Friday, January 31, 2014

Not a Beautiful Day in The Keys and Birds Dropping out of the Sky

 

Sunshine Key Rv Resort, Ohio Key, Florida (high 78, low 71)

 

I am up at 4:30 again this morning.  Al’s still in bed.  I love the early morning quiet with the promise of a new day.  I love to watch the sun rise, especially if I’m in a beautiful place like the Florida Keys.  So, in answer to a few questions about why I was up so early, I guess I’m just so excited to begin a new day that I can’t sleep.  I can take a nap in the afternoon if I need one.

As much as I like to watch the sun rise, I also like some coffee and computer time in the morning, so if I don’t get up early, something has got to give.

Yesterdays plan of walking the bridge for the sunrise never materialized.  A big batch of rain was sitting right off shore and it rained off and on all day and evening.  It wasn’t heavy rain, just enough to be annoying.

Al made some phone calls and finalized the purchase of a new boat motor.  Unfortunately, the marina closest to us doesn’t have one in stock. That marina is 5 miles away. The one in Key Largo has one in stock, but they are 70 miles from here.  A motor could have been ordered, but with the bad weather up north, we decided not to wait and just purchase it in Key Largo. Supposedly it could get here in a week, but you never know with all the ice storms, and we don’t want to delay our boating days any longer than necessary.   Al needs to repack the wheel bearings before we make the long trek.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate today.  There is still a 30% chance of rain and the big rain mass is still sitting offshore, but it looks like it may be moving a more northerly direction.

We went on a grocery run yesterday and took a little of a ride to up the highway to see the sights.  Not much else to do on a rainy day.

We saw this interesting sign.  Wow.  You really can boon dock in the Keys.   It’s pretty cheap for the Keys too.

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Of course since it’s a fenced storage lot, you don’t have too many amenities.   :)

 

On the way back we saw these very cool dogs.  When we first saw them both had their “arms” hanging out the window.  By the time we got over to take their photos, one dog just had his head on the window.

Aren’t they cute?

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Look at that attitude.

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They got real excited when their dad came back out to the car for a minute.   (probably to check on the two crazy people taking pictures of his dogs)  There was someone else that evidently thought they were cute and they were also snapping away.

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We didn’t do much exciting the rest of the day.   Al worked on the boat a little and finally got everything working except the motor that won’t start.  It’s probably just a loose connection somewhere, and it’s not a big problem since we’re going to have the motor removed anyway.  

We finally got tired of being inside, so we put on our rain jackets and walked around the park in the rain.  There was no lightning, and the rain wasn’t heavy, so it was kind of enjoyable.

As we were on our walk, I saw a large seagull flying over head and then just drop straight down to the ground.   Al went over to check it out and said it was dead.  One minute he was flying, the other minute he was dead.   There were some power lines over head and we think he must have hit something he shouldn’t have and got electrocuted.   I never heard any buzzing noises or anything like that though.  Poor guy.  We felt bad for him.

We’re hoping for better weather today.  We never saw the sun yesterday, so no sunrise or sunset.

 

We finalized our reservations here through April 9th, and we get to keep the same great site.  Al wants to stay through the end of April.  I guess we’ll see how that works out.   Right now, this park is nearly full.  We have never seen it so full and it appears to be the same throughout the Keys.  I guess the bad winter weather has driven a lot more folks south.  I’m hoping some people will be leaving soon, but I’m not really counting on it until March.

 

When we checked in here at Sunshine Key on Tuesday, they gave us a bag of information about the park and the area.  I didn’t look through it until yesterday.  One of the things in the bag was a post card that said greetings from Sunshine Key Rv Resort and Marina.  Does this photo look familiar?

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That’s the same picture I took two years ago, and that Thousand Trails uses all the time for their promotions.   We went back to the office and asked them for some more of these post cards.  I told her that I had taken the picture and she said they wondered who had taken the picture and that they have seen it a lot.   Should have sold that picture, I guess.   I decided I am going to work at taking a similar photo and see if I can’t sell it for more than the $50 I got for this one.

10 comments:

  1. Like you early morning to get the coffee, computing and sunrise, done in the peace and quiet.
    Good luck with the new engine for your boat.

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  2. You should have copyrighted that photo. I have noticed that a lot of bloggers do that now to protect their photos from being widespread without their permission.

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  3. So now I understand why you get up so early. Good idea!

    $29 to boondock? I suppose it is a good deal in FL but would be a big rip off in the rest of the states.

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  4. I didn't know you are a world famous photographer! I'm honored to know you. :c)

    I've seen way too many sunrises during my working days, so I'll leave the sunrise watching to you now. ;c)

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  5. That photo sure caught everyone's fancy!

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  6. Always like that photo so now we know who the Shutterbug is.
    We'll be at Sugar Loaf K.O.A. in the middle March so maybe we'll be able to get together.
    Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

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  7. It is a great photo. Bummer that you only got $50

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  8. We stayed at Fiesta Keys a few years back and loved it. Have you been there? I think it's in or near Marathon. Love the dogs with attitude pic.

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  9. Sounds like you could have made some more $ with that photo!!!!
    Getting up early is great and I do so enjoy it but lately I haven't been getting there. It makes for some real nice "me" time. Glad you enjoy it!!!

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  10. heh heh those dogs are great!!!

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    (Blog) RVing: The USA Is Our Big Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com
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