Friday 1/15/16

We are definitely operating in “Low Key” Key West style today.

Kyleigh had an allergic reaction to something she ate last night. We can only narrow it down to chipotle peppers that were in a new salsa we tried. She broke out with a raised itchy rash on her face. She is asleep once again under the influence of benadryl, marking today as a sick day from school.

With intermittent rain still expected to fall through the day, I decided to do a load of laundry while Ava was attempting to do her school work at the Campground pavilion. However, the internet is out once again. So she and Sean are playing pool in the game room.

I am next door in my quiet oasis of a clean laundry room that smells of fresh linens. The warm humid breeze blows through the open air room while the ceiling fan spins at the same beat of the washers and dryers.

Every once in awhile a white haired camper will come in and toss in a bundle of T-Shirts and towels and line up eight quarters into the machines.

Many of the campers here have made Boyd’s Campground their long term home. Some of them have erected permanent fences around their RVs complete with potted plants and outdoor lighting.

Others are just here long enough to escape the freezing numbers from where they came. Regardless of what brought them here, there is a community of people in this couple acre waterfront neighborhood that obviously have friendships and relationships that mean the world to them. Connecting with like minded souls to live and do life with is an innate psychological need I feel we are all born with. Finding a place to belong. I watched as travelers arrived over the past couple of days and were reunited with others as they gather together again on this perfect little clump of sand for a few months every year. Embracing each other with hugs and greetings, happy to be joined together after seasons of separations back in the real world.

Since we are here for just a few weeks, we are more like outsiders peering into their wintertime communal life. Everyone is friendly to us even though, we are obviously short term tourists. I can relate though, since it’s very similar to the way things are on Tybee. We always enjoy meeting people that choose Tybee as the place to spend their vacations, but there is definitely a thriving community underneath the surface of buzzing tourist activity.

The internet gods have had mercy on us, and we are back in business connected once again. We can continue taking attendance, checking off quizzes, assignments and replying to emails.

Even though these two weeks are earmarked vacation, we are somehow finding a way to blend our personal and work lives together just as we do in our daily lives on Tybee. The main reason we left our old life in Virginia was to find a way to not just work the first forty-five years of adult life only to be too old to enjoy the handful remaining years of retirement. It’s not always easy to blend the two worlds in daily life, but it really isn’t complicated either. Choosing simplicity has been the key ingredient for us.

This week, we have indeed traveled over six hundred miles from home to enjoy some tropical warmth (though we have experienced way more tropical rains than desired). We have also booked a couple weddings and emailed back and forth with numerous brides discussing their up coming wedding plans. Sean has booked a several ‘In for A Penny’ music gigs and we have updated website and marketing plans in the works.

We haven’t figured it all out yet, but somehow, right now this blended life is working for us.

Later in the afternoon we ate a hearty Italian lunch at a restaurant called “Roostica” located near the campground. It was a lot bigger than we intended, so we will opt for a light snack/dinner this evening.

We drove into Key West for more Benadryl for Kyleigh. That’s when the skies turned scary awful, as ominous grey and black clouds began to swirl in eerie formations right in front of us.

Hoping our tents and camping gear would all be intact when we returned, it eventually turned into an outright downpour. So much that the boat dock was completly covered.

Fortunately we did not lose anything and our twenty dollar Walmart tents still kept everything dry.

Within minutes the rain cleared and we received this beautiful sign! Hoping tomorrow will be the best day yet!