Vacation Update
Yes, I know this is late.. it's been a long couple of weeks. Vacation was.. interesting. Very good to get away, but Key West was not at all what either bardicstorm or I were expecting. We had been thinking tropical island and it's really a tropical city. This threw us both off a little and I think we were perhaps not as flexible about it as we needed to be to truly enjoy the vacation. I'm glad I saw Key West once, but I very seriously doubt that I would ever go back again.
The butterfly conservatory was absolutely amazing and gorgeous and thrilling. I adored it and we took tons of photos in there. The Mel Fisher Treasure Museum was very neat, and given enough time Bard definitely would have been able to get the gold bar out of it's case. But I persisted in telling him that it was NOT a puzzle box and they would NOT be letting him keep it.. so he eventually gave up and let it stay. Good thing too as I think they would have been arresting him.. not giving him a prize.
The highlight of the trip was rescuing a fallen hawk. We were down at the state park walking from the military installation to the beach when Bard's sharp eyes spotted something on the ground in the parking lot. At first we were thinking yet another of the island's multitude of chickens, but the head was completely wrong. It didn't take long to figure out that the hawk was in distress as it didn't immediately take off to get away from us. So I looked at my little map and found the phone number for the ranger station and called them. Cell phones can be such a blessing sometimes.
The rangers were there in just a matter of a couple of minutes and got set up to fetch the poor bird out of the bushes. This.. didn't go smoothly at first. The net for the bird kept catching branches instead. Very hard not to start laughing at the three sincerely working rangers fumbling around in the underbrush. They finally got a second, smaller, net and a towel and finagled the bird that way. Then they took off for the wildlife rehabilitation place where our hawk will either recover and be sent on his/her way.. or be used for education if release is out of the question.
We walked, constantly. Which is wonderful for our waistlines, but played havoc with our feet. My hips held up a lot better than I thought they would, and I was really pleased with how much walking I was able to do. We both got sandals, and that was fun. Bard is SO not a sandal kind of guy, he was really missing his boots badly by the end of the week. We drank copious amounts of rum. Rum really is quite good.. especially in copious amounts.
All in all.. being away was a tremendous blessing. The week we went is a GREAT time to travel and I think we'll probably use it again next year. The airports were empty because everyone travels that next week for holidays. But I think the next time I want a tropical vacation, I'll go back to St. John's.
The butterfly conservatory was absolutely amazing and gorgeous and thrilling. I adored it and we took tons of photos in there. The Mel Fisher Treasure Museum was very neat, and given enough time Bard definitely would have been able to get the gold bar out of it's case. But I persisted in telling him that it was NOT a puzzle box and they would NOT be letting him keep it.. so he eventually gave up and let it stay. Good thing too as I think they would have been arresting him.. not giving him a prize.
The highlight of the trip was rescuing a fallen hawk. We were down at the state park walking from the military installation to the beach when Bard's sharp eyes spotted something on the ground in the parking lot. At first we were thinking yet another of the island's multitude of chickens, but the head was completely wrong. It didn't take long to figure out that the hawk was in distress as it didn't immediately take off to get away from us. So I looked at my little map and found the phone number for the ranger station and called them. Cell phones can be such a blessing sometimes.
The rangers were there in just a matter of a couple of minutes and got set up to fetch the poor bird out of the bushes. This.. didn't go smoothly at first. The net for the bird kept catching branches instead. Very hard not to start laughing at the three sincerely working rangers fumbling around in the underbrush. They finally got a second, smaller, net and a towel and finagled the bird that way. Then they took off for the wildlife rehabilitation place where our hawk will either recover and be sent on his/her way.. or be used for education if release is out of the question.
We walked, constantly. Which is wonderful for our waistlines, but played havoc with our feet. My hips held up a lot better than I thought they would, and I was really pleased with how much walking I was able to do. We both got sandals, and that was fun. Bard is SO not a sandal kind of guy, he was really missing his boots badly by the end of the week. We drank copious amounts of rum. Rum really is quite good.. especially in copious amounts.
All in all.. being away was a tremendous blessing. The week we went is a GREAT time to travel and I think we'll probably use it again next year. The airports were empty because everyone travels that next week for holidays. But I think the next time I want a tropical vacation, I'll go back to St. John's.