Finishing up in the Keys

Monday November 25- Today I went down to check out the sunrise. It seems the wind has changed directions. I spent some time this morning picking up trash. Among the trash I found a few gems. I found 2 buoys. I like to collect them, Jeff thinks I have plenty but I don't agree. Today we are going to fish off the bridge with Mark. He is a campground host here at the park. He seems to have mastered the art of fishing off the bridge for yellow jack. We have gone fishing with him before. When we arrived it was a little cool because of the wind. It also made it difficult to fish because of the water running so fast under the bridge. I caught the first fish, which wasn't what we were fishing for. If you know me I feel like it's a blessing if I catch anything. It really was a bit slow to start.

While we weren't catching fish we had plenty to watch. There are always visitors of the bird variety. Then I spotted in the distance some shark feeding action. It went on for quite a time, both guys saw it too. It was too far for a picture but when they moved on you could see where they had been. The water was different and the sand had been stirred. This took place in the bay area.

Then as Jeff was fishing he spotted 3 manta rays swimming under the bridge. I missed them the first pass but they came back. When they came back there was only 2 but I got a picture.

Then after a bit Mark got a fish, we had to go get the net to get him up. We also had to hurry because there was a barracuda chasing the fish in. We were quick enough cause we got him up in one piece.

I got a picture and Mark was kind enough to give it to us. So when we got home Jeff had to clean it. We will be having fish for supper sometime this week.


Tuesday November 26- Didn't get to the beach this morning for the sunrise but we were down fairly early to take the kayaks out. We are trying to work with the tides today. When we got down to the water, it looked amazing.The tide was a bit high. So a fishing we will go.....

Again it was tough fishing, but we still had a great time. We did get 3 keepers. The water started getting a bit rough for me so I headed in to a area that had some protection. I found a spot where at least I was getting some bites. Well not only was I getting bites but I spotted a manatee. So what is funner than watching those critters....nothing.

So we had a great day on the water. It was our last day out there this trip. We were very lucky with the weather this year. Lots of kayak time. When we got back in we got busy cleaning up the boats. We will load them up another day. Then we got cleaned up. We have decided to take our fish that we caught to Lorelei's. They will prepare your fish, give you a couple sides for $8.95 each. Jeff got his blackened. I got mine fried. The fish was so good. The sides were ok. The best part was no mess to clean up. We arrived early, hit happy hour and missed the crowd. After eating we moved to the back to listen to the music and watch the sunset.

Wednesday November 27- Went to watch the sunrise and then back to get cleaned up. Heading to Key West again. We were going to go on the Marathon Lady but couldn't get a spot on the back. We also figured it would be busy because of the holiday. We will go again next year if we are lucky enough to get another site here.

Well we left early for Key West because we wanted to get breakfast out. We want to try Blue Heaven.We drove down with not too much traffic. It seems busier here this time too. It must be because of the holiday. It was even harder to get a parking spot, well one you didn't have to pay for.

We ordered one breakfast and split it. We both had plenty to eat and it was all very good. The next thing we had planned was to go to the Hemingway House. We stood in line for just a bit and got a tour that started just as we walked in. The guide was a bit annoying. She did give you lots of information though. The tour didn't take too long and then you could wonder around and look more. It cost $14.00 each and they only took cash. We did some further exploring and then left.

We walked around a little more and it just kept getting busier so we headed back. We did start loading some of our stuff up. Don't want to have to do all of it tomorrow after our Thanksgiving dinner.


Thursday November 28- Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I started my day like most when I'm here by walking to the beach. You never know what the sunrise will look like but it's never the same and never disappoints.

I came back and started preparing our Thanksgiving dinner. We had a turkey breast in the instant pot, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and asparagus...oh and hot rolls. Everything turned out really good. We ate our meal around noon. Then we just ate it again later. After eating we finished up the loading up of stuff. We want to get a early start tomorrow. Thinking traffic might be bad. We talked with all the kids and grand kids. We had a real nice day.

Friday November 29- The last sunrise this morning. We had a pretty one too. Then we hooked up, pulled out, dumped and headed north. The trip on highway 1 was fairly good. No stop and starts and everyone seemed to be courteous. Then we jumped on the turn pike and we noticed that the traffic picked up and so did the stupid. We had some crazy drivers out there and we were super happy when we arrived in Wellington and pulled into Lion Country Safari.

They drove us to our site which is #82. We were at this site 2 years ago and liked it. We are on the end of the row. The park is especially busy because families are here enjoying the long weekend.

We got stuff set up and did some relaxing. We both thought the drive was tiring. Since I had to set up inside I went ahead and got my Christmas stuff out. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Saturday November 30- This morning I got busy. First we needed to make a grocery store run. Then I came back and started the laundry. I used the laundry facility for the sheets and towels. I did the rest of our laundry here then took them up to dry. I also got busy cleaning up inside. Jeff put up the sun shade outside and anchored it down. It is really nice sitting out there. Since we were busy most of the day we decided to go in and get pizza. We saw a new one right by the store which is super close to the park. It is called Fire Up Pizza. It is similar to Blaze Pizza. It was really good.


Sunday December 1- We got up this morning and we  both wanted to drive over to Jupiter to attend Generation Church. The traffic again was a little busy. We got a very warm reception. It felt great to be back in attendance. We love this church.

After church we decided to get back to the park. It is starting to clear out around here. Since it was such a nice day I thought I would go enjoy the pool. I think there was 5 people there. It was nice. I saw our friends Jeffrey and Maren pull in. As I was going home I gave them a wave and let them get set up. They came down later and we had a happy hour. We caught up. Maren was having us to dinner so they went back and we joined them for dinner. We had a nice dinner and made an early night of it.

Monday December 2- I wanted to do some errands this morning. That means shopping so Jeff decided to stay back. I did most of the Christmas shopping before we left Iowa. I still need to get some Christmas pajamas for Ashton. So I took off and found all that was on my list and more. I got some things to decorate the Christmas tree I've decided to get. I also got Ruby a new Christmas outfit.

Before heading home I stopped and got a tree at the store. When I got home the guy Jeff had talked to about restoring the outside of our rig had come back. Looks like he will be starting on it tomorrow. He will remove all the old wax and oxidation before putting something on it to make it shine again.

I found a spot to put my tree and started on the decorating. I will have to go get lights tomorrow.

Tuesday December 3- Jeff had some errands to run early before Adrian shows up. I took off again to get some lights, and a few more Christmas things. Jeff stayed around the rig in case Adrian needed any thing. We had to close up the slides on the back side while he worked on it. I didn't take a picture before but we could really see a big difference. Here are what it looked like after.

He finished that side and also worked on the front cap and end cap. They look great too. He will be back tomorrow to work on the other side. It is the worse one. I did take some pictures of those.

before

before

On the picture on the left you can't really notice how faded the decals are. We know that they won't be coming back to full color but he sure makes the rest look nice. I finished up my Christmas tree and I love it. It makes me smile when I look at it.

Wednesday December 4- I got up early and started putting together chili for supper. We have company coming over. Yesterday with the slides shut all day it made things difficult inside. Today we had the other slide in. That made it really difficult because to get to the living room area you had to climb over the kitchen counter top. That's not as easy as it used to be. I tried to stay around here but I ended up running to the post office. I mailed off Ashton's gift and all my Christmas ornaments. It surprises me how much it costs to mail stuff. At least I'm all done with everything now. Adrian finished up in good time. I got to put everything back where it belongs. I had plenty of time before our company arrived. We think our rig looks lots better. Here are the pictures after....

after

after

It looks so much better but we think we will have to either replace the decals on the slide or have them painted.


Thursday December 5- I'm another year older today. We had plans to try and get a spot at Curry Hammock today. We even asked our friends to try for us. Well  it seemed like neither of us had luck but then Jeff got it. He had a bit of a problem trying to get the information in. They have changed things on Reserve America. Since we volunteer now he doesn't have to use that as often, so he's gotten rusty.  He finally got it and we were both excited. It gets harder every year. I also got a message from the kids to say they had made it to Hawaii. Seth, Katie and the kids are on vacation there. I always worry until they land. I also started cutting fabric for my next quilt. We hung around here for most of the day. Then about supper time we headed over to Wellington Amphitheater. First we checked out the food trucks and got us a bite to eat. Of course the one I wanted to be there was not. Then we put our chairs down and waited for the music to start. It wasn't as crowded as usual. It was a lot cooler too. The band came on and played. They were good musicians but the music they played wasn't our favorite, too much disco.

Friday December 6- I did some laundry here. We also sat outside and enjoyed the wonderful weather. This morning the monkeys were going crazy over there. You could hear them. They kept it up for like 15 minutes continuously. We loved it. Ruby seems to love the Christmas tree. I put her on the table outside and she just laid there watching the tree.

We had planned to go to the movie but we were late getting there so we decided to go another day. Since we were already there we walked around the mall a little. Then we went across the way and stopped at a music store Jeff discovered last year. Well we ended up talking to the owner and he kind of explained how the live music works. They have a restaurant/coffee shop/bar in the front of the store. At night they have live music quite often. He was telling us that there was a guy playing tonight that was really good. So we changed our plans and we are going back to have dinner and music. We even made reservations because he said it would be busy. Well fast forward a few hours and we arrive to get our table and the girl doesn't have any reservation for us. The tables all have reserved on them. She said there was one table or we could sit on the couch. We picked the couch. It was going to be a way better seat to watch the music. We got supper and it was really good and so were the prices. They have a very limited menu. So it made it rather easy to pick. The owner was right Rob Arenth really knew how to play the guitar. His singing was great too. It was a nice evening in a unique atmosphere.

Saturday December 7- We kind of had a late night last night. We got up and made breakfast then decided to take the dogs up to the doggy park to run. They are always on leash. We arrived and no doggy's were there, which is good. Our dogs aren't all that friendly. Jeff brought the frisbee and the dogs were super excited to play, they kept barking. They had a great time.

The rest of the day we hung around here. It was really warm and sunny so I decided to go up to the pool. I sat in the chair for a while but got really hot. I got up to get in the pool to cool off. It was cooler than normal. I really like this pool because the maintain such a nice temperature. Well it seems they have a broken heater. You sure can tell. I came back and we just hung out around here.

Sunday December 8- We decided to make the trip over to Generation Church again this week. We have a few things we want to check on in the area. So first church. Then we drove to the Hobe Sound Wildlife Preserve so Jeff could purchase his national park pass. Well when we got there it was closed. Who would have thought they wouldn't be open. So that was a fail. Then we went to Jonathan Dickinson to see where this campsite is we might have to use. When Jeff was making reservations we had a oops. We have one day with no site to stay. Well we aren't sure if this is going to work for us. So another fail. Then we were going to make one more stop, but first we thought we would get a bite for lunch. We went to Blaze Pizza which is right on the way. We ordered our pizza's and Jeff's wasn't cooked all the way...fail. So off to the West Jupiter RV Park. We just wanted to see if this would work for us. First for maybe the day we need and maybe for later in case of emergency. Well it is really tight. It looks like they really pack them in there. Then there wasn't anyone in the office to talk to anyhow. Fail, don't think this is going to be for us either. So we still have the problem. I'm making a call on Monday to see if we can get something else. So that's that, another 2 weeks in the books.























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