Keys Disease

"Keys Disease," that infectious virus that temps every visitor to the Florida Keys to stay far longer than originally intended. (from http://www.squidoo.com/Keys-Disease)

How can you not fall in love?

First, an apology to anyone who reads this blog with regularity and enjoys getting updates on our little adventure.  The month of December seems to have gotten away from me, but not for the usual reasons of shopping and holiday preparation.

After my last post in which I talked about us not knowing which way to go, we spent a lot of time brainstorming and soul searching to find what we really thought would be the best option for us at this time.  We looked at boats again, but ultimately came to the conclusion that we just can’t afford that right now.  We talked about going West, but with the weather this time of year we ultimately decided to get as far south as we could and stay as warm as possible this winter.

So, we headed back to the Florida Keys, this time to find a place to stay.  When we first visited the Keys in November we knew there was something special for us there.  It’s the water, it’s the coconut palms, and it’s the laid back free-spirited vibe that one gets down here.  Short of moving to the actual Caribbean, this is the closest you can get and still drive to it, and it’s pretty great.

We looked at a half dozen apartments between Key Largo at the northern end of the keys and Stock Island, which is next to Key West at the southern end of the keys.  We ultimately settled on a small (400 sq. ft. or so) studio in Key Largo, with a deck that is twice the size of the apartment on a corner lot with two canals running by.  Included in the lease is 25’ of dock space, so some sort of boat is definitely in our future.

See, dock space!

After the whirlwind second tour of the Keys and a few days unpacking the RV and settling into the apartment, we made a mad dash back to NY to return the Rialta to my family and pick up our Honda Element and two kayaks and some other things we had been storing.  It was a brief visit, but enough to see both of our families, visit some friends, and give us a taste of the winter we have left behind.  After freezing our butts off in NY for most of a week, driving back into south Florida felt like driving into spring time;  layers were shed, windows were opened, the sun came out, and it was good!

We have been settling in nicely in our new digs.  After living in the 150 sqare feet of the motor home for two months, a studio apartment feels downright palatial.  It’s great to have a kitchen again, and a full sized shower.  What really sold us on this place though was the tremendous amount of deck and dock space with it being right on the canals.  We have already been visited by manatees a couple of times.  

As I write this, we are experiencing something of a cold front in the Keys, today’s daytime high is only expected to be in the upper 50s!  Imagine that!  At the end of December, we are experiencing the same weather we wouldn’t have seen in NY until late March.  Sold.

So, what does this mean for this blog?  Has our change in course been completed?  

In short, I don’t think so.  Living on a sailboat and cruising still loom large in our dreams.  Our new life in the Keys is probably just a port of call on our meandering journey through life.  But it is definitely a nice stop.

I will keep posting about our adventures, and this may turn into a more frequent "here is the cool place to kayak that we found today" type of blog for a while.  But I want to keep everyone updated on where we stand on our journey at large, how we are able to live this life because we chose to live simply, and ultimately how these “crazy” decisions have enabled us to live a life closer to our dreams.

Cross Roads

Today is supposed to be the day where we sit down with internet access and figure out where we are going next.  It's as simple as choosing a destination, but what are the greater implications of such decisions?

If we get somewhere and don't like it we will have wasted gas and therefore money, of which there is a finite amount.  If we get somewhere and love it, will we want to stay?  If we go somewhere, will it be further from where we want to go?

We are at a cross roads.  We've had a wonderful time on our trip thus far, but we are weary of much of the suburban scenery we see day to day.  It seems every exit off the interstate looks the same:  there is a Walmart, a Burger King, a Dunkin Donuts, three or four gas stations, a couple of strip malls...you know the scene. 

There have been places on our trip so far that we could really see ourselves staying at for a while.  Key West and Charleston come to mind.  Both towns have done a great job of keeping vibrant downtown scenes and keeping big boxes to a minimum and pushed to the outside.

A funny thing is that we don't mind living in the small space of the RV, it's more a sense of place that we are missing.  However, we aren't ready to just settle into an apartment or house again and be tied down with a lease, or furniture.  If only there was a place to boondock in a nice community's downtown for free!

So, what do we do?  Do we head further West into the vast greatness of this country and see if there is a place for us there?  Do we follow through on our initial quest to find a small sailboat to live on?  Do we pack it in, get on a plane and go to another country?

Somehow, I don't think I'll find the answer by the end of today...

Beach Bummin'

St. Augustine Beach

Since we arrived in Florida two weeks ago we've tried to hug the coastline as closely as possible, driving on A1A down much of the East coast and stopping at any interesting beaches that caught our eye.  It's been a laid back time for sure, which would explain the absence of blog posts.

We visited family in Jacksonville, saw dolphins play in the surf off New Smyrna, saw some ginormous houses in West Palm, went to an awesome free concert on Miami's South Beach (Zac Brown Band & Nic Cowen), and finally made our way down to the Keys.

The Florida Keys were another of those places where we could really see ourselves hanging out for a while.  If not for the ordinance against overnight parking, and the impending Thanksgiving Day holiday, we probably would have stayed longer there.

It's a bit as if we had driven out of the US and gone right into the Caribbean.  The water alternates between shades of turquoise, green, and gin clear; there are coconuts to be found around the palm trees; roosters walk the streets of Key West; there are very few box stores; and almost everyone seems to have a boat of some type. 

We thoroughly enjoyed the laid back vibe we experienced in the Keys.  There was no traffic, so many sounds of the mainland that bother us were absent, and we have a new found appreciation for Key Lime Pie (Snapper's in Key Largo has some of the best we've tried). 

We also treated ourselves to a Hobie Cat rental on the beach and got in an hour or so of sailing.  The wind was piping along pretty good, I'd say 15 knots.  After a bit, I dropped Trish at the beach to warm up and went back out and I got to have a an inadvertent man overboard drill as the extra life jacket flew off after crashing through a largish (from a Hobie Cat perspective) wave.  My technique wasn't perfect, but I managed to snag the jacket back by my lonesome.

We also took the opportunity to try out Stand up Paddleboarding, or SUP, through SUP Key West.  Trisha was a natural, whilst I was the first in the water after falling off the board.  I only managed to fall in twice, and took the stance that if you haven't fallen off, you aren't really trying.  All in all it was a great experience.  We traveled across the flats and saw Pelicans dive bombing the water for their meals, went through mangrove tunnels, and saw Jimmy Buffet's old house on a canal (pretty small, but so are a lot of houses down there, another thing we like).  SUP is definitely a new water sport that we will have to try more of.

Now we are in the Tampa area on the West Coast, visiting with more family for the holiday, without a destination in mind for where to go next.  Time will tell...

Zac Brown Concert

Rose on South Beach

Oooh I wanna take ya

Not a bad campsite

Obligatory stop at Margaritaville

Do you think Manatees have statues of Humans to hold their mailboxes?

Only 90 miles to Cuba!

End of the road on the old bridge at Bahia Honda State Park

Key West Sunset from Mallory Square

Charleston

Row of Houses in Charleston, SC

We arrived in Charleston, SC last Wednesday.  After two days in the city we weren't sure we would leave again.  What an amazing place.

You see, on our original plan for this trip, we were supposed to leave Southern Virginia and make a b-line for the Florida Keys.  Sounds great, right?  Well, upon further review we decided it would be best not to burn that much gas and bypass everything in between Virginia and Southern Florida.  For whatever reason, we decided to stop in Charleston.  We didn't research the decision much and had just a fuzzy idea of what awaited us.

If ever we were looking for a place to settle down to again, Charleston has all we are looking for.  It has architecture and history.  Enough restaurants that you could probably spend years without going to the same one twice.  Great beach towns surround it.  Did I mention the 3000 slip marina!?  Oh yeah, it never snows there and we were visiting in the midst of a "cold-spell" where daily temperatures only got into the mid-60s in November.  Meanwhile, back in NY where we left from, they got a freak snow storm.

Immediately upon driving into the city we got a great vibe.  There was a pulse to the city.  People out on the streets, horse drawn carriages traipsing down cobblestone streets, gas lights, houses that are hundreds of years old, dark alleys (of the not-going-to-get-stabbed-if-you-walk-down-them variety), Spanish moss, and palm trees.

We've been walking a lot on this trip, and this stop was no exception.  We had arrived in time for the city's first Friday; which is where local galleries open up on the first Friday of the month to showcase new works.  It is an event we used to attend in Albany, but Charleston's was significantly larger.  An added perk is that most galleries serve free finger foods, and some serve drinks.  At the last gallery we made it to there was a man playing Flamenco guitar in the rear courtyard.  Art, food, drinks, and music.  For free.  Sign me up.

We also treated ourselves to a Walking Ghost Tour.  It was a fun experience and we heard some pretty interesting and chilling tales.  No ghosts though.  But it did show us a different side of our new favorite city.

Before arriving in Charleston, something had been missing from this trip.  We couldn't quite put a finger on it, but everywhere we had gone we didn't quite "belong".  Even in Annapolis, which we had had high hopes for, we didn't get the feeling that it was for us.  All that changed in Charleston, we could have happily never left.  In fact, we met several locals who had had similar experiences.  They were displaced for some reason or other, arrived in Charleston and just stayed.

We do have other places we want to explore though, and after brief stops in Savannah and Brunswick, GA, we've since arrived in Florida where we will be for the next few weeks at the least.  If we don't like it here, South Carolina is only a few hours to the North.

Cannons for Shelling Ft. Sumter

Palmetto

Creekside Reggae

Beach Bench

Looking out to the Harbour

What We Like (and Don't)

Parked in Charleston, SC

Well we’ve been living pretty much full time in the 160 sq. ft. of space allotted in our VW Rialta for about three weeks now.  Here’s a brief list of things we like and don’t like about it:

Like

Home is where we park

Life is simplified

Not having clutter

Freedom (though it’s quite scary sometimes)

Exploration, we’ve seen some truly stunning scenery

As winter gets closer, we’ve only gotten warmer

Cooking simple meals with a two burner stove

We don’t have a lot of clothes, hence it is simple to get dressed

We use our microwave as an extra cabinet rather than a microwave

It’s cozy

Friendly locals (more the further south we’ve gotten)

We can fit in most parking places in the city (only 22’ long)

We have a TV, but we don’t watch it (we watch the occasional movie or show on the laptop)

Dislike

Tolls

Staying at WalMart too much

The suburbs that we have to drive through to get to the Wal-Marts

Not having a sense of community – we miss our friends, and our local shops

Doing dishes in a mini-sink

Banging a knee or a head into something at least once a day

Having to move various items (ie. Fishing rods) to get to storage (ie. the kitchen cabinet)

One of us can sit while eating, the other has to stand (we’re sleeping on the dinette)

Things We Miss

The aforementioned friends and local shops

Unlimited hot showers

Laundry facilities

Dishwasher

Going out to eat more often – we’re on a very limited budget to be doing this

Being able to be “greener” (we had a worm compost at our house)

Grocery shopping for more than two days at a time

A couch

A kitchen table

--

All in all, this has been a great experience thus far.  We have our days where we look at each other and say “what the f*ck are we doing!?”, but the good experiences outweigh the bad.  In looking over our lists of likes and dislikes, it seems the things we dislike or miss are many of the conveniences that we take for granted when living in a house or an apartment: furniture, unlimited water on demand, etc.

Will we stay living in an RV forever?  No.  Our ultimate dream is still to live on a sailboat.  We are living in less space than the size sailboat we will eventually live on, so this has/continues to be a good primer for that.  In the meantime we will continue our travels on land, but keep the water in our hearts.

A Week of Transition

It's been a week since I left Albany, NY, my home for the past ten years.  I'd wanted to leave for quite a while now, so there haven't really been any feelings of nostalgia for it.  Of course I'll always miss my friends who are still there, but with our new mobile lifestyle I have faith that I will see them all again.

Our first stop after leaving Albany was at my in-laws on Long Island.  We were there until Wednesday of this week arranging and re-arranging our new 160 +/- sq. ft. of living space.  That's 10% of the square footage we had when we lived in our house.  We've gotten rid of so much, but we still ended up with two large garbage bags of clothes for Goodwill and some other miscellaneous errata that was donated.  It's good to know that our no longer wanted or needed items can have a new life with a new owner.

On Wednesday we left for Trenton, NJ.  An unlikely stop, I know, but we decided to take the opportunity to visit with some family there.  We ended up staying for two days as we found out that some other cousins were coming into town on the second day.  We hemmed and hawed about the decisions to stay, feeling like we had to get on to our next destination, but it dawned on us that we didn't really have to.  We don't have to be anywhere specific until at least the 30th.  The kind of freedom we are now experiencing is both liberating and frightening.

On the second day in Trenton we came upon an unexpected surprise at the Trenton City Museum located in Cadwalader Park.  There was a good art exhibit featuring local artists in the renovated 1800s summer home that the museum occupies.  The park itself was designed by the same fellow who designed Central Park in NYC, and Washington Park in good old Albany, so it was a nice place to spend an afternoon walking the dog and soaking up some sunshine.

We've noticed we are about two weeks behind the climate in Albany.  Whereas they got flurries last night and most of the leaves are gone, we have had temperatures in the 60s and there is still a lot of green on the trees.  If we plan this right, this nice weather will follow us all the way down the coast.

Today we left Trenton and headed for our first real destination:  Annapolis, MD, the sailing capital of America.  You see, even though we decided to "cruise" in an RV, we are still sailors at heart.  I'd much rather be anchored in a nice cove than boondocking in a Sam's Club parking lot, but such is life.  The opportunity to use an RV came along and we jumped on it, we'll get to the boat soon enough.

This week has seen a lot of change.  Change in the amount of space we live in.  Change in our schedules.  Change in the climate (at least our climate, I won't get into global warming here).  Changes in our spending habits.

We've finally started on our journey.  It's scary, it's overwhelming, it's fun and it's exciting.  This new life will take some getting used to, but we are living our life by our design and for ourselves.  There's no going back!