Turtles, New Friends, & Sunsets

February has flown by.  It is our last night in the Middle Keys. 

We rarely go out to dinner on Valentine’s Day as it is usually a zoo, but since we haven’t done it in many moons; we decided to dive right into the fray.  Getting a good meal with decent service has been a challenge here, so we plunged in with some trepidation.  We selected Lazy Days South for our Valentine dining experience.  It is situated on the water near the 7-mile bridge and boasts a magnificent sunset setting on the ocean side of Key Vaca as well as excellent food.  Without belaboring it, we had a great evening.  The food was as good as advertised and we weren’t rushed (some of these places really like to churn the tables on special occasions like Valentine’s Day).  The lack of a sunset wasn’t the restaurant’s fault.  The weather turned out to be cloudy—one of only a very few the last two months—so we were disappointed.  It didn’t put a damper on our evening however.  We drank a lot of wine, had great food, and enjoyed one another’s company.

D

St. Valentine's Day @ Lazy Days

Sunset @ Lazy Days--Such as it was.

 Just so you don’t think we have been slugs and have spent all of our free time laying around in the shade all day, we want to point out that we have a pretty regular regimen of cycling, yoga, and water aerobics to help stave off the winter spread.  Not that we have been completely successful at that—there are just too many meals eaten out to maintain complete control—but we are holding our own.  We are excited to get back home as our fitness center has been remodeled and now has all new state-of-the-art exercise equipment and weight machines.  Burn, baby, burn.

A visit to the Turtle Hospital is an interesting way to take a break from reading and relaxing on the patio.  It is a non-profit (How could anyone make a profit fixing up broken turtles?…They don’t even have insurance…) organization that specializes in rescuing and repairing a half-dozen different kinds of sea turtles that are found regionally.  They have about 29 in residence now, 13 of whom will never be released into the wild because they are too damaged.  However, whenever possible, the hospital’s goal is to get their charges re-released into their natural habitat.  The organization has an excellent educational program and we now know more about sea turtles that we ever thought possible, and certainly more than you care to learn about here.  Suffice it to say that for $13 apiece, we received an excellent education in damaged sea turtle care.  One last note: Unlike dolphins, sea turtles don’t perform tricks for their visitors—they just wallow around doing whatever it is that sea turtles do.

Turtle Bus

Green Sea Turtle

Say Cheese!

Oooh, tummy rub!

Turtle Aerobics.

What a Pretty Shell!

One of the joys of RVing is meeting new and interesting people.  This winter has brought a dearth of those opportunities for some inexplicable reason.  However, we have hit the jackpot, so to speak, in Grassy Key.  We have met two different couples at different times this month with whom we have clicked amazingly well.  We’ve shared many sunset cocktail hours and memorable dinners with these folks, much to our unending delight.  Both couples have now left the park for destinations up the road, as we will tomorrow.  That, too, is one of the joys of RVing.  Who knows when we will meet again?  When we do (and the odds are that we will) we will take up just where we left off in February 2013.

Sunset on the Point

Sunset @ Grasssy Key

We Never Tire of Them

As we wrap up our winter stay in the Florida Keys, a cold front has moved in and the drop in temperatures threatens to acclimatize us to northern climes.  We note, not without some trepidation, that the weather in the areas we are headed for in the next two weeks still boasts winter temperatures.  We hope that we can gradually get used to cooler weather, as this past week has, once again, has been unusually warm even for the Keys.

Adios, Grassy Key