A Laid Back Day in the Keys

 

Sunshine Key Rv Park, Ohio Key, Florida  (high 78, low 67)

 

Now that we’ve been here so many times, we haven’t felt the rush to hurry up and do and see everything right away. Yesterday was more of a laid back day.

It’s been nice and warm since we’ve been here and in fact the first night we had to run the a/c all night, which we hate.  We really love sleeping with the windows open, but it needs to be 73 degrees or lower before we can shut off the a/c.   Last night was another story.  It cooled down nicely to the mid 60’s, so we turned on the whole house fan to suck the air out.  When you do that and open just one or two windows, it pulls that cool air right into those open windows.  I ended up cold in the middle of the night and had to shut the window.   Love it.

It has rained pretty hard overnight both nights that we’ve been here.  Fortunately, there was no wind and just occasional lightning.   I guess if it’s got to rain, night time is the best.   It was cloudy all yesterday, and will probably be the same today with rain predicted.  

Yesterday morning, we went by and picked up our little boat from the storage lot.   Then we stopped by a local marina to talk to them about repowering the boat.   The boat and motor are pretty old, so we would feel better with a new motor.  We have debating spending that much money on such an old boat, but we really like that boat.  It’s very comfy for offshore napping….I mean reading.   It’s easy to trailer and launch.   I guess we’ll make the final decision today, but for now we’re leaning towards repowering this boat.  The problem the motor has to come from Wisconsin and it will take a week to arrive, then several more days to install. I imagine the ice storm up north will cause a shipment delay.  We hate losing all that boating time, but we were afraid to order the motor before we knew if we would even get down here.  You know those jello plans that all rv’ers seem to have.

After picking up the boat, we decided to have some lunch at this food trailer place on the main (and only) highway.  A couple of women have a nice yellow utility trailer that has been converted into a food trailer.  They have a covered area to sit with a sand floor and reed walls.  It’s pretty cute, and everything is sparkling clean.

Yep, this is what we were looking for.  If you have never eaten hogfish, and get a chance, I highly recommend it.

The next picture is what a hogfish looks like.  The males are white and black and the females are this red color.

Unfortunately, they were out of hogfish, so we had to settle on yellowtail snapper.  

Al really liked it, but I thought the fish was a little mushy. You could tell it was fresh because there was absolutely no fishy smell and it was very mild.  I only recently learned to eat fish, but I’m a little fussy.  I don’t want it to smell fishy, I want all white meat and I want it cooked well.  Oh….and don’t bring me one with a face and eyes!

It’s a little pricey at $11.99, but that’s the going rate for fresh fish down here.

We’ll try it again when they have some hogfish.

After lunch, we went back home and took a short nap.  Al got up before me and started working on the boat.  He charged the batteries, but the motor won’t start and all the electronics don’t work.  The only thing working is the power trim that raises the motor.  He is baffled.  Yes, he turned on the battery switch.   No big deal I guess because with a new motor it will be fixed.

 

Our motor home is an unusual color, and we’ve never seen one like it anywhere we’ve been.  Until Tuesday.   When we got here I immediately spotted an exact duplicate of our coach in the row in front of us.  Later, on a short walk, we spotted another one.  I can’t believe there are three of us here in the park.  

The owners of one of them came by and visited last night. They were interested in our outside led lights.  I sent them to Amazon.

 

While Al worked on the boat in the late afternoon, I went outside and continued to read my book about Steve Jobs.  I’m really enjoying it.   It amazes me that some of these pot smoking, acid tripping guys managed to accomplish what they did.   Steve Jobs said acid changed and enhanced his way of thinking, even though he couldn’t remember any of his acid trips.  Maybe there is something to that, because he certainly had vision, didn’t he?   I never took any acid in the hippie days in the 60’s.  Maybe if I had I would have been a billionaire too.

As I was sitting there reading and the sun was going down, I started getting pretty chilly.  The thermometer was saying it was 71, but sure felt colder.  I guess it was because of the humid air blowing off the ocean.  I ended up in jeans, a long sleeved shirt, sweater and light jacket.   We didn’t mind the cool evening.  It felt pretty nice actually.

 

After it got dark, we decided to walk around the park, and we ended up meeting Beth and her beautiful young dog Jethro (because he’s dumb).  We learned they also have a Golden Retriever, which is our favorite dog, so she invited us back to her house to meet Hooligan, aka Hoolie the Golden, husband Tom, and noisy, but beautiful bird.  The bird was in his cage and when the dogs got too much attention she let out a deafening shriek to let Tom know she wanted attention too. It was funny….once you could hear again!  They are here with an Alfa Rally, and are from St Pete Beach (near Tampa) in their beautiful 40 foot Alfa motor home.      

It’s 6:00 am and I’ve been up 2 1/2 hours.  Al didn’t share my excitement about the upcoming day, so he’s still in bed snoring. It’s about time for our sunrise walk along the bridge, so I guess I’d better go make some noise so Al will wake up.   :)