Category: Florida Breaks

Crazy busy. Just plain crazy busy. That’s the only reason I have for not writing in over three months. From continuing our downsizing to getting a new roommate, to rehabbing our house, to major projects on the website and planning our Mexico routes, to researching and buying new pieces of equipment for the trip, and more, more, more, we’ve been putting in long days for quite awhile now. It’s been good, very good. And we’re gradually winding things down to the point where the writing can begin.

After Chelsea and I raked up eighteen yard-bags of leaves and oak tree pollen today, Chelsea is out mowing the lawn while I settle at the computer to write at least one blog. I’ve got my music playing (that’s a story in itself), my bottle of water is at hand, and I’m finally alone, without interruptions.

The best place to start is where I left off, back in mid January, right before the Adventure Cycling meetings. For those who don’t know, the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) is a group near and dear to our hearts.
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Books and movies

We’ve continued to enjoy our abundance of books and movies from the library, and Alex completed my Sue Grafton collection with a gift of her latest book. We found a set of four Humphrey Bogart movies at Costco, and for sixteen dollars we couldn’t pass it up. We’ve loved watching them – we got “Key Largo”, “To Have or Have Not”, “Dark Passage”, and The Big Sleep”.

Alex also brought home seasons three and four of House, so Chelsea and I have stayed up too late a few nights now getting caught up on those. We’ve already told Alex he’s going to need to get season five before we leave.

We’re going to very much miss easy access to English language books and movies when we cross the border, so we are taking maximum advantage of our opportunity now.
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The week between New Years and Christmas was spectacular weather-wise. It was hard to get motivated to do anything, so we just puttered slowly and steadily.

New Year’s was very fun – Alex and Amanda took us out to a late lunch at Boston’s at the Beach in downtown Delray Beach. We sat on the second floor balcony overlooking A1A and the gorgeous beach, feeling very elegant. The food was a feast – we shared appetizers, we each had an exotic drink (Chelsea had an espresso martini, and I had a blackberry mojito martini), and we each had a main course.

The food was really, really good and the view was unbeatable. Alex and Amanda work a lot, so we see very little of them; this was a rare chance to just hang out peacefully.
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Record-breaking heat. Record-breaking rain. Record-breaking cold. We’ve had quite a last six weeks here in South Florida with our weather.

First we had record-breaking heat through the first two weeks of December, with an occasional chilly day. The heat wasn’t too bad (reaching about 90 degrees), especially compared to summer, but the humidity was obnoxious, and for about a week there we felt we would never escape from the heat and humidity combination that has chased us throughout our trip.

Doing errands was nearly like being in summer (think hot and sweaty), and we had the air conditioning kicking on at home in the middle of the night. For us that’s extreme, as we keep the air at 79-80 degrees.
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Lights and tree

After our long afternoon project of getting our lights up on the house in early December it took a few days to get the enthusiasm together to add more lights. Chelsea was the project leader on the lights, and by the time we were finished we had lights in every room in the house, and had added net lights in front and rope lights around the pool.

Our next step was getting a tree. Before Alex headed off to New York with his girlfriend Amanda, to meet Amanda’s mom, he’d left us a small bit of cash. We decided to get a tree of some kind. Having seen a tree lot up in West Palm Beach advertising “a dozen free donuts at Dunkin’ donuts with the purchase of a $25 six-foot tree”, we thought $25 was an average price.

When time came to get the tree, we looked at the Home Depot lot, saw the minimum price was $35, so we turned and left. We headed down to a private lot near our local Publix. The trees were gorgeous, the lot was empty except for the family that runs it –we had our run of the place. I looked at the first tree on the edge of the lot and had a small heart attack – it was $47! Clearly out of our price range. I went deeper into the trees, but the next one was $75!
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Cold weather at last, even if only for a short while! Today is one of the few days so far that we’ve put on long pants and sweaters – we’ve been in shorts, tank tops and sandals for ages. It’s a bit like suddenly developing a new personality, or a whole new outlook on life. Long pants? And where is my sweatshirt? Seeing the neighbors in hoodies and other cyclists in tights and long sleeves is a different perspective for us…

Despite the “cold” weather – it was fifty eight degrees when we left – we were out on the road this morning for our usual twenty-five mile ride up to the Boynton Inlet and back. It was so cold that not even the pelicans wanted to fly – they clustered together shivering in the wind; and the Lady K fishing charter had maybe five hardy souls who braved the cold.
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Each holiday we find ourselves thinking back to the last few years and reminiscing about where we were and what the day was like. Two years ago, the first year of our trip, found us in Santa Barbara at my sister’s house, spending the day with family. Last year we were in Gueydan, Louisiana, writing intently, spending Thanksgiving itself at dinner with Pastor Doug and Mona Beth, followed up by an evening visit to Heuetta and Kenneth.

This year we were alone at home, sitting on the porch enjoying the fabulous weather, or flopped on the couch with the doors open, watching movies and reading.
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Weather

At long last our extraordinary hot spell broke, leaving behind gorgeous days and nights. In October, while the rest of the country was dealing with heavy rains, flooding, and cold we were suffering with 98+ degree weather, with real feel temps of well over 100+ degrees. It began to feel that our hot and humid south Florida summer would never end.

For a week or so now we’ve had day temps in the low 80s and night temps in the mid to high 60s. Ahhh, what a relief. It’s been nice enough to have the doors and windows open all day. To improve things even more, the bugs have completely disappeared, so we are enjoying the gorgeous weather with not a single mosquito, June bug, or insect of any kind to torment us.
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We start our Loxahatchee kayaking trips at Canoe Outfitters in Riverbend Park in Jupiter Florida. We’ve tried nearly every kayak they’ve got in stock – longer, shorter, wider, thinner, sit on top, sit inside; over the first year we finally settled into the Loon 111 as our favorite for this river.

When we arrive, Mike always has the Loon 111s waiting at the water’s edge, with orange life jackets and heavy duty plastic paddles ready to go, inside the kayaks. We pack our Camelbak water packs behind the seat, along with our insulated water-proof lunch bags and padded stadium seats, making sure we have our camera and binoculars.

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All is not gloom and doom in South Florida though. Despite the economy, South Beach appears to be thriving. On our two trips down there, the restaurants were busy, people were out shopping, and the bars had a steady clientele. Though not as busy as it usually is, life still seems to be moving along quite well.

An island off the Miami mainland, South Beach is reached by a causeway lined with massive cruise ships (when they’re in town) and Port of Miami dock structures where gigantic cargo ships are unloaded. Parking is scarce and gets really expensive. Streets are crowded with cars, bicycles, pedestrians, motorcycles, and scooters.
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