Category: Florida Breaks

Cold, cold, cold

Our glorious riding weather of November came to a screeching halt with the onset of severe cold spells in December. This is southeast Florida, land of the warm, warm, warm weather, yet in mid-December we had a few spells of below freezing cold. On a few memorable days the temperatures hit twenty-eight degrees.

Chelsea and I rode in south Louisiana in very cold weather throughout the winter of 2008-2009, so it wasn’t too much of a shock, but wow…twenty-eight degrees is really cold! We saw only one other cyclist (one!) on our entire twenty-five mile ride. We gave ourselves pats on the back for being so tough.

The air temps were so cold that the ocean looked like a huge snow bank, a result of the steam from the warmer water hitting the cold air. Check out our photo albums…it’s pretty amazing to see the fuzz on the water. The clouds in the background looked like snowcapped mountains. We were bundled to the teeth, literally.
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We’ve had a tremendously good time with our early morning rides. Every day something fun happens, it seems. Whether it’s someone we meet or something we see, it’s never dull.

Back in mid-November, just a day or so after I had last written, we were still doing our “later” rides, leaving at seven a.m. or so. Back then we were only riding twenty-five miles a day, so our stopping point was the Boynton Inlet. You’d think after seven years of stopping there we’d be tired of it, but oh no… It never fails to delight us.

Fish and fishing stories

That first week after I posted was so spectacular, it was breathtaking. Three separate rides were absolute treasures of fish and fishing related fun. In one day alone (only an hour or two) we saw sergeant majors, file fish, pilchards, parrot fish, southern sea robins, puffer fish, drum, porkfish, Atlantic needlefish, ballyhoo, red snapper, skip jack, and a lizard fish aka slippery dick.

Mind you, we go days and weeks seeing nothing, then all this abundance was in only several hours on one day, standing in one spot at the seawall.
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We finished our twelve-week Body for Life program on Christmas Eve, with wonderful results. I was definitely “the biggest loser” – I needed the biggest results and I got them. My loss was thirty pounds, twenty five inches, and over ten percent body fat. Chelsea did well, too. She lost four pounds, sixteen inches, and three percent body fat. (She lost more initially, but regained some in her California sojourn.)

It was absolutely a commitment to get through the program. Most days we forced ourselves over to the weight bench by sheer determination, but once we got into the workout each day, it got easier. We tried a variety of tactics to keep things interesting – we’d switch the time of day (morning was best); we had a lively playlist of songs on the computer – the kind that get your feet tapping; we’d make non-stop jokes; and we changed our routines regularly.

During the darkest days of December we even lit candles and used an aromatherapy diffuser during our 6:30 a.m. workouts, or we plugged in our jalapeno pepper lights and rocked away to the music. For a few weeks, one of our cats entertained us no end by curling up for a nap on the weight bench as we’d be doing our arm exercises, and she dearly loved having us get on the floor to do our abs. She’d spend the whole ab workout winding her way around our legs and nuzzling our faces. It was pretty hard to not laugh and to keep the count straight with a purring kitty collapsed on our heads.
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Eight months. Eight incredible months it’s been since we last wrote. How is it possible for time to disappear so easily?

I have such good intentions about writing. I list my projects for the day, and somehow, in my deep desire to get the other projects done, writing the journals drops to the bottom of the list. Then a week is gone, a month is gone. Then it’s a big job to catch up, as so many things have happened since we last wrote.

And “so-many-things-have-happened” is the good news – our steady list of accomplishments and adventures is ever-growing, despite our frequent feelings that we may never finish.

One early morning last week, Chelsea and I sat down with our protein shakes and toasted bagels, listing words that came to mind describing how we often feel. Slogging through, overwhelmed, slugging through, buried, churning through, swamped, plowing through, exhausted, bone-weary, isolated, plugging away, marching along… all these floated up.
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Chelsea and I both love sunrise. The world is so calm and quiet, the air is fresher and cooler, the winds are calmer, there’s the promise a new day brings. We love being up before the birds and watching them awaken; we love the gorgeous pink and gold and orange colors of the sunrise as it slowly spreads across the sky, reflecting in brilliant hues off the Florida coastal clouds.

A few months ago, as the days were getting shorter, the sun would rise as we were still heading east toward the ocean. We began thinking about how much we’d like to see the sun rise over the ocean, but that meant we’d have to leave the house before six. It didn’t seem too likely…it was hard enough just getting up before six.

But as the days got even shorter, and the sunrise got later, I realized that if we left by 6:20 and rode fast, there was a strong chance we could be at the Inlet bridge in time to photograph sunrise. It meant getting up even earlier, but the fun of accomplishing it, and the lure of photographing some potentially beautiful sunrises, made the extra effort worthwhile.
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We’ve continued downsizing – at times it feels as though it will never end. We have discovered it to be a process, rather than a finite event or project, as we never dreamed when this all started how much we would really be letting go. We’ve gone from a crowded three-bedroom house and shed to a nearly empty shed and three-bedroom house that now echoes.

Our furniture is empty inside, save for storing a few boxes we’re keeping; our kitchen cabinets have very little left; our hall closet and linen closet have only the basics; the two bedrooms we have available are down to the essentials, or hold only the boxes we are putting into storage. The shed has been cleared out, with only essential tools left – we have even taken all our old paint and construction materials to the hazardous waste facility.
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Back in late April we started the Body for Life program, a combination of a weight workout program, a specific cardio program and an eating plan, with a specific twelve week process. It took awhile to get up and running – we had to start from scratch to develop a two-week meal plan and recipes, a system for our cardio, and figure out how to set up a weight workout program at home.

By the end of April we had our eating plans and routines down pretty well, and by mid May we started our weight workouts. By late May we had combined our cardio program with the eating and weight workouts.
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The alarm goes off at 5:55 a.m. The room is so pitch black we want to slide back into bed again; we can’t think about it or we won’t go. We get up and methodically start getting ready. Riding clothes on, contacts in, sunscreen on, hair brushed and pulled back, quickly munch a rice-cake with almond butter while we get ready to go, sunglasses, gloves, hydration pack, helmet, clear the cycle computer for today’s ride; we’re out the door.

At 6:35 a.m. it’s so dark that the birds are still asleep and we need a full set of bike lights for visibility. Chelsea has a super-bright red taillight on her bike as she brings up the rear; I have a bright headlamp lighting our way, with the addition of a red taillight attached to my hydration pack.
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Movies

As soon as we first saw Shrek in 2001, it became a family favorite – the kids gave the DVD to me for Christmas that year, under particularly heart-tugging and memorable circumstances. Naturally we had to see the follow-ups each year they came out – in fact, Alex treated Chelsea and me to the third Shrek movie in theaters shortly before we left on our 2007 leg of our bike trip.

In late May this year, Shrek Forever After came out in theaters, so true to tradition, Alex took us to see it. We’d been very housebound up to that point, so just getting out was great fun. Not only did we really enjoy the film, we loved spending time with Alex (and we loved the coke and popcorn!).
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Driver’s license renewals are always a major problem here in South Florida. The system in person is abominably slow and inefficient. In 2006 I renewed my license online and had Chelsea send it to me in Washington. In 2009, Chelsea renewed hers online from Louisiana, picking it up when she returned home later that year. So I had no concerns about the fact that my license was due to be renewed on my birthday this year.

About a week ahead of time I logged on to the State of Florida website to get my renewal out of the way. After forcing me to go through the whole process, the site then gave me a message that I couldn’t renew online. The thought of having to go a local office filled me with despair. We’ve had several terrible experiences in recent years, especially when Chelsea and Alex got their driver’s licenses. We waited for seven hours or more, just to get the license. Even with appointments, the process often takes four to five hours.
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