apprehended.  And now, like everyone else, I get to relax and breathe a sigh of relief. 

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.

Interior Decorating (01-30-13)

A lot of people who live in motorhomes or 5th wheels put a lot of thought and effort into decorating it.  I don’t.  Of course, that’s not totally true but I figure that the trailer came “decorated” and I feel no need to replace the curtains, add wallpaper or do any other heavy duty decorating, so for the first year, we made very few changes or additions. Now that we’ve had the trailer a while, we have started to do more to make it “ours”.  When we had the Sticks and Bricks, our tastes leaned towards “Caribbeanesque”, from the wicker kitchen furniture to the framed charts in the family room.  I guess we are headed in that same direction now that we have started to personalize the trailer more. 


Our first decoration was put up soon after we bought the trailer and was one we brought from the house. It’s a pretty good symbol of our preferred lifestyle.

Fast forward a year, and we found this gem when we were hunting through our storage unit for something.  It’s not really in keeping with our Margaritaville theme, but the clock is a hubcap from a Thunderbird and was given to Paul by co-workers when he moved from MA to MI, so it has a lot of sentimental value.

We also found this guy in storage, and finally got him up on the wall.

I think part of our decorating frenzy is due to us being here in the Florida Keys, where the lifestyle fits us so well.  We found this the other day, and it’s already up on the wall.

Of course, we don’t too much wall space anyway, so we have to make sure that everything that goes on the wall matters to us.

I also finally finished a project that I had been working on, on and off, for about 7 years- my latest cross stitch project.

It’s a little big, but we did put it in the bathroom ( I originally bought it to hang in our bathroom in the house).  It feels good to have it finished, framed, and on the wall!

Other than that, we haven’t been too busy.   This is as close as we have gotten to putting the  boat in the water.  We have promised each other that we will make the supreme effort of actually putting it in the water tomorrow.  The wind hasn’t died down much, but if we don’t go out too far, it shouldn’t effect us.

While we were in Key Largo, someone told us about Key Largo Fisheries, where the fish you buy is fresh off the boats.  We bought stone crab for Paul and fresh Mahi for us for dinner.  It was SO good, we did the same thing we did in Flagstaff when we found the best Mexican food we’d ever had.  Instead of experimenting further, we went to the same place the next day.  We are enjoying taking advantage of all the terrific fresh fish down here.

With no hiking available, we’ve been trying to bike as much as possible, and since we have a decent pool here, I’ve been taking advantage of that.  They also have a daily aqua aerobics class, but I haven’t been motivated enough to join in. 

The Lazy Days of Winter (01-16-13)

Life’s a beach.  Our toughest decision for the last two weeks has been a) which beach should we go to and b) should we bike or walk today? 


The weather here in the Keys has been nice and warm- in the mid 80s for the most part (sorry all you friends out there in Q who are freezing your butts off!)

Stop and think a minute about the Keys.  They are essentially a bunch of small islands, connected by a highway. Over time, the old roads are replaced by newer roads, allowing for better traffic flow.

We walked the 2.5 mile stretch of the Old 7 mile bridge that is walk able. The view was amazing. The water here is so beautiful to me.  I could stare at it all day long.

We drove up to Bahia Honda State Park, intending to snorkel for the afternoon, but the wind was blowing so hard, we just lazed on the beach for the afternoon. Bahia Honda is one of the best beaches on the Keys. Of course, because of the coral etc.  the Keys are not really known for their beaches at all.

We discovered our new favorite restaurant in the Keys. It’s called Sunset Grille and Raw Bar.  It has a pool and is one of the nicer places to see a sunset in the middle keys.  But it also had something else we were very interested in…..

… Multiple big screen TVs to watch the Patriots beat the Texans.  Sadly, after installing the Sensar Pro to boost our TV reception, we only went from not being able to see the channel much at all, to being able to see the channel sporadically.  Definitely not good enough to watch a playoff game. This restaurant worked out perfectly for us.  We told the hostess we were there to see the game and she seated us right in front of a TV.  We told the waitress we were there to eat dinner and see the game, so she paced the evening accordingly.  Great service- which is awesome, because I think we’ll be back on Sunday to watch the Patriots play against the Ravens.

Sombrero Beach is about 8 miles from the campground we were staying at- a perfect distance for getting there by bike.  We rode the 8 miles, lazed on the beach for a couple of hours, then biked back home again.

We haven’t done any snorkeling or boating since we’ve been on the Keys, but we still have a few weeks to do that.  This coming week however, we’ll be quite busy.  Tomorrow afternoon my brother and sister-in-law arrive, and will stay with us on Key Largo for a week. I already have a list of things we can do but it’s their vacation, so I’ll let them choose. They may just want to lay on a beach all day!  They live in MA and got 5 inches of snow the other day.  Yesterday it was 18 degrees up there, so Dawn is ready to head south!

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.

Big Bend National Park, Texas

          Once again we have reached a destination that has me reaching for my camera every 2 seconds.  We only got here today and I already love this place.  Its HUGE-now I know what is meant by "VAST".  We drove for miles and miles and saw nothing but mountains, canyons, and desert, and once in a while we caught a glimpse of the Rio Grande. This isn't my first time seeing the Rio Grande, so I wasn't surprised when I saw it.  I was, the first time, though.  I had always heard stories of the Mexicans coming over the border by way of the river, as if it was a miraculous feat that they got across it.  Well, we can't take our dinghy on the river because it isn't deep enough.  There are some places that its only about 4 feet wide and a foot or so deep.  Most of the river tours are not running right now because the water level is so low.

     It took us two days of driving to get here from San Antonio.   We elected to use the smaller highway and stay off the main interstate.  Paul really finds it more relaxing, and its definately more scenic that way.  We spent a night in the town of Marathon, which is a very small town, with one gas station. It is surrounded by beautiful mountains though.

       Having been here for a day, I can see why people say to get all supplies before coming.  The only food store in the town we are staying in, Study-Butte (pronounced Stoody beut), is a convenience store that just sells eggs, milk etc.  The nearest "real" grocery store is over 80 miles away.  This town, which is typical of all the towns around here, has about 15 buildings total.   Since the reviews of all the campgrounds in the area were mixed, we hadn't booked one, figuring we'd check them out in person.  We ended up choosing the one that is closest to the park, because it  has wi-fi and we have cell phone service. Its also next door to one of the very few gas stations around that sell diesel fuel. So we are all settled in.

     We took off this afternoon to scope out the area.  Earlier in the day we had spoken to a ranger, who gave us ideas on hikes that would be appropriate for us, other activities we might be interested in, and he also mentioned that we could take Rte 90 when we leave to go to El Paso, since its such a scenic route, instead of the main interstate. That is, as long as our truck can handle a 2 mile stretch of road with a  15% grade , first going up, then going down, about 15 miles out of town.

    Along the way this afternoon we drove to the ghost town of Terlingua.  The town was a mining town- they mined mercury there until the mine closed in the 1940s.  The population of the town, such as it was, abandoned the town soon after. We kept driving down rte 90, and came across an old movie set.  There are the remains of about 5 buildings there which were used in several movies including "Streets of Laredo"(1995) "Journeyman" (2000) "My Maria" music video (1995) and "the Gambler V".  We checked out the town of Lajita, which is almost as small as Study-Butte. It was a beautiful afternoon for a drive so we kept going, admiring the scenery around us. 

I have never been on a road that felt as much like a roller coaster as this road did. There were hairpin turns, huge hills, huge hills WITH hairpin turns, and many times that it looked like we'd go right off the edge. All with a speed limit of 35-50 mph. After driving for a bit we decided to check out the stretch of road with the15% grade. Oh man. We knew before we even got there that there is no way we'd take the Everest this way. Guess its the interstate for us.
Tomorrow- hiking, maybe?