A Week of Firsts

 Like the passage of sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. 

Those words came to me as I sat down to write this post. Why? I have no idea, but I do remember where those words came from. That is (was?) the intro to the soap opera Days of our Lives. Yes, it's true, I used to watch soap operas. I didn’t have a choice really; it was forced on to me as a child. You see, when I was in high school, we lived across the street from the school. Well, not across the street exactly, but one street from across the street and I used to go home for lunch. We weren’t supposed to leave the grounds, but the parking lot monitors were not very attentive, or very smart. Whenever I got caught, I would say that I had a dentist appointment and even mumble it, so it sounded like my mouth was still full of novacane. Like I said, they were not the brightest, or just did not care. 

At home, mom would always be watching soap operas. Days of our Lives and General Hospital, and I would watch while I had my lunch. I remember having a crush on Laura and was aghast at how Luke treated her. Don’t know for a fact, but I think, 40 something years later they are both still on General Hospital. How is that possible? 

At any rate, the days are passing on this, our great winter adventure, a week of many firsts!

Our first first of the week was when we arrived at Everglades National Park. We left Long Point Park campground; we headed south to Long Pine Key campground in the Everglades National Park. No hook ups at all, the nightly fees are between $33-$60 depending on the day of the week. This is our first time visit to this National Park, making it our 21st NP that we have visited since retiring. 

Our first day there was hot, mid 80’s, and with no hook ups at all, we did not dare leave the girls unattended in the camper. Instead, we drove around the park with the AC on taking in the sights. Zoey wanted to see an alligator and get her picture taken with one, but alas, we did not see one that day. What we did see was a very unique and different area. I wonder what the first settlers thought of this area when they arrived. They probably thought "Damn, there is a lot of bugs here!"

Barb spent 3 days scratching her arms raw like a drug addict going through remission, but now her bug bites are much better. A week later, mine are still itching like crazy! This was another first, the first time bugs have attacked me worse than her. Both of my legs and arms look like this. 

Sunday afternoon we headed back into Homestead to hit a brewery and watch the football games. Again, being so hot, we needed to find someplace that was dog friendly as we could not leave them in the camper. The first place we stopped at was packed. They allowed dogs and they had the game on, but there were dozens of kids there. And to top it off the kids were signing korokke. No one wants to hear that! 

So off we went to the next one. It too was full of screamers. We decided to just find a quite parking lot with a breeze and watch the games in the back of the camper. We watched the last ½ of the first game, the Chiefs won! Then we watched the first ½ of the Lions/49’ers game. I wanted the Lions to win, they were well ahead when we left but with no internet service it was another day before I learned that they lost to the 9'ers. 

The weather had cooled down quite a bit that night making for perfect sleeping weather. I love days in the 60’s and cool nights. To me, these are the perfect days. Floridians beg to differ. With the cooler temps we were able to get out on a couple hikes and leave the girls in the camper. Dogs are not allowed on the trails here. 

Our first hike was the Anhinga Trail out of the Royal Palms visitors center. This is a nice boardwalk hike through the marsh area filled with birds and a few gaters. 

We then walked the Gumbo Limbo trail through the dense vegetation. The root systems on some of these trees were incredible!

We still had time left in the day, so we headed into Homestead to check out Biscayne National Park (22nd). 

Unbeknownst to us, Biscayne NP is almost all water with very little on shore. In fact, they only had one hiking trail, a boardwalk along the water. 

The following morning, we headed even further south to meet up with friends and fellow bloggers Shawn and Kim. We had met them once in Quartzsite in 2017 and had not seen them since then. They were fulltime RV'ing at the time as well, but now they are fulltime sailing. Very cool lifestyle. If you want to follow their blog, you can do so here. 

They were moored at the Marathon City Marina and were able to get us a parking pass for the night. We spent the afternoon with them playing bocci ball for the first time. I can see playing that again. 

We then experienced our next first. Our first time grilling steaks on a sailboat. We all rode out to The Shift on their dingy. That was an experience in itself! Luckily, it had cooled down enough that the girls were able to stay in the camper with the windows open. 

We spent a few hours on their boat, catching up, grilling steaks and having a slice of key lime pie for dessert. Before we knew it, it was time to have Shawn dingy us back to the camper where we said our goodbyes with the hopes of catching up with them somewhere down the road, or ocean. 

The next morning, we had a short 30-minute drive down to Big Pine Key to our friends Dan (Hutch) and Mary's. Dan and I had met up at Pasha in Ontario several years ago and have seen each other several times over the years up there. Dan is a hunter extraordinaire, so we have a lot in common and lots of stories to tell. 

They have a place there in the Key's as well as a remote island cabin up in Alaska. Those two are living the life! We were only able to spend one evening with Mary as she was flying out the next morning to see her son. 

Two firsts right away upon arriving in Big Pine. Besides being our first time here, it was also our first time seeing Key Deer. They are endangered, but seem to be thriving in this area walking right up to you and eating out of your hand. 

These things are so small! A big Key Deer will be about 50lbs. For comparison, Zoey is 25 and Dakota is 85. 

Our two days there consisted of fishing and eating fish and fishing some more! Their place is right on a canal, so they can park their boat in front of their house, jump in, and be out in the ocean in a matter of minutes.

Headed up the canal

 The first day we went south to a reef 7 miles out. Hutch as twin 150's on his boat, so it did not take long to get out there at all. Our target fish for the day was Porgies. I have never heard of them let alone caught one before. But catch them we did! Dozens of porgies!

Cooler full of porgies!

We deep fried them that night, they were very good. The next day we headed 10 miles out to another reef in search of Yellowtail Snapper. Another first for us. When we pulled up to the reef, we were in 50' of water and the water was so clear, you could see the bottom as though it was 10'. Incredible.

We put out a chum bag which the tide takes, then you fish in the chum line. I will tell you right now, those things are fighters! You would see 50-60 of them darting in the chum line. Sooner or later one would bite the piece that has your squid and hook on it and away they would go. 

When Barb and I catch a fish in fresh water, we usually reel it in slowly, enjoying the fight before landing the fish. When we hooked in into one of these yellowtails, Dan would just yell at us "Reel fast, faster, faster!". We had no idea why he wanted us to reel them in so quickly until we realized why he wanted us to reel them in so quickly. All of a sudden, the reel would stop bringing line in and start taking line out the other way. Dan would say "He got ya". I had no idea what that mean until I fought what was on my line now, not budging it. A shark. 

This happened to us about 6 times where we would get the fish half way to the boat and a shark would take it. We were reeling as fast as we could, but those sharks were fasters. I would guess them at 6' long. We got a pretty good look at a few of them as they would follow our fish right up to the boat. Barb had one yellowtail on, then a shark got it, she fought it for a while, then she got the yellowtail back, well most of it. 

Despite the sharks, we managed to get enough for supper. These we grilled with some seasoning and were even better than the porgies the night before! 

We had a great two days in Big Pine, Dan and Mary were great hosts and provided us with a lot of "firsts" that we will never forget. But alas, it is time to move on. 

This stop marks what we are considering our halfway mark of our trip. We now turn north and are headed to Fort Myer's where more adventures await. Hopefully our lives will be soap opera free, filled with more fish, fun and firsts!