Tales of a Shoebox Princess

Backtracking a little bit, Jim and I had a layover in New York in between Minneapolis and Miami. Neither of us as ever been to NY, and Jim was really excited to see the city from the sky.  The green circle is highlighting the statue of Liberty Manhattan island comes into view under the plane's wing It's kinda cool to look at all the tall buildings from above. One of these days we'll have to go to the city. We had planned a vacation to the northeast for last fall, but COVID nixed those plans. Someday. 

The pandemic has us all feeling punchy. Jim may not show his feelings much, but he's mentioned more than a few times this past fall that he was particularly missing a Keys vacation. He wanted some sun and sand. So I looked up plane tickets and holy Hannah, they were cheap. We talked about it and decided that we would brave the outside world, the pandemic, the criticism (both expressed and unsaid) and we would be very careful. We would take masks, avoid crowds, eat in our accommodations for breakfast/lunch, and wash hands a lot.  We left on January 22, Friday and stayed in Miami. On Saturday, we drove through the Everglades,  which has been on our to-see list ever since we went to the Keys the first time but didn't get to it because one of us had to pass out and spend 48 hours in bed at the motel.  I get unreasonably excited whenever I go to a new park, state or national fishy in super clear water This is the Everglades I liked the boardwalk on the Anhinga trail this is an Anhin

 Otherwise known as how to make a whole lot of work for oneself and then overeat.  I watched an episode of Great Mythical Morning where Rhett and Link were subjected to a blind taste test of local Mexican food of varying price ranges. (Side note, I think my brother looks like Rhett with less hair) I decided I wanted to do the same thing for Jim, Katie and Christian, and one of the options would be homemade. So we would have storebought/frozen, fast food, homemade, and sit down restaurant. Four courses would be guacamole, steak tacos, chicken enchiladas, and tres leches cake.  It was a lot of work, but I planned it out and it wasn't overwhelming. I sent Jim out to pick up the take out food, and he also helped by cleaning the entryway and vacuuming. I set up the food in my sewing room so I could keep the information of food source a secret.  I had stickers and a key sheet for each category and I only brought out one category at a time. Each person got a bite or two of each food and w