First date

This is a work of Fiction...

One life had been filled with vows, promises, children, pets and mortgages. After he'd gone the sweet comfort and reliability of the days gone, just heaviness and day after day of getting through. The children called to report on lives they lived, little thought given to the echoes in the rooms or the coldness of sheets. "Kids are great! You should have seen Jack! Just like Dad! You okay? You should go down to the Retirement Center. Have some fun for once!" 

Fun.......

Loneliness consumed her, swallowing her in gaping jaws with insatiate animal appetites. She breathed the tattered flannel shirt they'd tug-o-war'd over (the worn material made perfect dust cloth) and turned up the sound on the shopping channel for the soothing sound of chatter. Occasional conversations with friends were marked with echoes of empty chairs "Vera's husband passed away and they don't expect Ruth to make it..." 

  "You have to dance with me!" he'd spotted her before she'd decided to hang up her coat and stay for the Christmas party she'd been reluctantly talked in to. "I do?" He swept her into his magic act, disappearing coats, transformation tricks, waltzing as he laughed into her ear that she was the most beautiful woman capable of doing much more than shuffling in the entire building. Air and a rasping wheeze were the prelude to exploding convulsions that nearly doubled her over "Is THAT your line? The best you can do?" Their twinned laughter broke past the band's front lines and caught the attention of the elderly in the front row whose faces immediately pruned with distaste. His laughter belled through to the rafters and she hid her face on his shoulder.

"That was ten years ago today..." she leaned back into the gentleman on the couch at the Inn at Charlotte where we were enjoying champagne and a light snack in the final hours of the afternoon. "We've been laughing ever since. I hope you all have as many happy years together" We clinked our glasses in a final salutation and we watched them depart.    

Comparison shopping: St. Augustine or the Key West lighthouse?

St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum
As I've mentioned, I used to be afraid of heights so at one time it might have been hard for me to enjoy the magnificent views that one sees from the observation deck of either of the lighthouses you will see here.

But no more!

The St. Augustine lighthouse is 165 feet above sea level.  

There are 219 steps that take you to the very top of the light house...  

Love at first sight

The beautiful architecture and lovely oceanic views, historic connection and lush Florida vegetation which I adore about Key West made me simply fall in love with St. Augustine so I am simply going to overdue it with pictures in this posting. We were only there for three days but I went wild! 

I'm not sure which bridge this is but I took this picture from the wall of the Fort.

After our first very long day with virtually no sleep-- we finally got to our lovely rooms at the Inn at Charlotte. They were so accommodating and welcoming there that I want to make sure and give them a little plug. Here's their link: http://www.innoncharlotte.com/ 

This is the little garden in front of the Inn and they apparently have a wedding package that couples buy. One couple that was there while we were got married right in front of this fountain. It was quite beautiful and then they were carried off in a horse and buggy to ride about town which is quite quaint considering so many of the old streets are still paved with brick.

You can just imagine yourself having an frosty glass of lemonade as the sun goes down...

St. Augustine at a glance

I can't possibly do the oldest continuously occupied European city and port in the United States any justice without starting from the beginning... 

The vicinity of St. Augustine was first explored by Ponce de Leon although it seems that "exploration" mostly amounted to his waving as he floated past the shores of Northern Florida. Here he stands, apparently still in search of his Fountain of Youth. The one he found (at least according to local legend) not far from this statue was worthless since he did in fact die.

So Ponce de Leon found Florida... or at least saw it first and then went on his way but the French thought they'd give it a go. They were not terribly successful as the Florida coast was a wild and mosquito infested area. But when it became a hideout for pirates who then attacked Spanish ships along the Caribbean, the Spanish began to take notice. That's when Pedro Menendez de Aviles headed for the Florida coast and spotted land on August 28, 1565. As this fell on the feast day of Augustine of Hippo, he decided the area was to be dubbed San Augustin (and only later to be called St. Augustine.) and his little flag was quickly planted...

What's in a plan???

Sometimes planning is overrated and sometimes having something planned is like waiting for Christmas...

It is no secret to the most glancing of a glimpser of my blog that I love Key West- that there is something about the place for me that I can only try to articulate but I probably am not quite able to convey properly is probably true. Probably part of the charm for me is that I was always moved hither and yon by my family whether I wanted to move or not and the place I landed as an adult had absolutely nothing to do with where I wanted to live. I occasionally thought of moving but finances managed to keep the family where we were. I struggled a great deal with winter depression when my children were young and could only be grateful that I was in Colorado where there were more sunny days than in most states and I guess it never occurred to me to push to move to a sunnier state where a winter malaise wouldn't knock me out three months out of the year. At any rate, now when I am older and wiser, I realize that some of those factors probably play into what attracts me to the Sunshine state of Florida along with my love of the ocean. But there's much, much more to it than that and perhaps as time goes on I will do more to explain why Key West, an Island that is as bawdy as it is lovely draws me the ways it does...  But today I shall merely touch upon all of that because it explains why my vacation this year was not merely a vacation, it was a VACATION!

So...

In 2009 we had a vacation planned to go to Key West but the change of jobs and finances forced us to put it off. We decided to put the trip off and went to New Mexico instead. We went to see the Sunspot Observatory which was interesting and spoke to one scientist (which is rare because they sleep during the day and do their observations at night.) about their work there which was truly interesting.

there were certainly some lovely views. They have some fantastic Sunset points... 

we scandalized one gentleman by offering him some champagne. He obviously missed his wife though and wished she would come with him. 

we had a a lot of fun in Roswell and took tons of pictures there !!!

Another day we went down to the New Mexico Museum of Space History which was pretty terrific and to the White Sand Dunes. I won't put pictures of all that here because the real point to all that is that we had a lovely little vacation last summer with the long range plans to come back to Key West this summer. 

So we began counting down right after school ended. Plans were being made although we kept a pretty serious eye on the oil spill and we were constantly worried (and still are!) that the oil might ruin that beautiful place.

Our luck held however and before you know it we were negotiating our tickets with United Airlines to fly to Orlando for first a jaunt to St. Augustine...