Late Sunday afternoon we met up with some IBEW Local 252 friends for happy hour. The retirees of Local 252 always have a winter reunion in Florida in March, but they have it up north of Orlando. We decided that we were having the Local 252 retirees reunion Keys Style.
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| Gary and Patty Smith, Doug and me and Ira and Darlene Shubel |
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| Oysters on the half shell, wings and shrimp |
We were at the Lazy Days Bar. Nice place with outdoor seating and food was really good.
When my sisters arrived from Indy on Tuesday, we headed to the docks at the RV park for sunset. Karen got this great shot of some people blowing the conchs at sunset.
Wednesday morning, Gloria, Karen and I headed to the beach before we went fishing. The seaweed beds that Doug and I had encountered the day before were not near as bad. We did see quite a few jelly fish that were washed up near the shore.
We left the beach and went back to the RV park to eat some lunch before heading out to go fishing. We had a visitor at lunch time.
The first time we stayed at Jolly Roger one of these iguanas fell out of tree and landed right beside Doug giving him quite the start.
Doug and I always fish when we come to Florida, but usually it's up at Jupiter with our friend, Erol, or in the Everglades with Erol's brother-in-law, Larry. We have been to the Keys quite a few times but we had only fished here once about 10 years ago out of Key West. This trip we decided to fish on the Marathon Lady. Nice, large boat with a friendly, professional staff. You will catch fish and have a great time. We highly recommend the Marathon Lady
Here are a few pics from the fishing trip.
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| The catch from everyone on the boat |
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| Our catch. 21 fish! |
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| The pelicans waiting for their treats |
The mates cleaned the fish for us and we took them to The Island Fish Company. The cook prepared them for us and served the fish with salad, rice, broccoli and cauliflower. The fish were great! It doesn't get any fresher than that!
Thursday we went to Pigeon Key. It's located off of the old Seven Mile bridge and the only way to get there is to bike or ride a 2 1/2 mile span of the old bridge or take the ferry. In the early 1900's the island housed 400 workers who helped build the overseas railroad. The project took about 12 years and was built by Henry Flagler who spent about $50 million of his own money to build the railroad to bring tourism to the Keys. On Labor Day in 1935 a hurricane destroyed about 40 miles of the railroad in the middle keys. Flagler's railroad went bankrupt and Florida bought it for a song. They laid concrete over the train tracks and turned it into a road.
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| Some of us got wet getting out there |
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| New7 Mile Bridge on the left, old one on the right. |
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| Gloria, Doug and Karen on top of Old 7 Mile Bridge |
We took the first ferry over at 10:00 a.m. and it's a good thing we did because it ended up being the only ferry trip out there all day. The winds were blowing steady at around 20-25 mph and the captain cancelled all the other trips. Fortunately, he did come back out there to pick us up.
After the Pigeon Key trip, we visited the prayer gardens at San Pablo Catholic Church. The gardens there are beautiful, there are many places to stop for contemplation and prayer and the Stations of the Cross are also in the gardens.
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| Blessed Virgin Mary |
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| Cross in memory of children who have died |
We've been very busy these last few days and I have no idea what adventures await us today. For now, I have just enough time for one more cup of coffee before my sisters get here and we set out for today's escapades.
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