Days of Wind and Preparation

Thursday and Friday                                                                                  Most Recent Posts:
December 17 & 18, 2015                                                                            Historic Key West Walking Tour
Long Key State Park                                                                                   Moving to Long Key
Layton, Florida

 

 

Thursday

 

I am out at dawn again, 6am walking down the beach working on my 10,000 steps.  It is simply wonderful to walk out my door and 30 steps away is the ocean front with a beach to walk on at sunrise.

The clouds are low at the horizon as has been the case for so many sunrises here in the Keys and that means it is unlikely I will see the sun rise out of the water.

 

 

 

Once I am beyond the park boundary headed south I come upon the private homes.  This one must be owned by a Greek statue affectionato.  I’ve lightened these pictures a bit so that you can clearly see them.

 

 

 

 

It is another very windy day as you can see by the palms in front of this house with festive candy canes in their sandy yard.

 

The tide is out and has revealed a sand spit so I take a walk out into the water and keep my feet dry.  The dawn color is disappearing, the sunrise is near.

 

 

Others have been here before me.

 

 

 

Back on the shore is one of the Keys most common shore birds, the night heron.  He seems very intent on something but I cannot see what.

 

 

 

 

The sun rises into the clouds and creates an orange sky around them.

 

 

 

Makes me just want to sing “Morning has broken, like the first morning…..”

Simply glorious!  Again!!

 

Back at Winnona the Earth flag is whipping in the wind.

 

 

Looking up the shore to the north I see that the ibis seem to have taken shelter in the mangrove tree and have decorated it.

 

Once inside we have breakfast and I see a huge pair of wings cross in front of the window.  It’s a great egret and he lands in the sea grape in front of the coach.

 

 

 

 

I don’t blame him for wanting to get out of the 25 mile an hour winds.  He likes being tucked back into the dune and the foliage just like we do.

 

 

 

With the wind as it is, there isn’t any kayaking or biking or snorkeling, so we noodle around reading and doing life’s business.

Our site is just “around the corner” from a good sunset view so we have to walk down the beach to watch the sun set.  Today we find an empty campsite and wait and watch from the picnic table there.

 

The night heron is waiting too.

 

We come close to seeing it set into the ocean, there are just a few clouds at the horizon today.

 

 

 

 

Walking the beach back north the orange glow reflects pink and yellow in the billowing clouds. 

 

 

 

 

Friday

Today we finish the wrapping and then clean up the mess while making room to add a third person to our space considerations.  Carrie arrives tomorrow!!

Earlier we headed out first thing to Islamarada to check out both Bob’s Bunz and Midway for breakfast pastries for our Solstice Day celebration.  We try a pecan roll and chocolate croissants.  The former is good, the latter is great but the price is excessive we think at $3.50 and $4.00 each.  But we’ll be using them on Monday if we can’t find anything better.

 

 

It’s a pretty toasty 85 degrees today which, with the humidity, would feel hot if it were not for the wind.  Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself is one benefit of the wind.  

The sunset tonight makes it 6 days in a row of setting into a bank of clouds.  But the after colors and their reflections are fantastic.   These photographs have not been altered in any way.  It was just spectacular!  And so hard to choose which pictures since it wasn’t possible to take a bad one.

 

 

 

To the North East.

 

 

 

As night comes on, they begin to fade away but I can’t take my eyes off of them.

 

 

 

The gifts all all wrapped, the house is decorated, the hats are ready for Carrie when she arrives tomorrow!!
Happy Holiday!!