Change in Plans

Ohio Key, Florida   (high 77, low 71)

Tuesday we spent at home.  Al worked around outside, cleaning out the truck and a few basement compartments on the motorhome.  I did a little laundry and some much needed cleaning.   I can’t go long without a good vacuuming…thanks to the little fuzz butts.   In between our projects, we did some walks around the park and  along the bridges.   It was a good day.

On Wednesday morning,  we did a 4 mile walk up to the road and along the bridges.   The Florida Keys are just a series of islands with bridges from one to the other.  We walked off our island/key,  along the bridge to the next key and so on.  We walked part of the Seven Mile bridge.   The walking bridges are the remnants of the old bridges, so you have no traffic. 

We like to look into the water and see what’s swimming by.  We’re still watching for the Spotted Leopard rays that we saw all the time last spring.  Maybe this is not the season for them.  It was a bit cloudy in the am, but the sun finally came out later in the afternoon.

 

After our long walk, we came home cooked some sausage (vegan)  grits and fresh squeezed grapefruit juice for breakfast.  After our big breakfast and our walk, we decided a short nap might be in order. 

 

Later in the afternoon we took a drive up to Marathon Key and did a little exploring.  It’s just over the 7 mile bridge.  

We found beautiful Sombrero Beach.

It’s a beautiful white sand public beach.

On the way home, we stopped at the local Publix for a few groceries. We have been pleasantly surprised to discover our favorite vegan brands, even way down here in the Keys.

We came home and sat outside and read our books for a while.  The temperature has been perfect.  It’s cool enough at night that you can keep the windows open with no a/c, and a blanket feels good.  It’s warm enough during the day that you can wear shorts, but it’s not too hot to be uncomfortable.  It is a tad chilly for swimming and snorkeling though.

We decided to walk around the campground, but we didn’t get too far.  We ended up visiting with some neighbors a few spaces down.  They are Andy and Helen, who are work campers here at Sunshine Key.  Boy, were we interested in knowing how they got this gig! 

Afterwards, we went for a sunset walk to the marina.

After our walk, we came home, and made some spaghetti with “meat” sauce. 

All you vegans out there,   if you haven’t tried   Light Life Products,  you might want to give them a try.

We used the vegan ground beef for the first time.  We just mixed some of it in our Prego Roasted Garlic spaghetti sauce, and boy was it good.  The “ground beef " had the same texture and flavor as real ground beef.  It’s made from soy, so there is no fat.  I really don’t think anyone would know they weren’t eating ground beef.   It’s also much easier since you don’t have to brown the meat and then clean up all the excess grease. 

We also use their vegan sausage and find it quite tasty as well.  We’ve come to trust this brand, so we’re experimenting with more of their products.  We bought some “bologna” but haven’t had the nerve to try it yet.  It doesn’t quite look like bologna.  It only cost $3.00 so we decided if we didn’t like it we could either feed it to the cats or toss it out.  We like their vegan hot dogs when you slice them up , brown them and mix them with beans.  We haven’t tried them on a bun. They look just like real hot dogs.  We figured if we could eat the crap that’s in real hot dogs, we could certainly eat these.

It looks like our plans for the month of January have changed.  We were planning on coming here to the Keys around the middle of the month.   When I went to make the reservation, they were booked.  We were a bit disappointed, but after we got to thinking about it we decided we really like it better here when it’s a bit warmer.  We had such a great time last March and April, so I think we’ll  try to get back down then.

In the meantime, we needed to find somewhere to go in January.  We decided on Kissimmee Prairie State Preserve.   The reservation is made and we’re looking forward to it.  Hey….we’re nothing, if not flexible, right?