We picked up Rachel this morning and drove to Key West, FL. We have possibly now driven our car as far from Walla Walla (without leaving the US) as is physically possible, to be specific 3,237 miles according to Google. There may be something farther up in Maine, but it's still pretty far.
To get to Key West, you have to drive along Route 1 across a long sequence of keys connected by bridges. It's an interesting and beautiful drive of about 140 miles from South Miami. It's also a relatively slow drive--taking about 3 hours.
It's been about 10 months since Hurricane Irma blew through here. The damage is still evident from damaged buildings and homes, to broken roads, to dead vegetation that has been completely stripped of its foliage. There are some smaller keys that are now brown because all of the foliage was stripped from the plants and they simply died. The landscape on these islands reminded me of burn areas that we typically see in the Western US. I suppose that, like those burned areas, these islands will eventually recover, but the sights are striking.
For dessert after lunch, Rachel and I had chocolate covered key lime pie. I was skeptical, but turned out to be a nice combination of flavors.
After dessert, we took our snorkel gear to the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. The water was warm, but not super clear. We swam around some rocks and saw a few large fish, but it wasn't great. We're hoping to snorkel in a place off of Key Largo on the return trip to Miami tomorrow. And, hoping for clearer water.
After snorkeling, we checked into the Havana Cabana Hotel. The pool was great, also lots of fun games: cornhole, jenga, and giant yahtzee dice.
We swam around for a while and then took the hotel shuttle back to the touristy area to watch the sunset at Mallory Square and catch dinner. It's definitely touristy, but also fun and lots of historic buildings. It's interesting to think about how many hurricanes these old buildings have survived intact.
I took a picture of Rachel taking a picture of the sunset:
Side note, there are a lot of wild chickens running around the island.
We left Sharron and Tom in The Villages this morning. It's always sad parting. A year is a long time. We headed down the highway towards Laura's Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Lew's house in Indiantown, FL.
A couple of days ago, Laura bought a SunPass and put $50 on it so that we could take advantage of the automatic highway toll system here in FL. We jumped onto the Florida Turnpike to Indiantown. At the first toll station, we passed through the automatic toll and the message "Toll Not Paid" popped up. We have no idea why it didn't work. Nor do we have any idea how to deal with whatever happened at the toll plaza from Spain. Finding help via phone or internet seems to be impossible. Furthermore, the human toll taker we encountered when leaving the turnpike was singularly unhelpful. I guess we'll try to figure it out this week before we leave the country. Yay!
We eventually made it to Marilyn and Lew's house. It's a lovely, secluded home surrounded by well-tended tropical vegetation and a pool. We happened to be there on their 46th wedding anniversary! To celebrate (I say this somewhat sarcastically), Marilyn had the pleasure of cooking us a turkey dinner with stuffing and green beans. Next year, we'll have to take them to lunch. We had a nice visit and left around 5pm. Here are some pictures:
Lunch preparation:
A nearly domesticated wild bunny in their driveway:
A mannequin prop that represents an attempt to get the local fauna to not be afraid of them. Kind of works, Marilyn is able to feed the bunny by hand now:
We continued on down the highway, avoid toll roads now, and made it to Rachel's house around 7pm. We had a pizza at The Big Cheese restaurant near her house.
Her new place is smaller than her previous place, but in relatively good shape and certainly adequate to the task. We were a bit worried about where Rachel would store the scuba gear that Marilyn and Lew gave to her, but Rachel seemed happy to have it and promised to put it to use.
After dinner, we dropped Rachel off back at home and Laura and I walked around campus. This helped us get a little exercise after spending most of the day driving and eating. We're now in our hotel room. Meeting Rachel tomorrow morning and heading down to Key West for an overnight visit there.
Pretty relaxed day today. Went to the pool this morning, swam a little, read a lot. Tom went to the pool for the first time in a long time. Hopefully he gets back in the habit again. He used to go nearly every day. Here Tom and Sharron do some of Tom's exercises in the pool:
We went to Bonefish Grill for a late lunch. This was good for Laura who really enjoys seafood and typically doesn't get much living in Walla Walla with a family that has general disdain for the fare.
After lunch, we went home and I binged the Netflix show "Safe", read my book, and dozed. Laura got her walking done. We just had random leftovers for dinner, but Laura made caramel corn for dessert. It's pretty addictive. So much so that we call it "crack corn". We ate that while we played the card game "Phase 10". Tom won again for the second night in a row.
Our time here in The Villages is nearing an end. We drive to Miami tomorrow to meet Rachel. This has been one of the most relaxing phases of the trip and really of the last calendar year for me. It's pretty rare nowadays to just have a day to do nothing.
I started the day with a run. Because of the transition to Spain where I'm not sure what my regular exercise opportunities will be, I've started building up my running. Because I'm older and would like to protect my knees and back, I'm using a minimalist approach to running. I have a pair of minimalist running shoes that have very little cushioning. The idea is to let the foot feel more of the road. As the body reacts to minimize the impact on the foot, the gait shortens and heal strike is minimized. This should reduce the impact of running. I've also been building up very gradually. I currently run about 3 miles in 30 mins, though today I did 3 miles in 28 mins.
By the time I got out this morning, it was 82 degrees and about 95% humidity. Even though I'm not really running that hard, I got back pretty much drenched in sweat. Not like running back in WW where the humidity is so low and it's actually kind of cool in the mornings throughout the summer. I wonder what it will be like in Seville?
Laura went to watch Sharron play tennis this morning. She ended up playing in the place of one of the women that was suffering in the heat. Sounds like Laura enjoyed herself. At one point she ran around a backhand and her partner let her know that "we don't run that fast in these games." Haha.
I stayed home with Tom. Did the laundry and read a little bit. Pretty relaxing.
We went to one of the many clubhouse restaurants here in The Villages for lunch. We ate on the patio and got a bit wet from a passing rainstorm.
Here Sharron is trying to unstick her wet hair:
The waitress was kind enough to snap a group photo:
After lunch, Sharron took their dog, Sassy, to the vet for her annual checkup. Sassy is 9 years old and passed with flying colors:
Given all of the miles we've put on the Honda recently, I took it up to Walmart for an oil change. They were quick and pretty inexpensive.
Having eaten out for both dinner and lunch consecutively, we decided to eat the stuff in the doggie bags building up in the fridge for dinner. After dinner, we played Phase 10, Tom won. Thanks Sharron for doing a realistic game pose:
Laura and I went for a walk around the neighborhood after the game. We listened to the Mariners sucking it up against the Red Sox. When we left, the M's were winning 10-5. When we got back 45 mins later, they were winning 10-9. As of right now, the M's are losing 14-10, which more closely resembles a football score than a baseball score. As is typical in Florida in the summer, it's still pretty hot and humid here at 10pm. Laura and I are hoping to dry off a bit before going to bed. Goodnight.
We're now in The Villages, FL staying at Laura's mom's house for a couple of days. The drive down was interesting. Google reported a massive backup on I-75 just north of The Villages, but for some reason didn't want to reroute us. On the fly, Laura installed Waze and it immediately dumped us off of I-75 and got us to our destination on back roads. By our estimate, Waze saved us at least an hour. Not sure what was going on with Google, but we're definitely going to consult Waze in future travel.
The Villages is a town in FL that is entirely built around retirees. The planning is done in such a way that neighborhoods surround recreation centers and are connected by walking and golf cart paths. It's very pedestrian friendly as a result, even though there are relatively few pedestrians.
Laura and I walked for about an hour this evening and saw a few notable sights. For example, this family of herons, adults on the outside, two juveniles in the middle:
This group of ducks swimming in a golf course pond:
And, a lovely sunset reflected in another pond:
We also had a chance to visit with Tom and Sassy (the little dog):
Tomorrow I'm hoping to get the oil changed in the Honda and maybe get a SunPass for the toll roads we're going to encounter south of here as we head to Miami.
