‘09 Close Out in the Keys

It is a dream place to finish out the year, the Florida Keys. We cruised into the Grassy Keys RV Resort on December 23rd for a two week stay. It is very nice, right on the Gulf side, only two years old after an old trailer park was gutted and refurbished. They have a nice little club house, a swimming pool, and docks on the water’s edge for all the fisher’s with their boats.

We found out as soon as we arrived that they were going to have a potluck dinner on the 25th, with the park managers providing a deep fried turkey and everyone else bringing other dishes to share. It was a delicious affair and we met a very nice couple from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Laurel and Michael. We hit it off right away and ended up playing the game of Sequence with them. Ellyn and I had played this same game in Michigan with our “next door” neighbors. We had so much fun, we went back the next evening for a rematch after we went out for a nice dinner with them.

On the 28th, Ellyn and I went to Key West to take a sunset sail that Logan and Maureen had gifted to us for Chanukah. It turned out to be a real adventure as it was a pretty windy day, which is a good thing if you are on a sail boat. They took us out and sailed for about an hour before sunset. They us help with the sails, if we wished to, which I did. They even brought out some little canons and fired on one of the other sailing boats, which fired back.

The next day, we traveled in the other direction on the Keys to Key Largo to meet up with our friends Lynn and Rob from Alabama, who were down to visit with their son, Dan, who works as a dive instructor. We had a great time with them, got to see Dan’s work place, went to a bird sanctuary where we got to feed the pelicans, and had a couple of great meals.

On New Years Eve Day, we took to the water at Curry Hammock State Park. It turned out to be a perfect day for it. The sun was out, it was warm enough for swimming suits and getting mildly wet, and it was one of the last calm days we had. After that day, it got very windy, especially at night. We had some nights that the RV would rock from the wind and the slideout covers would be rattling in the wind. I had to tie down the flag on the back of the RV to get some sleep. We had a couple of days lazing on the beach, riding our bikes on the bridges, and walking on a nature trail. We collected lots of little shells, but not too many larger ones. We saw dolphins, crabs, a sea hare, many birds, a dead Portuguese Man-Of-War, other jelly fish possibly alive and spiders. It was a relaxing time for us.