12 Oakdale

Our trip has not gotten off to the best start. While showering the first evening, Grant slipped. Fortunately, he was not hurt, however he was stuck in the bottom of the bathtub. After a few minutes, he was able to swing his legs over the side, then scoot his bottom up on the edge. And there he was, lying on the edge of the tub. I grabbed him by the waist, and between the 2 of us, he was able to get to a sitting position, then stand. That evening, my left shoulder hurt and my hamstring twinged, but my back seems fine. My last nerve is shot. Next up was my losing my glasses. We’d swum on the bayside, showered, then walked a short distance along the ocean beach. I was wearing my sunglasses and had tucked my others in my bra top. They were gone when we got back to the car. We have searched and searched the beach, the shower area, the car. Gone. All I can figure is someone picked them up, and I hope will turn them into the rangers. So far, they have not. On the positive, we watched a yellow...

Saturday, we drove the Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive after our stint as ambassadors there, in hopes of seeing an American flamingo, one of the many that were driven north in front of Hurricane Idalia back in August. Some made it as far as Wisconsin. We didn’t see the reported flamingo, but spotted 3 purple swamp hens, lots of galinules, blue wing teals, a black crown night heron, and great egrets.  Camping at Bahia Honda this week, it dawned on me that perhaps flamingos had been seen in the Keys. Yes, down Indies Road on Summerland Key. We decided to look on our way to Key West. As we slowly drove down the gravel/shell road with houses on our left and mudflats on our right, we begged any white bird off in the distance to have a tinge of pink. We looked and looked, creeping along. Then, I realized there were 3 flamingos were right next to the road. Duh. After taking some pictures, I did a little flamingo happy dance. They were not impressed. We enjoyed them for a while, then travelled ...

At Bahia Honda, Cabin 5, sitting by myself on the balcony, sun just peaking over the tree line. Such luxury. Time to ruminate. What will this fourth year living at our little house in Central Florida bring? I’m sure I’ve rambled before about the vagueness of my life now. So many possibilities, so many others no longer available. Old friends missing, either through death or distance. New friends somewhere on the horizon, but I’m not sure I have the energy to draw them close.  But here I am. Soon the coffee will be ready. Then I’ll go over to the bayside beach for a snorkel before the crowds appear and stir up the bottom silt. After that, yet to be determined. Back in Windermere, Tony and Tyler are rebuilding our dock and adding some seawall along its south side  to keep the yard from washing away. Or, at the price of a world cruise, we are hoping that will stop the erosion. Our contractor Peter from Q-ICE Builders seems confident, with the caveat that we can always extend the s...

Six days of tent camping at Bahia Honda. The weather was lovely, with nice breezes which meant mostly no bugs. One little bit of rain. Unfortunately, even though we know better, we didn’t zip our tent windows when we were away, so our sheets got a little wet. But we were able to dry them out on the wooden railing around our campsite.  Because the onshore wind kicked up the waves and moved the sargassum towards shore, we snorkeled on the bayside next to the rocks. Lots of minnows and quite a few reef fish whose names I have forgotten. Thursday we drove up to Marathon to eat a lobster Ruben and a conch po’ boy at Keys Fisheries. They did not have the $1 stone crabs I’d enjoyed in years past. I was too cheap to have even the $36/pound selects. We’d stopped at Robert Is Here for milkshakes on the way down the day before. Friday we got up early to get a parking space at the old 7 Mile Bridge. Before we rode our bikes out to Pigeon Key, we had breakfast at the 7 Mile Grill. Our coffee ha...

I’d showed Stephanie how to water the crabapple and other new trees we’d planted, but it poured all night, and our lawn was absolutely squishy with standing water when I went to pick lettuce in this morning. Not a problem. We were going cabin camping in the Keys. All would be well. We left the house at 9:00 AM, stopped for a pretty good bagel, and cruised on down the turnpike, looking forward to our late lunch at Island Fisheries. Maybe even a beer and stone crab claws in the upstairs bar. I looked forward to the Keys relaxing chill. Nine hours of driving later, which should have been six, we wolfed down our takeout lobster reuben and coconut shrimp on the porch of our cabin at Bahia Honda, exhausted. Not the waterfront lunch I’d imagined. Two miles north of Homestead, traffic had stopped. From there, we crept along, knowing there must have been a terrible crash up ahead. Made it to the RaceTrac for gas, and got back in line. Good grief, how bad was the accident? Finally, we saw a smal...