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.

the Last of Orlando (01-02-13)

Oh, by the way, Happy 2013!  Paul and I actually made it to midnight on December 31, but we didn’t go to the RV park party, we just stayed home and watched TV.  I think New Years Eve is a young person’s holiday, but maybe I’m wrong.

Once the kids left, I got “hitch Itch”, ready to move on to the next place, partially because I really miss them after they leave and I need to keep myself pretty busy. We had 4 more days in Orlando though and did manage to find a few things to do!
Two of my favorite days of the year are the day the Christmas decorations go up,  and the day they come down.  I know a lot of people out there know what I am talking about.  The house looks so festive when you put them up:

and so clean and neat (and a little bare) when you take them down:

While I was keeping myself occupied by “undecorating”, Paul found his own project to work on.  This is what happens when Paul gets bored:

That’s our shower enclosure.  Not just the door- the whole thing. We had a leak where the glass meets the fiberglass and when he looked at it, he discovered that there was a problem with the installation of the enclosure.  Now, he had two choices- he could just added silicone to the area that was leaking, or he could pull the whole thing apart and install it correctly.  The course of action he took is pretty obvious.

We had a third “free” day at Universal Studios, so we waited until a “low crowd day” and headed over to ride a couple of roller coasters.

We started with The Hulk.  I must say, this is my favorite coaster ever! Usually, going up the first hill is torturous- that slooooow chugging along, waiting to get to the top.  The Hulk doesn’t do that.  Instead, you are pretty much catapulted to the top, and by the time you get there, you are traveling at 40 mph and are upside down. No time to think, and worry!


 
 I loved that, and also that there was no huge “down” where you lose your stomach.  Just lots of loops and twists. I literally had to hold on to my glasses to keep them on my face.
After a couple of rides and wandering the park for a while, we had dinner at Margaritaville again.






We did some shopping before we left and bought something we’ve been eyeing for a long time:

We love a good campfire but many places don’t have fire pits.  Well, now we have our own!



Blue Springs State Park is one of the best places to see manatees (thanks Elaine!) so we spent a half a day exploring this park.

You can swim, snorkel, and scuba dive at this beautiful spring, but not in the winter when the manatees are there.  After watching them for a while we said, Yup, submerged blobs. 

They don’t do much moving, and only stick their nose out of the water to breathe. We did see a mom and a calf swimming down the river.

I thought this was the funniest picture of the day- just a bunch of friends, hanging out in the sunshine (I wonder if the turtle is afraid if he moves, he’ll get eaten?)!!

And in the Blink of an Eye, They were Gone (12-30-12)

Well, the kids were actually here for a week, but it sure went by fast.  They’ve both gone home now, and I am keeping my spirits up with the thought that we will see them both in May.     Our visit was a combination of relaxing and just hanging out, and running around Universal Studios.  But first- there was Christmas!



Christmas Eve-the trailer was all decked out!

Jess models her new sweatshirt on Christmas morning.

The kids know us so well…they had these glasses engraved for us!

Christmas dinner!  Our traditional non-traditional Chile Rellenos and turkey enchiladas.

Our first ride at Universal was a water roller coaster.  Hmm, maybe not the best idea we’ve ever had.  We were drenched, and took hours to dry off.

We knew that we were braving Universal during one of the busiest weeks of the  year, but we didn’t have too many options.  We had to skip a few rides due to lines that were over 2 hours long.  The one really long  line we did wait in was in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We waited for over 2 and a half hours,  during which time the ride broke down twice, but in the end, we did experience The Forbidden Journey, and it was worth the wait.

It was so busy at Universal, it was literally wall to wall people, even though we were up, out the door and at the park when it opened.  We were there so long the first day that we decided to stick around and have dinner at Margaritaville,  one of our favorite places.  We sat on the Porch of Indecision, listening to live music while we ate.







 

The culinary highlight of our week was dinner at Emeril’s in Universal’s Citywalk. We’ve eaten here before and had such a great experience we decided to repeat it. It wasn’t as wonderful as our first time there, but we still had a great time.

 

Paul and Stephen both enjoyed  the 5 course Chef’s Dinner while Jess tried the Filet Mignon, and I ordered Emeril’s signature dish- Andouille Crusted Redfish. Both kids were nice enough to share their dessert with their mother!

 

After dinner it was back to Margaritaville for a drink.  We were hoping to hear more music, but they started playing extra late due to the holiday.

In our “down” time, we played Catch Phrase, a family favorite.

 

We also played Monopoly- on the ipad!  It was actually easier and more fun than playing on a regular game board.

I had a great time, especially since we hardly ever see both kids at the same time, because they live so far from each other.  They had their own cottage, here at the RV park, which worked out well, because although our day ends at about 9:30, I know that theirs does not!

The weather in Orlando is not always warm at this time of year, and I did feel bad because there were definitely no beach or pool days this past week, but both kids missed snow storms back home, and as Stephen said, anytime you can sit outside in December, the weather can’t be that bad!