Florida Keys

Jim's eyes are much better. Much much better. I can see the whites of his eyes now, and there is only a little faint pink tint to them. He's feeling much better too. He still gets tired at the end of the day, but hopefully with the Thanksgiving break he'll get some rest.

I'm trying to be philosophical about having nearly 48 hours of precious vacation time lost to an illness, but part of me is whiny and wants to go back to make up for lost time. I don't blame Jim at all, mind you. I'm glad his episode was temporary and not, like, Ebola. Next time, though, we will not take a red-eye flight, because Jim literally wound up with red eyes. I'm very grateful that there was help when I needed it, from the EMTs, the hospital staff, and the branch president and his wife from church down in Marathon. I'm glad that Jim was not hurt by the fall (I have myself to thank for that--pat on my own back there for being 2 feet away at the precise moment of the first attack. I also want to pat myself on the back for thinking of getting Jim a towel to put under his head after he came to on the floor), and I'm glad that he has recuperated. And I enjoyed the week and a half of calling him El Diablo in my head because of his bloody eyes.

OK enough about Jim. The vacation pictures want their turn in the spotlight. These trip pictures have been bugging me to be seen. They are vain and like to show off.

I think the ones I will post will be from our trip to the Dry Tortugas. That day trip was worth the $169 per person ticket. Every single penny. I have rarely felt so light-hearted.
 
Jim wears his had in such a way so that the wind won't blow it off. Or he's just "cool." We're looking over the railing at the front of the catamaran

The main cabin (where all the sissies stayed) of the catamaran from the outside. I loved being at the front of the boat. 







Fort Jefferson sits on Garden Key

Palm trees
 
More fort

Our tour guide kinda reminded us of Dana Carvey. He did know his stuff though.

Our guide said this was not actually a lighthouse. He called it a harbor light. Semantics. It's a building that houses a light.

That narrow strip off on the right is a walkway around the moat. The really cool thing is that we are allowed to walk on it and IT HAS NO RAILINGS OR SAFETY WARNINGS! We are left to decide for ourselves whether we want to be safe or not. The whole place was railing-free. I felt like such an adult! 
Little stalactites are forming inside Fort Jefferson.

repeating arches

more repeating arches

From on top. Notice again the lack of railings for our safety! The National Park system trusted us to use our own judgment!

the moat walk. People were snorkeling outside the moat. I saw lots of yellow and black striped fish.

I think this is the only picture of the two of us from the entire trip.

The catamaran, Yankee Freedom III. She was a lovely mode of transport.
OK, that's way too many pictures. If you looked at all of them, you have a lot of time to waste.


Comments

Unknown said…
Cool pics. I wanna go.
Dennis said…
I thought the "walk" was only about a foot wide. It looks like it's abut 4 or 5 ft. No problem with no hand rails. There are many times when church leaders come in handy. Glad Jim is getting better but he should go to the doc to get checked out.
Jen said…
I'm so glad Jim recovered. And I'm groovy that you still got some fabulous vacation time. Dry Tortugas does look like a very cool place to visit. I'll have to add that my list of vacation wishes. Good thing you got at least one pic of the two of you together, or else I wouldn't have believed you (not Jim) were actually there.