Interesting Scenes from Around the Florida Keys

 

Cudjoe Key, Florida (high 85, low 75)

 

Al is at physical therapy, and I am home waiting for the truck to deliver the new toilet.  We are hoping the installation won’t be a big problem, but with Al’s bad shoulder, and the tight space in our bathroom, we’re not looking forward to the job.  Rick has offered his assistance for the installation, but we sure hate to have to take him up on his very kind offer.   Replacing your own toilet is bad enough, but to do it for someone else?   Ewwww.

I have been taking some photos here and there in our travels and I wanted to post a few.

 

Key West is an interesting town with interesting people and places to photograph.

This is houseboat row.  I think it might be fun to live on a houseboat, don’t you?

The drive around the Keys is always scenic.  I have no idea how many bridges there are.

I believe these are Mimosa.  We had them in south Georgia and I never knew they grew here.

This is a shot from our rv site of the full moon last week.  It was huge and orange when it first appeared.  I never quite captured exactly how beautiful it was.

 

We got some pretty good rains yesterday, as you can see from our view from the window. 

 

The March winds are blowing.  According to our Weatherbug App, we have 32 mph gusts.  I believe it.  We don’t mind, since we can’t take the boat out anyway.

After the rain, we decided to take a drive over to the Sugarloaf resort tiki bar for happy hour.  It was an interesting place, with a nice waterfront view, which I neglected to photograph.

We started seeing iguanas as soon as we drove up.

This guy was eating something in the grass.

As we walked out towards the water, we noticed this popular pelican roosting area.

Notice the blimp behind the pelicans?  That’s Fat Albert, which is used to monitor drug smuggling.  I think they also keep an eye on the illegal boats coming here from Cuba.  If you missed yesterdays blog about that, check it HERE to see an actual boat that arrived in the Keys with 17 Cubans onboard and learn about the wet foot/dry foot policy on Cuban immigrants.

Along the pier, we noticed a small nurse shark peacefully swimming by.

It was an interesting area.  When we walked back towards the tiki bar, we had to cross this bridge.  Uh oh….there were two iguanas resting on the bridge and I wasn’t going to walk there unless they moved.  Fortunately, as soon as we approached, they jumped off the bridge and onto the mangrove shrub, and away from my path.

As we walked further, we noticed two larger ones on the rock embankment.  Our approach scared them away.  One made a running dive into the water and swam underwater all the way to the other side.

I missed the jump, but here he is swimming.

The next picture shows how far he swam underwater.

Here he is, safe in a mangrove shrub.

Here are a few larger ones.

The iguanas are not native to the Keys are are causing trouble with the native species, but they are definitely interesting creatures, especially the large ones.

 

update:

The new toilet arrived right on time, but it was Friday the 13th, so things went downhill from there.  I’m not ready to post about our issues now.  More later.   grrrrrr       We’re off to the Seafood Festival in Marathon today, so it should be a better day.