The Keys

If you haven't been to the Keys I'm not sure what you are waiting for.  If you listen to the news there is impending doom coming your way so for a long weekend shelve your plans to stockpile weapons of mass destruction and put off building that bomb shelter for another weekend and get yourself down to paradise.  Did you know Key West is the southern most point in the US?  Do the tourist thing, have a vacation where getting a cocktail is your first, second and third priority.  You know there are roosters running all over town and there is nothing more entertaining than grabbing a beer and watching chickens cross the road while telling hilariously dumb jokes about, well, chickens crossing the road.  Did you know, on average there is roughly 7 degrees between the high and low in Key West?  I know, that sure does make packing easy!  Four days of speedos!

Care and I took a much needed winter breather to head down to one of our favorite places, Key West.  They say when you shake the US the weirdos fall down to the Keys.  Fine with me.  You're surrounded by pirates, music, art, the occasional cigar and people watching like you have never seen before.  The food is outstanding provided you enjoy seafood.  I had shrimp, oysters, crab, mahi-mahi (some may call it dolphin - it's not actually the flipper variety), grouper, sushi and who remembers what else.  It makes for a low cholesterol diet. 

We try to do something different every year.  This year we left as an impending blizzard moved into town.  That works right? The night before was not pleasant as we were glued to the weather channel praying to the vacation Gods that our plane would beat the storm.  Rules of flying, always take the earliest flight out you can stomach because when you get delayed/cancelled it means you'll be the first rebooked on the next flight(s).  Unfortunately the weather wasn't the only thing we were trying to keep down.  Gavin came home with the flu on Wednesday.  He threw up on Care and me at separate moments in time.  That's called team work.  I love it when that happens. 

Carrie woke up with the flu on Thursday morning around 4:30 am.  We needed to leave at 7:30 am to catch our flight.  The trooper that she was, packed her bags, tossed her cookies not once, twice but thrice and brought her luggage and a barf bag into the car for the ride to the airport.  What a champ!  The things you'll make yourself go through to leave the snowy part of the country in winter.  She made it through the travel day with no public displays of, well, there were no further incidents. 

Most of what went on down there is censored so I'll provide the PG version.  We rented a hog and cruised around the island stopping at various points and beaches.  We hung out at Hogs every night, our favorite haunt.  We saw Capt'n Tony's, got sloppy at Sloppy Joe's, saw a big tree, took not one but two sunset cruises, took a pic with Jimmy Buffett, saw dolphins, went to Irish Kevin's, one of us took a breakfast shot and we watched the Badgers sink a half court shot at the buzzer to beat #3 Michigan at the Key West Big Ten Pub (owned by a Wisco Alum!),. 

We requested Mustang Sally and for the second time in 3 weeks and were publicly chastised for our poor taste in music by the band.  Honestly, why do they ask for requests if they don't expect you to request Piano Man and Mustang Sally?  But seriously people stop requesting Piano Man and Mustang Sally.  And under no circumstances yell, "Free Biiiiiiiiird!!!!"  We found a pretty sweet boat you can rent for $37,000 a week and it came with  a helicopter (on the boat) you know to make a beer run if you needed it. 

Lastly, we went shopping.  Well, Carrie did.  I tried to stand there and be the money man.  The girl saw a mark.  She put a shirt on me and it was a pretty sweet shirt.  It was our first stop so Care set some dresses aside and the girl told me I looked really hot in the shirt so she would stash it with the other stuff.  It turns out it was a $200 shirt.  I didn't know they made $200 shirts.  All I kept thinking about was where do you wear a $200 shirt.  Right, right, right, at Hogs....  Get to the Keys.  You'll go and then you'll understand and then you'll thank me.

PS  I took the shirt back. Do you know how many beers a $200 shirt return can buy?

Sunday Fun Day

Gavin posing in his snow pants

I really need to write more blogs!  Not a day goes by that I don't feel guilty about not writing one.  I should've made a New Year's resolution to write more blogs.  I didn't.  Instead I made one to eat more cheese and I'm totally succeeding in that department.

The look out hole in the fort

Have you noticed winter slowly comes into your life but then like a stalker won't ever leave?  Everyone thinks fall is so nice; the leaves changing color, the cool nights, the bon fires, the Badgers going to the Rose Bowl and then it gets cold.  Then the snow comes.  Then it snows some more.  And some more.  And it's still snowing outside right now!  Our snow banks are as high as our pool fence.  In other words if you wanted to get over the fence you only have to walk up the snow bank and back down the snow bank on the other side and you can begin frolicking in the pool.

This Sunday we decided to take full effect of the snowy weather.  We had a super Sunday fun day. There was sledding. We built, and I don't want to brag here, but a pretty sensational snow fort with walls and everything.  There was a snow ball fight.  There were sled races. 

We did learn something about the owning of a dog and the snow, though.  It turns out during winter when you let the dog out every day, generally several times a day he's actually doing his business somewhere.  You think, hey, let's go sledding down this awesome hill with our kids.  You don't think, "hmmm, I wonder where the dog has been doing his business for the last 3 months?"  Have you heard of that old adage out of sight, out of mind.  Ya, that actually came to mind on fun day Sunday.

Luckster still has track speed!

There we were having the time of our lives.  We were laughing, making snow angels and chasing each other around in straight up Spiegelhoff euphoric merriment.  We decided to take some family runs down the old toboggan run.  Carrie and Q in the old skool red racer sled in front and Gavin and I in the sno-tastic-tube in back.  The four of us in one superb sno-train heading erratically down the hill...oh snikes!  And that's when it all came together.  The snow, the dog, the impending impacting tree, the myriad of times wondering where he was doing his business, the crash all meeting together in one juxtaposed, too warm of a day, melted snow moment. 

In the chaos of the poor steering from the folks up front, whom shall remain nameless Gavin and I were thrust to the front of the pack, backwards mind you, into the impending tree.  Being the father of the year type that I am, with my cat-like reflexes saw the impending impact and began to take evasive action.  I thrust my hands into the snow to create drag, friction, anything to avoid the ominous threat quickly approaching.  Eventually, with that quick thinking, we were able to thwart total demolishment.  We all took, perhaps for the first time on the whole run, a deep breath.  It was then that I peered down at those rock steady hands of steel that avoided this collision and noticed the poop.  There was a lot of poop.  We had discovered the lost patch of Stinks' sacred manure field, soon to be Carrie's well fertilized spring garden!  Can I get a collective Ewwwww!!!?  Ya, the positive was there was plenty of snow to "wash up" in. 

Folks there is a lesson to be learned here.  I'm not sure what it is but there is a fresh six inches of snow on the ground so problem solved!