“This is Life Alert Calling about Your Mother”

 

Sunshine Key Rv Resort & Marina, Ohio Key, Florida  (high 80, low 71)

 

Last night about 9 pm, I got a call Life Alert  saying they had received a help request from my Mothers unit.  If you recall, a few months ago, we got her one of those Life Alert machines.  (I’ve fallen and I can’t get up).  She wears a gadget around her neck and if she should fall or become ill, she pushes the button to summon help.   It’s a really nice system and one that we highly recommend for older people, or anyone who lives alone.

Their usual protocol if they get a signal is to first call the home and see if they get a response.  They couldn’t reach my Mom by phone because she didn’t hang her cordless phone up correctly the last time she used it.  

Anyway, the call concerned us.  I called her cell phone, which we have for her, for just this kind of thing.  Of course, she had it turned off.  It’s a new one and she didn’t know how to use it.     :)

Life Alert was sending a police officer over to check her out, so all I could do was to wait. My brother was working and couldn’t get there right away.   After a few minutes I decided to call her home number again, and this time it rang, instead of the fast busy signal I had been getting.  It turns out that earlier she had noticed a flashing reset button on the machine and pushed it, not really knowing what to do with it.  A man came on, she told him what happened and he told her he would reset it and everything was okay. 

It appears the error was on their part when they didn’t reset the machine, and that started the ball rolling.  Mom felt really bad since she had frightened so many people.  We were just glad to know the service was working like it is supposed to, and that she was okay.  I ended up speaking to three different people at Life Alert and they couldn’t have been nicer.

 

The rest of our day couldn’t top the exciting end that we had, but we did end up having a nice Keys style day.

We got up early  yesterday, and went to the flea market they hold every Saturday and Sunday.  It’s a smaller flea market, which is just the kind I like. 

Our reason for going to the flea market yesterday, was to go to their wonderful produce stands.   We bought some wonderful Brussels,, green beans, beautiful red tomatoes, red peppers, pineapple, Florida avocado, asparagus, corn, and eggplant.   When we left the Everglades the other day, we noticed a lot of farms.  We’re thinking most of this produce is fresh from those farms.  

 

After we left the flea market, we took a drive around Big Pine key and found this very nice property that was shaded with a lot of trees and plants.  The noise from the birds was what attracted us to the property in the first place.  Evidently they are animal lovers, because this is the sign that was on their gate.

It sounds like our motorhome.

 

We came home and made a wonderful BLT (with vegan bacon) and using fresh baked Cuban bread.  Boy, was it good!

Last night we made a stir fry using all the produce.  We may run out of produce before next week.

After lunch and a short nap, we decided to take a short kayak paddle.    We launched at the campground by the beach area which is under the fishing bridge we walk in the mornings.

The tide was going out, so we had to carry the kayaks a little further than usual.

 

We got into the kayaks and started what we expected to be a nice leisurely paddle.  Wrong.  The current was ripping and you could barely paddle against it. We stayed on the bay side, but probably should have let the current carry us over to the Atlantic side. 

In trying to avoid the strong current, we ended up too close to shore and got stuck. 

Poor Al had the duty of towing us out of the soft mucky sand.

We felt bad that we were grounded, because we were in sea grass area which and you are not supposed to damage them.  Oops.

After we rounded the bend and got into the mangroves, it was deeper and the currents weren’t so bad.

 

It’s a pretty paddle through the mangroves and there was the very elusive Kingfisher flitting around teasing me that I couldn’t take his picture. 

For years, I’ve been trying to take a picture of a kingfisher, and yesterday I finally got a decent picture.  Not great, but at least I have one.

 

 

 

 

We paddled through the mangroves for a while then decided to head towards the marina and take the boats out there instead of the beach area.

 

I don’t remember seeing the marina quite this full. 

 

 

There are some mangroves along the back side of the marina along a deep ledge.  The fish like to congregate there.

We saw barracuda.

We saw Angel fish Parrot fish and lots of the very tasty mangrove snappers.

 

We stayed in this area for quite a while before heading towards the ramp.

I found a boat I would like.

The next picture shows the campsites along the water in the marina.  They are pretty popular sites.

The two trailers on the right of the picture are rental trailers, owned by the campground. They are new trailers, but are VERY expensive. 

The pelicans were coming home to roost for the evening, finding  nice clean boats to their liking.

 

We plan on doing another paddle today.  The wind is light, the seas are flat calm and the temperature will be 80 degrees.  It looks like a perfect day to be out on the water.