Christmas isn’t typically associated with coconuts and beaches. But that is exactly why we are here this year. We are spending an unique Christmas near the end of a very unique year in all of our lives.
Not only is Luka now crawling, he is also pulling himself up on a regular basis. When the girls wake up in the morning, he loves to stand up on their bed and look out the window at our neighbors to see if there is anyone new.
Bill the mobile RV repair guy came by this morning to check out our battery charger problem. Luckily for us, we were able to use everything except for the inverter all day yesterday. Only when something is plugged into the inverter does the battery voltage start to drop.
Tropical hammocks are unique hardwood, broad-leafed evergreen forests that are only found in South Florida and the Keys. No, this is not a tropical hammock. This is the kind of shenanigans that happen in the Mish each morning when the kids wake up.
Today is our fourth full day at Long Key State Park and I finally feel like I am on island time. We have our routine down. Morning walks along the water, looking for treasures.
This morning we are taking one of these little ones to the doctor. Not the one with the apple skirt, not the one holding the ball but our cat Yoda. I suppose Yoda is not really a little one. At 10-years old in cat age, she is more like the oldest lady here.
Today we woke up to find an empty spot next to ours. This campground is so busy, especially this time of year, so I know it won’t be empty for more than a few more hours. I quickly snapped a picture of the least photographed side of the Airstream since it was feeling a little self-conscious.
Since we are planning on staying here at our walk-up site for as long as they will allow us, it might get pretty stale here on the blog in the coming days. But staleness is kind of what we have been hoping for. I have been looking forward to a couple of weeks of staying put. At $43 a night, this isn’t a cheap state park. But at the same time, since we are not driving anywhere and there aren’t too many restaurants tempting you to spend money at, it is a pretty affordable place to spend our days.
Our 5 nights at Bahia Honda have come to an end. I want to say that I am sad to leave but the truth is, we are kind of looking forward to leaving. Yes the view is spectacular and we have heard from so many people who said that this is the best state park for camping in the keys and we are in one of their few waterfront sites. The fact that we have had to run the AC non-stop for 5 straight days has really been a bummer.
Hold onto your seats everyone. Today we are going to see… nothing!! Yippee. Since our trip began over four months ago, almost every day has been go go go. It’s no one’s fault but our own. It’s hard to slow down when there are so many places to see. So today was our day to play catch up. Dan settled into his corner office and got down to business.
If we were planning on going to see Key West, then our best bet would be to go from the Bahia Honda campground since it is much closer than the other two state parks we also have reservations at over the next few weeks. It still feels a little weird to go to cities we already explored during our 2010 cross country trip so we are going to make a conscious effort on not repeating anything we saw last time around. Challenge… accepted!
The skeeters are pretty fierce in these parts of the keys. We have been trying to stay away from them by not spending much time outside which is a real shame. It is beautiful here. The biggest problem is that the air is so stagnant. There isn’t a breeze at all to blow the bugs away. Also since the sites are on ancient coral, asphalt and concrete instead of sand, water sort of just collects into pools and they make for a pretty ideal breeding ground for these pests.
