back to Key West

Well for a blog post anyway! I loaded these photos weeks ago and never did the text for it so here goes ...

When we stayed in Key West for five nights the first of February I went to the Key West Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden.

Unfortunately I can't remember the names of any of these palm trees or plants - oops -"senioritis" I guess.

There was a butterfly garden there that I was particularly excited to see. Wrong time of year for butterfly gardens in the Keys I fear, because there was very very very little in bloom and not one butterfly did I see.

When I was there they had a sculpture display. Here are pictures of a couple of them - the one above, I thought was pretty neat. Below is one of my many shots of this really great one that spanned one end of the pond from both sides - I just loved it.

But the guy above was by far my favorite - it was made of all kinds of "stuff". Hopefully it can be enlarged for better "detail" - it really was funny and fun to look at.

The one above is made of sand!

So what do you think of this - two posts in one day!

Paaaaaalm Beach - well la te dah for sure

Yesterday Rick and I headed to Palm Beach to see what it's all about as we'd never been there. Wel laa teee flippin daaa - somewhat like Newport, RI, but more.

Not only are we in the land of what I facetiously refer to as "the beautiful people", but we are in the land of gated community after gated community - how is it that people are so damned anal? You drive by these gated communities but the houses back up to a public road, with no gates or fences - what is the logic here? Someone please explain all this crap to me 'cause I sure as heck don't "get it". Then Palm Beach with 40 room homes? I'm missing the point for sure.

The Beach was lovely - the part that poor peons like us could get to. And the part where the seagulls were having a seagull convention of some sort.

A couple examples of the houses we passed along the way!

The other day (Friday I believe) we took Sir Arlo to one of the local "bark parks" where he ran around like a nut trying to keep up with a vizsla and a whippet - neither of which couldn't have weighed more than 35 pounds. He seemed to have a great time, but 93 pounds of boxer doesn't keep up with either of those dogs for long, if at all! Later that night he started walking on only three legs and still is hopping around on three today. Apparently he pulled or twisted something, so he hasn't been bark parking for a couple days. In fact he is hobbling around on three legs the way Chad is hobbling on two - but Chad is having surgery on Thursday!

Just another sunset shot!

Today Rick and I spent the afternoon in Delray Beach with Patrick, Beth, Paige and Bethie's parents (who rent a place down here for the winter. We celebrated Paige's birthday (which was this past Tuesday) all seven of us - we had so much fun and our Paigie Pie, Muffin, Princess (among a few of her names) is just too much fun to be around - doing peek a boo and clapping for herself at the least provocation. Not to mention eating as many crackers and cheese as she could possibly hold! Pictures to follow - I have to load them.

And by the way, I have no clue what's with these HUGE spaces in this post - I suspect it's because I placed the pictures to the left or to the right rather than in the center. I wanted a different sort of layout and this is what happened! I've tried to fix it about a dozen times to no avail so I give up, so much for my creativity tonight!

trying to get back in the swing of it all

So, after eight days in New England I'm trying to get back into the swing of things at home! Not working so well - I seem to be very slow these days and always exhausted - what the heck is up with that anyway? Excessive weight or lack of a good nights sleep?

So, I was in New England for a six month mammogram after the scare last August (good results and I'll be back in another six months).

More importantly, however was the bridal shower for my future daughter in law (Amy), but I couldn't mention that because it was a "surprise" so I couldn't mention it here or on Facebook. Since the "sisters" were all there for the shower, we made it be a "sisters weekend". We haven't had one in quite a while so it seemed like a great time to have one don't you think?

The first photo is of our dinner out - at a tempanyaki restaurant - darn we had fun ~ I think.

Above is a shot of Amy opening one of the gifts from the Whelan trio - this was the sewing project I'd been working on and posted about (with no information) several times. A better picture below - a quilt made with lots of love ~ the pattern is called "double wedding ring" - seemed appropriate, do you think?

After the shower I went up to Pat and Beth's for an over night. Below is a photo of Rick and our Muffin, Pie Face, Princess Paige, taken the week before when he was up there. Isn't it a great picture! Proud Grampa he is!

Next is a photo of our Muffin finger painting a for Grampa and T~T - it was so much fun to watch her create a master piece for us.

I left on Tuesday to return to my honey's (as I previously posted, Sir wouldn't even "talk" to me when I got home!). Tuesday was Paige's first birthday. I was so happy to be there to celebrate - here she is enjoying her special chair and some new books from Pat and Beth.

And everyone enjoyed the cakes Beth made - carrot cakes with yummy and colorful frosting!

But they will all be down here on Saturday to stay with Bethie's parents so we can have a Florida celebration for Muffin's birthday!

That's it for now folks - I'm beat and am not even going to bother to "proof read" this creation!

home sweet home

I returned to warm FL from cold snowy New England last night. I returned to a husband who cleaned and cleaned the house while I gone and a dog who won't "talk" to me - "my bad" in his eyes I guess!

I have about a million photos to load then I'll do a "real" post.

The doctors appointment went swell - back in six months, and the other reason I was there was for Amy's bridal shower which was lovely.

later folks .............

KW etc

So, I loaded these photos on the 10th with the intent of doing yet another post about Key West. Then I said to myself, self everyone may be tired of reading about Key West specifically and the Keys in general. Doesn't matter too much because, as seems to be the case these days, not much got done with it anyway.

Rick flew out to NH on Wednesday to attend the funeral of Beth's grandfather. I started with a sore throat that morning and it's been a doozey of a cold since then and I've done nothing (well I did do something - more about that later). The house looks like a tornado went through here four times and Rick is in Charlotte as I write this and there is not a prayer of a chance that the house will be even remotely "back to normal" before we head to the airport in an hour and a half - not that he will care - he's dealing with the same cold and probably will want to just go to bed and to sleep when he gets home anyway. He never even made it to the funeral - he was sick in a motel in Attleboro, MA! What a week this has been.

So back to this post - it was going to be titled "Why I love Key West" - Aren't these houses just terrific - little houses on postage stamp lots that if they were on the market would probably be listed for $500,000 - $600,000 - you know, location, location, location.

And the roosters - there's something I love about the roosters, and I suspect they probably aren't the cleanest critters in the world, but I guess it's all about their freedom in Key West that I love!

The thing I did do this week was have lunch with my cousin Cheryl and her husband Don. They have a place in Fort Myers so we met in Clewiston (1/2 way for both of us) the other day for lunch. Don did take a picture (oh Cousin please do share) but this is the most recent picture I have of the two of us - think we were just adorable then - well ya ought to see us now! Do you see any family resemblance in the photo below????

Gosh it is so nice to "reconnect" after many years - makes one wonder why the heck the connection got unconnected in the first place?!?!

Speaking of which, I have two of those reconnecting get togethers this coming week when I am in MA! Story for a different post (and hopefully it won't be next month some time!).

As an after thought, someone mentioned to me this week that they had read the blog and couldn't figure out where we are at the moment. Well, we are in Loxahatchee/West Palm Beach for five or six weeks. A post for another time also - yeah yeah yeah you say? It is a great place we are at.

Going backwards

Because once again, I've been bad - we did have minimal internet due to lack of hook ups (electric) last week - yeah yeah yeah excuses!

We left my Elks lodge in the Keys (where we'd been since 12/30) on Monday February first. We headed down to Key West for a day or two ~ well that turned into five days. We left there Friday February 5th and went back to the lodge to get the trailer and bikes (we'd only taken the coach and car to Key West).

We were reserved at the KOA in West Palm Beach (Loxahatchee) on February 7 and we were not able to get into our site early because someone had reserved it for the weekend and was not scheduled to leave until Sunday so we stayed two nights "dry camping" (no hook ups) at the Miccosukee Resort and Casino in Miami (west Miami/Homestead). It worked out quite well - no cost to park there, sign up for their "players card" and get $20. free play each (we won $16. between us) and they gave us a dinner and a breakfast buffet! I think I may be getting really "thrifty" in my old age about some things!!

I'd always thought I really could not stand to dry camp AT ALL - well I did pretty darned good for six nights last week .. the downside was lack of internet (only because we were trying to conserve power - of which we did have plenty but we needed to run the generator to charge the batteries - I am not a fan of running the generator, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do!)

So, going backwards ~ one of the last days we were at the lodge we headed down to the Outback restaurant in Islamorada, where they have an outstanding outside patio and beach area. Not to mention the hammocks around the property - got a picture or three of yours truly chillin in said hammock BUT the camera was set on video and I can't seem to load a video here and can't figure out (if it's even possible) to make a part of a video into a still shot, so guess there will be no photo of anyone chillin' in the hammock.

Anyway, the photo above is at the beach looking over the small wall there into the water at a grouper sloooooooowly going by ...

On the way back we stopped at Long Key State Park to check out the dump site facilities that we'd need on our way down to Key West. The photo above is of one of the camp sites there (there are 60 sites). Not bad huh! The down side is they have to be reserved, on line only I believe, a year ahead and they are $43. a night - seriously!! Remember when state parks were $5. or $10. a night!!! Oh yeah, I guess I'm showing my age for sure aren't I.

After that stop we took a break at Anne's Beach in Islamorada (perhaps the best natural beach in the Keys) and watched the wind surfers (I think that's what they are called)

Great relaxing time we had that day. When the tide is high at Anne's Beach there is no beach, so glad we were there at low tide. Also, there were many people there so Sir was preoccupied with all the activity and surprisingly had no interest in water play!

I will try to get all caught up with posts over the next few days.

Rick is flying to New England for the funeral of our Bethie's dear Grandfather. Rick returns on Sunday and I fly out Monday for my doctor's appointment in MA. I plan on doing some major major cleaning (don't do a lot of that with no hook ups!! - how's that for an excuse!) and blog posting! Seriously, I am going to try!

alive and well

and leaving Key West today. We've been "dry camping" (no water, electric or sewer hook ups) so computer work has been at a bare minimum and will continue to be for another few days as we will be dry camping in Homestead tonight and tomorrow night then into a "real" campground with full hookups on Sunday for five or six weeks.

That's it ~ we are on the road soon.