Vacation Non-Vacation

 After a year of not traveling at all (unbelievable for our family) we needed a change in scenery. Desperately! We checked our options for some of our usual island destinations (Curacao, Aruba, Bonaire, St Croix) but couldn't make any of them work so we opted for the next best islands: The Florida Keys.

A week after the dawn of 2021 we packed our stuff and flew south. It was great to get first class seats for what we would pay for cattle class on most domestic flights. We landed in Miami, met the other family for lunch in Key Largo and caravanned south to Chardonnay House in Key Colony Beach, a man made area of canals at the northern tip of Marathon. 

This house was a very welcomed respite from the past 24/7/365 of living in our house.  We had 4 bedrooms, lots of desk space and lots of outdoor living space to essentially quarantine somewhere else. We worked and went to school the first week, in between dives and trips to the grocery store.

There were lots of walkers and bikers in the neighborhood and people were genuinely friendly.  Must have had something to do with the warmer, sunny weather?! Sunset Beach Park was at the end of the street and had nice views of the ocean. 

And then there was the diving with Captain Hook. It was more than chilly for our crew that is used to diving in warm waters (like 80+ degrees) but a good time was had by all!

At the end of our two weeks of non-vacation we all flew home with tentative plans for when we can all travel again and Covid-19 is behind us!