PARADISE | THE FLORIDA KEYS

We made it to the Keys!! What a magical place!! Our first evening in the Keys we walked down to the water - the crystal clear, turquoise water and the palm trees right on the sand. Just stunning!! We stayed at a place called The Jolly Roger in Marathon, Fl. This island is located right in the middle of the Keys. For dinner we headed over to Sparky’s Landing. This place and most all of the restraints we ate at in the Keys were suggestions that Trey’s cousin Christina gave us. Her and her family come to the Keys quite often. And, you guessed it, Sharky’s was right on the water!! There was also live music from an incredible, nostalgic cover band (played all the songs my kids no nothing about - the good stuff!!), fabulous drinks and sea food for days! We started with the crab and artichoke dip - delish!! The kids and I got their brick oven pizza for our entrees and it was all so very good! 

The next morning, bright and early we headed to Key West for a snorkeling and dolphin tour. Captain Stevie and first mate Colby at Fury Water Adventures took really good care of us on the water! They took us about seven miles off the coast of Key West into the gulf and we snorkeled over protected coral reef. I tried so hard to get some video with my cell phone that had a waterproof case over it and it just didn’t work. Unfortunately, the case had too much air in it and once I got under water the bubble of air was right over my camera. But, I will never forget all those beautiful tropical fish and the colorful coral reef!

While on Key West we had to try out another one of Christina’s recommendations, Sloppy Joe’s! Again, there was more amazing live music and delicious food! We also came across a fabulous art gallery, Ocean Blue Galleries. There we fell in love with an original Anna Sweet resin design named “Miami” that now hangs on the wall of our camper!

The rest of our days we spent snorkeling at our RV park, finding delicious food, and exploring the other islands! An interesting thing about the Florida Keys, is there are hardly any beaches. Most of the edges of island are covered in rocks, sea walls or mangrove trees. We did find one beach that we really enjoyed, Sombrero Beach. 🏝 There are not any waves and no tides coming and going. You can wade in the water all day long without getting tossed by waves. So fabulous!

One of our favorite places we went to was Robbie’s in Islamorada. There we ate breakfast under a palm tree right on the beach! The kids played in the water while we waited for our food and I had one of the best mocha lattes of my life at a cute coffee shop that was out of a camper, Charli’s!! Kinda reminded me of my fave coffee shop back home - Coffee Camper Co. in downtown Monroe!! Also, the craziest thing that happens at Robbie’s . . .You can feed the tarpon!! You can buy buckets of fish and hang out on the dock. These fish are HUGE and they eat right out of your hand. Well, they jump straight out of the water and about take your hand off while you dangle dead fish over them. So creepy and cool too!!!

The Turtle Hospital tour was another incredible place we visited! Many of the turtles were covered in tumors or barnacles. The workers at the hospital will remove them and do their best to get these turtles back into their home. Some of those sweet babies will spend the rest of their life at the hospital or go off to aquariums. We learned that 1 in 600 babies that hatch will survive! This is because they are so tiny and have many predators. Also, a female turtles lays approximately 100 eggs about three times in their mating season. Warmer temperature nest will produce Females and cooler temperature nests will produce males. The temperature climate change is producing almost all females. This is effecting how much mating goes on because there aren’t enough males and this is causing the population to go down. We learned so many interesting facts about sea turtles!

However, the most AH-MAZING encounter with Key wildlife I had was when I was snorkeling and a nurse shark swam right under my body!!!!! I had just gotten some video of the shark with my phone while it was hanging out under a tire and was heading back to the seawall ladder to get out. I was parallel over the top of the water and there it was swimming along with me!!! I was amazed and scared out of my mind!! At that time I didn’t know it was a nurse shark - which are harmless unless you irritate them. Holy moly!!! The most incredible and terrifying experience EVAH!!!! Check out that video!!

Our last dinner on the island was at Mrs. Mac’s Kitchen in Key Largo. There I had the special which was super fun!! It was a yellow snapper stuff with a greek salad! It was SOOOO good and so fun eating out of that yummy fried fish!

We ate SO much good sea food and spent tons of time in the Florida Keys Sun! What a trip this was!!!

Can’t wait for our next adventure!

Unicoi State Park | Helen, Ga.

Y’all, we are GLAMPERS!!!! There is NO turning back now!! Trey and I have been praying about this for over a year now. We had our first opportunity to purchase a camper and hit the road last year when the pandemic started. We had just sold our home and had very few responsibilities tying us down. We chose to become home owners again and restored Two Chimneys on Cherokee. Which was also an answered prayer!! We just didn’t have it in our timeline to pan out that way! lol

So, here we are, over a year later and God has answered our prayers as he always does in His beautiful timeline! Trey and I were in the market for a camper. We drove to the dealership and started checking them out for the first time. The options are incredible! We found a camper that worked the best for our family. We then called a family member who also has a camper. We wanted to make sure that my SUV had the power to pull a camper. We were concerned it would put too much strain on my car. Thankfully he was able to answer our questions and put us as ease. He also mentioned he was selling his. As we began questioning him about it’s featured we realized it was the exact layout we found at the dealership AND it was less expensive!!

We purchased the camper on Thursday and by Friday we were pulling out of our driveway and hitting the road for Unicoi State Park in Helen, Ga.!! Our first night didn’t go so well. OH man! We didn’t arrive at the park until after quiet time and as we were backing our camper up a hill and trying to turn it into our site, the screeching and moaning of my car, the camper, the brakes - it was a horrible sound - we woke up a camper and she yelled some things I won’t repeat. LESSON LEARNED!! Respect quiet time!!! Unfortunately, after all that, we weren’t even able to back our camper in our site. We had to pull it in car-first. We tried to hook up the power so we could turn on the heat but the plug was now on the wrong side of the camper because we pulled in instead of backed in. We laughed so hard!! It was a mess and we felt like total dirt being so rude as we made a heck of an entrance!! Goodness!! We didn’t sleep so good that night. . .

Rocco fell out of his bunk bad and hit the floor, it was SO quiet, I heard every sound, and, what the lady yelled at us upon our loud arrival, kept ringing in my head. The next morning I called the visitors center and asked if we could change locations because we were NEWBS! lol Thankfully, someone had just left and they had an opening for us. It was a much better site for us newbies! Once we got situated, we hoped out, set up and I made breakfast! Bacon, eggs and fruit. I started off cooking in the kitchen and quickly moved to the outdoor kitchen on the back side of the camper. Cooking bacon on the inside set off the smoke detector. I figured out, I could start the gas grill and set my frying pan on it. It worked but I will be bringing my griddle next trip to cook on. This will be much faster and we will save our propane gas.

After breakfast, we drove to Mount Airy, Ga. to visit our niece and nephew, Haley and Brandan. Haley just graduated college and we were ready to celebrate her accomplishments! After her party, we made our way back to our site and went fishing. The kids LOVED this so much and so did we! The water was so clear we could see the fish! Although, we had ZERO luck the first fishing trip. lol The next night, Trey, Rocco and Olivia went fishing and caught two rainbow trout! We brought them home with us and cooked them on the grill - they were so delish! I had not ever eaten trout before.

God’s creations are so incredible!! I loved hearing the kids going bananas over snails, woodpeckers, fish, trees, trails. . .the list goes on! This is what I have longed for - for years!!!

Freedom to explore!

Did we still have to take work phone calls and emails? Yes, but then we got right back to exploring with our family!

Can’t wait for our next expedition!!!