We're Back for the Wiener Parade

We're back and just in time for another parade, but I'm getting ahead of myself. We didn't do too much while in VA, but we we weren't planning to. We did see The Hobbit in 3D, which was pretty good, but would have been better if the air conditioning hadn't been on in the theater. Really? It was in the 30s outside - when exactly do you think management thinks heat is appropriate? Even my mom was cold and that's saying something. We all huddled together for warmth, enjoyed our popcorn, and were happy to then get back in the car and turn the heater on.

Jack learned a new trick while we were away - opening both the cabinet door and drawer. Impressive - now let's hope he doesn't start doing this at home.

I Can't Help Myself!

Ok, so I know I said no more lights, but that was in Key West. These are from Virginia. Who doesn't like lights?! NYC, Vegas, Christmas...My mom pointed out that I really liked my Lite-Brite toy when I was a kid (and they're really cool now!), so I guess I was born with this fascination. The Norfolk Botanical Gardens put on a Christmas light display that you could drive through and we decided to check it out. In Arizona, we went to the lights in Sedona (Red Rock Fantasy) twice and while we loved them, it was freezing. Literally. They sold hot chocolate to try to warm you up, but brrrrr!  We tried the lights in the Phoenix Zoo one year too, but again you had to walk through it and it was pretty cold. Now this was the way to see some Christmas lights (although you end up with brake lights in all your photos). Rain and clouds the fun way, and you can even see the (real) full moon peaking at us from the top left-hand corner (below).

The Day After

So how did Santa do? When it comes to gift giving, we have a tough time in our household because none of us really want to accumulate any more stuff. My mom travels a lot (or we do) and buys things to represent those travels. Plus, when she wants things, she buys them. For our part, we're not sure how long we'll stay in the U.S. and don't really want to have a bunch of stuff to bring with us or sell. So what to get each other? We haven't been in the States in a long time for the holidays, so really the gift was that we were all together, but you still need something to unwrap! The Mom suggested a Key West sweatshirt. That seemed simple enough until we started looking for one. Key West stores need to work on their sweatshirt offerings. There were plenty of cheap ones, but none of the quality we'd want to give someone for Christmas. We weren't having much luck in t-shirts either - too kitschy, cheaply made, or perverted. Hmm....We were recently turned on to Tervis and had just bought ourselves a couple of cups in a store dedicated to the product. I decided to go back and get her a mug. Then I lucked out in a store, Bon Voyage, that was always closed when I'd walked by it in the past. They had really nice quality and tasteful t-shirts, so I took one to the counter with much relief. You'll recall Zura helped me wrap the gifts, and everything was a hit. Beads too.

Road Trip!

Hey - let's get in a tiny rental car with 2 cats and drive 18 hours north!  Wanna come? Yeah, the kitties didn't either. Actually Jack was fine, as usual (he's had many vet trips).

Zura, who's only been in a car a couple of times, was less nonchalante about it. We were serenaded for about an hour before she found a spot on the dashboard or rear hatch for the next umpteen hours.

First Day of Winter

So today is the first day of winter. Right on schedule, refreshing winds picked up (some might say cold and I wonder who that someone would be). Oopsie!

Pic from Casa Marina Facebook Page

I guess that means I should post our yearly Christmas e-card. Not quite my best work, but you get the idea. We need to take more photos where we're both in the picture...

Safe travels everyone!

More Lights!

Are you sick of Christmas lights yet? I guess this will be it. I promised you bike lights, and you're going to get a few.  Most of the pictures came out like this.



But here are a few that didn't.







If you want more, Mile Zero Key West has some.

Here are a few house pics too. I like the tiny homes. One of the houses is so bright I have yet to get a decent picture of it. It's like staring at a space ship.

Twinkle Twinkle Boats

More lights - this time on floating canvasses. Over $20,500 in prizes were up for grabs - not too shabby. There were probably about a dozen boats that took part in this parade on the water, but I think the small ones deserve a bigger medal than the large ones (or more $). They were all supposed to go out of the marina and around to where Mallory Park/Sunset Pier are located, but most didn't (so I'm glad we weren't standing there). The little guys did though, and we could see them bouncing around in the surprisingly choppy waters. As you can gather in the photos below, there were all kinds of configurations, including a couple of boats outlined as trains (one of them the Key West Express ferry we took Thanksgiving weekend); one even put out steam.

Weather

Well in the short time we've been here, we've certainly run the gamut weather-wise. When we first landed (August 27th) it was hot. Just plain hot. We like it hot, but it was also very humid, rained a lot, and the air was stagnant. A walk two blocks up a flat street generated enough sweat to warrant a second shower for the day. We were forced to run the a/c (something we hate to and rarely do) when things started melting in the house (besides us).

Then it got cold. Temps dropped into the low 60s, and we had chillier winds blowing at 25mph. My mom sent some of the old winter stuff we left at her house years ago, and we ordered an electric blanket.

Then it got rainy again. The temps got pleasant, but you got wet trying to enjoy them. After one week of the best weather we've experienced to date, the fog rolled in (on Sunday). I got up to do my run and thought at first the volcano on Montserrat had blown (we used to occasionally wake up to ashes falling outside our window and the culprit was over 60 miles away). After remembering where I was, I took a sniff expecting to smell smoke from a house fire. Nope. Then I noticed how dewy everything was. Fog! This was fog - when the heck was the last time I experienced that phenomenon? Apparently fog is pretty rare for Key West, but not one other person or business mentioned it on Facebook or their blogs. Weird. I couldn't see too far in front of me once I got along the coast, which meant I couldn't see how faaaaar I still had to go and ended up having a great run of over 11 miles. I was also drenched by the end.

Now someone brought summer back. It's hot and humid (95% this morning). The ceiling fans are back on. We woke up to this bright pink sky, which tinged everything a lighter pink. Temps and humidity are supposed to come down over the next few days, so maybe I can straighten my hair again. As long as the next batch of weirdness isn't snow, it'll be all goooood.

Holiday Parade

That was fun. Not only did it not rain, but the temperature could not have been any better. No sweatshirt needed - finally!  It was nice to come to an event meant for families, and there were lots and lots of kids...with bags for all the candy they were going to rake in. We planted ourselves near a few because we knew they'd get candy tossed their way and we wanted some too. They came out ahead though, because we gave them most of what we caught - most...



There were many kids on the floats themselves throwing candy, and sometimes they tossed the nuggets so hard and right at us, that we had to duck and cover our faces lest we lose an eye. AACK!

The Weekend Again?

Time flies when it rains all week. Normally I try to post at least two times/week, but I was trapped inside until Friday when the sun finally made a return (and then had 3 loads of laundry to do - the machines are in an outside closet). Now, the rainfall was nothing like what hit the west coast, but we did set a Key West record of .49 inches on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service/NOAA. And then it rained some more on Thursday (we even had some thunder) and overnight Friday...Luckily Saturday morning gave us blue skies because there was a lot going on - as you can see from both Facebook and my calendar. The temps have been pretty nice during the day, with those cold winds we were having cutting us a break. It still gets a little nippy at night, but nothing like we were experiencing about 3 weeks ago (which NOAA said was about 10 degrees cooler than normal).



The cats were just as happy as I was to be able to play outside again. 

One Key West Weekend

There was a lot going on this weekend like Art! Key West, which was supposed to have artists/galleries from all over the city participating; and the Key West Film Festival, which also involved multiple venues. We attempted to take apart in some of this stuff, but either our timing was off or the events just weren't well attended. Not sure. Saturday we just walked around with our map of events and ended up not seeing a whole lot.  We were on the other side of the waterway, listening to cannons go off at Fort Zachary in the midst of a Pyrate Invasion (sometimes it feels like we're living inside a Disney World Park), but could see that the ChalkFest event wasn't any more crowded than it had been our last visit. The artists did their thing though and here was the winner (face) and others, including one of Hemingway on a fishing trip (photos from the Florida and the Florida Keys Facebook Page).

This and That

We're still on our search for free things to do here, so on Wednesday took part in the last-Wednesday-of-the-month movie night at the library. Prometheus was the movie of the month and since Michael & I are Alien fans (I can not believe that movie came out in 1979 - !!),  we thought we'd give it a shot. I was just wishing I had some popcorn when someone actually sneaked some in. It smelled sooo good.

I was kind of surprised the library would show a rated-R movie, but I'm not sure why Prometheus was rated R in the first place. The movie itself was, eh.

Michael's attempting to get a cold, so we put off walking around to see the holiday lights for another time. There's something to be said for living on a boat (and a small island), you're not surrounded by sick people so tend to stay pretty healthy. No more...

Thursday we decided to check out the ChalkFest, a part of a 3-day event called Art! Key West 2012. You can see it wasn't exactly hopping, but some of the artists had started drawing. The judging is on Saturday, so I'm guessing that it'll be more lively and impressive then. Rain in the forecast is probably making some nervous.