Key West/Fort Jefferson Visit

We headed south to thaw out a bit.  We figured when you start thinking 20degF is 'warm', you've been in the cold too long.

After a brief visit to Miami Strictly Sail, mainly to look at boats we can't afford and say hi! to people we are starting to get to know 'in the circuit', we pointed the car south.

The first 75 minutes of our trip consisted of Tim having to listen to me alternately yell how every last driver in Miami needs to be shot with OH SHIT WE ARE GOING TO DIE.  We finally saw that beacon of hope:  Florida City-Gateway to the Keys.

The rest of the trip was uneventful until Key West.  Not much exciting we did in Key West other than eat too much, find our NEW favorite happy hour spot. Seriously: ANY WINE, ANY BEER, ANY LIQUOR half price and all small plate/appetizers half off.  After fresh shrimp, fresh smoked fish dip, at least a bottle and half worth of wine and 4 beers I think our check was around $35.  Our new secret hidey hole?  Alonzo's Oyster Bar on the Key West Bight.

We find another cool boutique hotel to stay at, also run by the Historic Inns of Key West.  All the rooms were modern, but the buildings themselves were built in 1888-ish. When you think of all the hurricanes and tropical storms, these old Conch houses are built pretty impressively to last.  (We won't get into the fires....)

The next day after we received our first souvenir from the fine folks at the City of Key West Parking Department.  (Whoops, blondie messed up her days when she bought her parking pass) we headed over to check the storage unit.  Everything is there, in good shape, and we discovered that the storage place routine WD-40s our lock for us to prevent rust.  Nice.

While over there, we had found out there was a new marina and at the marina there was reported to be a fantastic food truck.  Rock on.  Marina in good shape.  Food truck... AWESOME.

Shrimp Road Grille

Pulled pork queso fresco, fresh cilantro and chef's slaw.
Housemade pineapple/coconut jerk barbecue on the side.
The spouse had Mahi.

Our lunch companions were a flock of Guinea Hens, to which my spouse said:  How the HELL did you know what those damn things were?  Hello? Lived in rural Kansas for 6 years....I knows my poultry.  They also had a community garden that the marina live aboards and locals tended to. Did I take pictures?  Of course not, I get too much in this lookie lookie mode and not enough into clickie clickie mode.

Of course, here's the requisite Key West sunset shot.
Ummm, the earth is normal, I was.....not so much.
So, the schooner is NOT sailing uphill.

Snowstorm Nika

I'm still not sure how I feel about naming winter storms.  It irritates the piss out the NWS, which is amusing, but some of these names are just goofy.  But, it was entertaining to watch The Weather Channel people all say the name differently, you woulda thought that they might have had a pre-game meeting on that, hmmmm?

I think we brought this on ourselves.  Because I distinctly remember having the conversation with different people...didn't it seemed like it snowed more when we were kids?

(Then I thought, wait, when I was a kid I lived in places like Hawaii/Seattle/Okinawa.  We were stationed at Great Lakes, but you EXPECT snow up there. )

I digress...the conversations were made.  And I think Mother Nature overheard.

And she said: Oh really?  Well, let's bring it the f*** on!

So, while I watched Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel merrily hanging out at the KC Country Club Plaza saying how this area NEVER gets this much snow...

We did.  To be followed by temperatures in the single to minus digits.

That would be a little over 12 inches, thank you very much.
Not including the 1/2 inch of ice underneath.

But, since we are a bit smarter than those folks down in Atlanta, Northeast Kansas/KC Metro area pretty much shut down for two days.  Smart move, roads got cleared a lot faster, less people to rescue.

The spouse treated the folks that showed up at work well for those two days.  He's a good boss that way.

I got to work on cleaning our Matterhorn of a driveway.  But, first, I needed to gear up.  That consisted of Tim's old ski pants, my waterproof hiking boots, scarf up to my eyeballs, hat, and my big ass parka which later I decided looked like what Broadway Joe Namath wore for the coin toss at the Super Bowl.  But it's warm.  Finally, I put on Tim's NASA grade ski gloves and I was ready.  If I could figure out how to move with all of this on.

This is NOT my style.  I'm more of a shorts and swimsuit gal.

However, there was at least one carbon-based member of our household that was overjoyed with all of this nonsense.  And it's hard not to smile when you see a malamute in action in her element.

I love when my humans hide my toys in the snow for me to dig up.

Stop whining, it's great out!

Normally, there's a pool around here somewheres. 
Those are our lounge chairs.

This last bit is just for humor.  As I was TRYING to get a picture of both dogs romping in the snow, the crazy black dog decides to maul me.  Phone goes flying, I had to call it from the house phone to find it.  Found it, it works, but it wasn't until later I realized it took a picture while is was in midair.
Okay, I have cabin fever, it was funny to me.

 

One week until we fly to Miami and then down to the Keys.  Not that I'm counting.....

Happy New Year!

From the official spokesdog of the household.  The other one was too busy picking rabbit out of her teeth.  Yes, the malamute had her own private little NYE bash,  massacring Thumper.

Ham overload

This is completely off topic, I realize.  But more of a foody entry.

We had to prepare to be the back up Christmas dinner for Tim's mom in case his family went...family.
Long story short, I wound up with a 8lb ham for just Tim and I.

I now have more uses for ham.  Luckily it's been a delicious ham and we've enjoyed every creation I can come up with.

1. Ham au natural---when it's first cooked. 
2. Ham sandwiches---hot/cold/made into ham salad
3. Pasta and ham--carbonara style
4. Potato pancakes with ham
5. Snacks--ham on crackers, ham rollups


I think you see where I'm going with this.  I'm the Bubba Gump of ham right now.

I hope next year we are back on a boat for the holidays somewheres.  Cross my fingers.

Safety at sea: Expect the unexpected

I had a bit of a shock during the trip.  An asthma attack while swimming to shore.  I am a pretty strong swimmer, and I've done plenty of swimming in the ocean.  I do not have a history of asthma--only when I've been sick with acute bronchitis.

We decided to stop off at this pretty little island to play around.  Since there was a bit of surf, we thought we'd swim to shore.  It wasn't that far, there was a little current, but no problem thinks I.

I started off great, nice pace, stop float on my back.  However about half way to shore I suddenly felt like somebody grabbed my bronchial tubes and started squeezing very hard.

More floating, trying to get my breath, swimming little by little.  I make it about 30 more feet and now I am really fighting to get some air.  Not only is it essential for consciousness, having a couple a full lungs of air really helps your bouyancy.  Once again, I roll over to float on my back, but since I can't get a breath, I now have to work to keep floating.

At this point, I think, OH SHIT.  But, I know the last thing I need to do right now is start panicking, so I kept it together.  I start slowly crabbing my way to shore, taking advantage of what air I can get.  However, I know pretty soon push is going to come to shove, because if I can't get enough oxygen, I will start having major muscle cramps. Then...it's going to be all over.

However, by this time, I got close enough that I could holler for Sabrina who had her fins on.  She comes to my rescue.  I get rolled over on my back and she promptly proceeds to pull be to shore...by my throat.

No really, I'm grateful for her help, but it was funny.  Because at this point, I am actually thinking, cool I won't die by drowning, Sabrina is going to choke my ass.  This is funny.

Some other folks helped her get me the rest of the way in, I was in full rasping for air mode at that time and I could feel my calf muscles getting ready for a full fledged revolt into Charlie Horse Land.

I was able to start breathing easier, but it was several hours later until I could really get a good deep breath.

Yes, a doctor's appointment for rescue inhalers is on my list.  And always travelling with my snorkel gear, and Sabrina evidently wants to retire from saving my ass, because I received a lovely low profile inflatable snorkle vest the other day.  THANK YOU ESS!

The irony of this story is that I am Safety Bob when people are in the water. Have a buddy or have a watcher.  Then I about bite it.  Damn.

Beautiful place to have an asthma attack.

Jost van Dyke

We did more of the expected tourist stuff on Jost Van Dyke.  Namely visit the Soggy Dollar Bar and Foxy's.  There is also entertaining video of our dinghy ride from point a to point b.

That can also be found here.  The water wasn't cold, but it is still funny.

Soggy Dollar Bar is purported to be the inventor of the Painkiller.  (Not Pusser's...no no no).  And I do like their version much better than Pusser's.  I had to have at least three to be sure! 

After that, things were pleasantly hazy, although I do remember enjoying dinner and Foxy's.

The boys working the ladies.....

Hiking Norman Island

After getting some feedback from Tom and Sabrina's fellow Salty Dawg, we decided to do some hiking on Norman Island, namely to the opposite shore where nobody was at. 

Beautiful hike, some off roading, but nothing too bad. (Except the first instance that I may have a slight asthma problem, more on that later).

We you do get to the windward side of the island, there is a monument to what plastic consumption is doing to our planet, lots of trash washed up.

Start of our hike.

At the top of the island.  Bay looks pretty from here.

The boys say, let's take this way.
The boys say, I don't think this is the way.

The girls wait and take pictures of cactus.

THIS is the way down.  What could go wrong?

Made it down in one piece.

Boys foraging through the flotsam.
Tim will learn later to not kick things.

People making little conch shell monuments (I guess).

What's Tom up to?

Hi, bird!

Holy crap, look what Tom found.
The story of Norman the GPS can be found here.

We amateur biologists determined that seagulls would grab shelled critters
and drop them on this flat rock.  Escargot for dinner!

The breakers be cool.

Our hike back had some casualties.  As in, Tim's big toe right, and Tim's big toe left.  One was self-inflected as he decided to kick a old fishing float or buoy.  Except it was wedged very tightly in the rocks and did. not. move.  I turned around to see Sabrina bent in half laughing her ass off and Tim hopping around like a maniac.  One severely bruised toenail.

The second was a bit worse as we hiked back up we crossed over some old washed up coral covered in vines, Tim step on a loose piece of coral, got caught up in the vines and bam on his other foot.  This one was a bit worse and required first aid treatment back at the boat (rum/bandages/ointment).  However, as of this writing, big toe is healing nicely, no amputation was necessary.  :-)