A Low Key Day

 The day started with sending Mom off on her next adventure — she drove to Sarasota, Florida where she will spend the next 5 days at an Elderhostel.

Of course, it was wonderful to hear she arrived safely later in the afternnoon!

Greg and I spent the rest of the day kayaking (me) and wind surfing (Greg) during the morning and then doing some biking in the afternoon. Once again, the weather surprised us by being better than what we expected — so we felt extremely lucky!

We also had a chance to talk to Mike who turned 27 years old today — where has the time gone? We are so blessed with our family . . . . and our time together in this wonderful place.

Another Beautiful Day!

We awoke this morning fully anticipating the beginning of the cooler (and potentially rainy weather) that had been predicted. So imagine our surprise when we had another beautiful morning and afternoon!

I finished my first book this morning - now I really feel like I'm on vacation when I can read as much as I like. Greg puttered with the motor home doing some tasks like washing the windows after the long drive from up north. Even Mom got into the "motor home" lifestyle and enjoyed sitting out in a chair, reading, and watching the birds gathering to eat as the tide went out.

After lunch, we drove to Bahia Honda State Park which is about 30 miles further down the Keys. We had an absolutely perfect afternoon for the beach — a warm, but not blazing, sun along with a beautiful breeze. We enjoyed reading, people watching, and walking in the water.

At the end of the afternoon, we went to Key Colony Inn for a wonderful "early bird" dinner — wow, we are now part of the older set in Florida eating dinner at 5:00 p.m.! Anyway, the meal was great - a wonderful end to a nice day.

We've Already Forgotten About the Snow!

Funny how fast you can put Minnesota, snow, cold, and work behind you . . . .

We had a wonderful first day settling into our campsite at Long Key State Park.

Our campsite is literally on the water and when there is high tide, our motor home is 30 feet from the shore . . . . so we can hear the waves at night.

We had a wonderful first dinner of pesto chicken and followed by games including a new game to us, the dice game, Farkel.

It's been a great first day with more to come. We think the weather won't be quite so good — supposed to cool down, possibly rain and get really windy, so we tried to enjoy the beautiful sunshine  . . . . memories of snow are fading fast!

Leaving Minnesota!

Friday, February 22 was the day that Greg has been working towards for many months! The planning for our now annual camping trip in the Florida Keys actually began last March when we worked to try each morning to get a coveted camping spot in one of the Florida State Parks in the Florida Keys.

It continued through the fall with Greg doing lots of work on our motor home which we've had for 15 years and that has about 114,000 miles on it.

We worked on making food for the trip and packing all the essentials.

The day Greg was supposed to leave, there was a huge snow storm that went across the entire middle part of the country. Not to be deterred, he ended up leaving mid afternoon (instead of early morning) and took a slightly different route through Iowa and Missouri instead of Wisconsin and Illinois.

Meanwhile, I stayed at home for the weekend due to a major work commitment . . . . and then my Mom, Char, and I flew to Miami just in time to meet up with Greg who had driven solo all the way from Minneapolis to Miami.

This was Mom's first solo trip since Dad died in September, so we were so happy to have her join us for a few days for a "motor home adventure" before she takes off in her rental car to go to an Ederhostel Program in Sarasota, Florida followed by visits to several old friends.

 In the airport renting Mom's rental car — we had an adventure getting out of Miami's airport . . . . but eventually met up with Greg at a service plaza south of Miami and followed the motor home to our first camp site in Long Key, Florida.