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.