I'm Still Here!

Woooowww....way too long between posts. There must be at least a few people actually reading my blog, because a couple of readers have contacted me to tell me to get my butt in gear. I guess I suffered a little hangover from being on vacation, in addition to having to transition to being super-busy at the marina. For the last 8 or 9 days, I've been dealing with a monster cold that is just beginning to loosen it's grip on me. So yes, it is time to get back to taking some photos and taking a look around Danbury and the surrounding area.

I have several ideas that I'm working on, that should prove entertaining and informative. Please continue to check back and don't hesitiate to make some suggestions for anything you want to see or hear about.

Easter Greeting

Happy Easter to one and all. Ironically, one of the most special of holidays seems to get lost with spring arriving and one too many bunnies and eggs around.

I remember how special Easter was growing up for me. It was made special by all of the traditions and rituals followed by St. Mary's Byzantine Church and the congregation. Especially, I remember serving with Fr. Frank, Fr. Dennis and the rest of the guys during this 6 week holiday season. It ended with a beautiful Easter Service and the blessing of the Easter Baskets. I remember the smell of all the meats and cheeses, along with the eggs and candy. But most of all, we remember that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us all and forgive our sins. It was the ultimate, selfless sacrifice to benefit mankind.

Let us remember those that have died for us to protect our freedoms and country. And never forget what Jesus did for us. Maybe we all could take a moment today to think about how we can make our own lives a little better by helping someone else in need or by doing a good deed. There is always someone suffering a little worse than you are, so make the most of what you have to brighten someone else's day.

Good to be Home!

It's great to be home and to be celebrating Easter with my loved ones. I still have a couple of posts to wrap up my Florida trip. I didn't get out to see as much as I wanted to....seems those lazy days around the pool took priority. However, I do have some cool photos to share with everyone.

The Magic Iguana

So I was simply minding my own business today, floating in the pool, when I spy this iguana making it's way along the electric wire, heading for the street. No big deal, I think to myself, he's heading away from the house. I drag myself from my comfortable floating chair to snap some pics. Feeling good about my luck to finally see a cool looking lizard like this, I make my way back to my most excellent floating chair.

As I gaze back up from my aquatic lazy boy, the damn lizard has vanished. Hmmm, these guys are pretty clumsy...he probably fell. So, again, I get out of the pool for some possible close up pics of the gecko on steroids. After inspecting the garden and bushes (but not too close), I can't find him. Upon settling back into my seat, I see the green monster again. Only this time, he's back on the wire, heading TOWARDS the house. There are some trees near the wire, so evidently, he used a tree branch to get turned around. Pretty tricky, if you ask me. Maybe they aren't so clumsy. As he gets nearer the house (creepily close to the bathroom window...which I have open), he again disappears into a tree. I hope.

You can be sure that I'll be checking the bathroom real well and checking under the bed too.

Hemingway House

It was a gorgeous day today as I returned to Key West and Hemingway House. I'm not quite sure what my fascination is with this place. It was my 3rd visit overall to this lovely, impressive homestead. Hemingway and his 2nd wife bought the house in 1931 for $8,000. It sits on the largest private lot in all of Key West at almost 1 full acre. Most agree that the purchase price was quite a bargain, even for the depression era. Later, they would add the first in ground pool for a price of $20,000. The cost was expensive due to the hard coral limestone that had to be hammered out for the 9 foot deep pool.

Hemingway loved cats and he enjoyed them wherever he lived. Today, there are currently 43 cats living on the 1 acre property. During the day, the cats freely roam the house and there are usually 1 or 2 sleeping peacefully on Hemingway's bed. Today was no exception. When the home closes and is locked up at night, the cats are shooed out, but they all feely remain on the property. There are neat little shelters, feeding stations and lush foliage for the cats to exist comfortably.

Hemingway wrote most of his classics in a small little cottage behind the main house. A couple of my pics show his typewriter, library and many of his mounts from his fishing and hunting career. Hemingway lived quite the colorful life. He lived in Canada, Europe, Cuba and Africa in addition to Key West. He was born in Oak Park, IL in 1899. He shot himself in a cabin in Idaho in 1961.Hemingway suffered from Bipolar disease and took his own life when he could no longer write anymore.

Notice the painted portrait of the young, handsome man. This is how Hemingway looked when he lived in Key West, not the usual white-haired, bearded man that we are accustomed to seeing. Hemingway's career in Key West was relatively brief, but he made a huge impact on this small community. He had several sons. His granddaughters are Muriel and Margeaux. He was a hopeless romantic, adventurer, brawler and prize-winning novelist. A perfect son of Key West.

Wednesday in Key West

The rain didn't dampen our spirits, as Mom, Dad and I went to Old Town for a little sightseeing on St. Patty's Day.

Mom and Dad got to my place around 10:30am on tuesday. We went out to lunch and enjoyed the pool at my rental. Later that evening, we had a fabulous seafood dinner at a great little place called "The Square Grouper". We all had some sort of seafood. Dad had blackened Mahi which is dolphin, the fish variety...not Flipper. Mom had coconut shrimp. I had seared tuna, rare, which is as close to sushi as I want to get. It had a little wasabi drizzled on it. I was dunking it in soy and chasing it with some sort of seaweed. This dish is fast becoming one of my all-time favorites. BTW, do you know what a grouper is? Yes, it's a fish...that was easy. Do you know what a square grouper is? Apparently, it's slang for a bale of marijuana. I guess it's a joke in the Carribbean about people fishing for square grouper in the ocean, once the pot is dropped out of a plane. Cool name, but nothing to do at all with the restaurant. It was first class and a great dining experience.

Now back to Key West. The rain was fairly steady, but we enjoyed getting out of the rain by visiting Ernest Hemingway's home. One of the pics shows Hemingway's bed, with two descendants of some of his beloved cats. Most of the cats have an extra toe on each paw. Some cats have this trait in their genes and some get this trait from breeding within their families. These cats didn't even move when we petted them, but they were definitely real. I believe I remember the orange one from last year. I hope to have more on the Hemingway House for you in a later visit. From there, we went across the street to the Key West Lighthouse. Funny stories say when Hemingway came stumbling home drunk, he just looked for the lighthouse to guide him home. We all climbed up 88 steps to reach the observation deck. The tight, winding staircase gets to be a challenge, as you get closer to the top. It's the highest point in Key West. I was proud of my folks for doing so. My one picture from the lighthouse shows Hemingway's House to the right of the photo, draped in lush, green foliage. There is also a cruise ship in port, to the top of the photo. Dad and I are standing on the porch of the Keeper's House, in another pic. We had lunch at the Hard Rock, as the sun chased the rain away. We allowed Mom to enjoy some shopping, before returning home to relax before dinner.

It was sad to see them go on thursday morning. I'm happy to say that they are now home safely. How fun it was to hang out with them in the Keys, just as we did back in the 70s.

Halfway Point

Hard to believe that I'm almost halfway through my vacation time in the Keys. Admittedly, I haven't been posting as much as I would like to, but then again, that means that I've been having a great time and not hanging on the computer. I still have some goals to accomplish, such as exploring the history of Key West more, developing an idea I have for a short story and coming home with a great fishing story. I plan to work on all of those goals in the next two weeks. I'm in a transition phase right now, as I had to say good-bye to Maria, Hillary and Adam yesterday(sunday). Mom and Dad will be stopping in for a two night visit starting tuesday. After they leave, I will be flying solo, until I make the trip back north on March 31st.

I hate to even think about making that long drive home just yet, so I will reflect on my past two weeks so far. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend some quality days with Maria, Hillary and Adam. For Maria, we were able to get some great sun time around the pool and strolling around Key West. Maria and I also had a wonderful day in Key West, meeting Bill and Gayle Worley for drinks and lunch. Our time at Irish Kevins was non-stop laughs. We all commented that if the places back home could get such quality entertainment, we might get out more. My time with Maria was much too short, but Hillary and Adam got to go out fishing, had a day excursion of water activities and a day at one of the nicest beaches in the USA, Bahia Honda State Park. I hope everyone enjoyed their time down here, because I sure enjoyed having them all here.

So for my second two weeks, I'm looking forward to more beaches, boats and maybe a bar or two. I'm hoping for at least one more fishing trip and taking in more sights throughout the Lower Keys. And hopefully, I can bring you all along for the ride with my pictures and stories.

Fun, busy days !!!

I know my posts have been few and far between. Too much fun going on down here, I guess. Sunshine, cocktails, Key West and......cocktails. We've all been busy getting our fair share of sunshine, fishing, strolling through Key West and good food & drink. Since we are less than 15 miles from the town of Key West, we've been taking advatange of that location. Hillary and Adam took an excursion on thursday that left out of Key West. It was a trip aboard the Fury Catamarran. The activities included snorkeling, parasailing, waverunners and other water fun at their private barge offshore. Sounded like fun. As you can see from the pic, this sailboat was about 30' wide and 50-55' long. And in all fairness, it does rain in Key West, but only for about a 1/2 hour at a time. Then, the sun comes out and it gets steamy. The only thing to do is head for Margaritaville for a cool drink with a couple of your friends. Or maybe to Irish Kevin's with a couple of hundred of your friends. Or.....just maybe to the Garden of Eden with a few of your naked friends...yes, naked. But that's for a whole different article....hahaha.

Sadly, Maria, Hillary and Adam will be leaving on sunday for their trip back to reality. Mom and Dad will be coming in on tuesday for a couple of nights. After that, I'm on my own again. During that time, I will beging exploring other aspects of this area, it's culture and history. It's my hope that I can share some of this with you all. I hope you continue to enjoy this blog. Please share it with anyone you think will be interested.

Sights from Key West......

Today, Hillary, Adam and I enjoyed a great day in Key West. Sunny skies, temps in the low 70's and good company made for a most pleasant visit to the "Old Town." Wow, was it crowded for a monday. Little did I know that there were 3 cruise ships in port. Two big Carnival ships and one Holland-American ship. I can safely estimate that the population of Key West was up about 6000 to 9000 people. Plus, there are many college students on Spring Break. Nevertheless, we had a great time and got around to see some sights. We took a long walk around the town, going down Duval and veering off on Olivia. At the intersection of Olivia and Truman, we walked past Ernest Hemingway's house. This is a grand, old home and one that I will tour later in the month and show you pics of. We continued south towards the southernmost point for the required pics, as you stand only 90 miles from Cuba. We found our way back to Duval and walked to the Hard Rock Cafe. We got seated at a primo table, perfect for people watching. And let me tell you, Key West has to be a top 10 city for people watching. After a wonderful lunch, we checked out the Key West Aquarium. This is one of the oldest aquariums in the country and the first tourist attraction Key West ever had. They have a great little pool with sea creatures you can actually pick up. Starfish, hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs and living conch shells can all be handled in a gentle fashion. They also have a nice exhibit of sharks, sea turtles and smaller reef fish. Notice the Florida Spiny Lobster in one of my pics. Florida lobsters don't have claws, unlike the Maine Lobsters. However, I guarantee you they are just as tasty. I also tried to strike up a conversation with a local, sea captain, but he didn't have much to say.

I will have much more to report about Key West, as I have assigned myself the tough task of exploring the town and checking out some hot spots and some other spots that may be off the beaten path. Hope you are enjoying, because I sure am.

Seven Mile Bridge

Hello Friends. I've been struggling slightly with my new laptop, with respect to getting pics out of my camera. It went fine the first time I tried, but couldn't make it happen the last 2 days. I think I have it figured out, so I look forward to putting up many more pics in the coming days.

The Seven Mile Bridge connects a huge gap in the islands (keys) and is a critical lifeline for the area. The bridge spans the gap from Marathon, south to Bahia Honda. This covers approximately mile markers 43 to 36. For referance, my rental house is mile marker 15 and Key West is the infamous mile marker 0. The locals value their mile markers (MM) down here. The "old" bridge still stands along side of the new one. I was a little kid in the 70's and remember driving across the very narrow structure. It was originally a railroad track, then converted to a highway. The new bridge is 4 lane. When there was an accident on the old bridge, it essentially cut off the flow of traffic, cut off emergency services and created traffic tie ups for miles.

One of my favorite stories about the bridges involves the movie "True Lies". This action movie starred Arnold Schwarzeneggr and Jamie Lee Curtis. The movie ends with a chase scene across the old bridge. This occurred shortly after the new bridge opened. Notice the picture I posted of the old bridge with the gap in it. This gap was where the swing bridge used to be to let tall boats and ships through. Anyway, supposedly, they decked that gap over with a section of faux highway and blew it up in the movie. If memory serves me right, Arnold is in a Harrier jet and blows the highway up as the bad guys are about to cross it. Not sure if that is all factual, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Sharing the beauty !

Hello friends. I know, it's been several days. But you know what they say down here.....I'm on island time or I'm on Keys time. Yeah, the days kind of roll right into one another and sometimes forget what day it is. I haven't done anything too exciting yet, but am really enjoying living life down here. I'm not a big fan of going on vacation with 5,000 other people, such as going on a cruise. Been there and done that, probably will do it again. However, there's nothing like having plenty of your own space to kick back and relax, without bumping into others. I like having my own vehicle with me and I enjoy being able to stay in touch with the world.

However, it's not quite as special as it could be, since I am currently alone down here. I'm looking forward to sharing the experience with the people I love. Now I'm not saying you can't enjoy life while you are alone. I can speak from experience, as I am a very private person to begin with and I lived life alone for about 13 years. I am a better person for having done that. You learn alot about yourself and learn to be strong by yourself. I learned basic life skills so that I will never burden others by being needy or weak. You can't be a positive force in other peoples life, until you yourself become a strong, self-sufficient individual. So in that respect, that time period was incredibly important for me. Life was very enjoyable for that period of my life. But it was like enjoying a very tasty sauce that was missing a certain ingredient to really make it pop. Luckily, I found the missing ingredient in my life, which was Maria. I'm extremely fortunate to have her in my life to share all the beauty and joys life has to offer.

So even though I'm alone down here for a bit, I will still be able to take in all the beauty the Keys have to offer. And when my loved ones join me down here, the sights, sounds and smells will have that extra pop for my senses. The finer things in life are always to be treasured, but are best when they can be shared.

Travel Report

Hello from the Florida Keys. I'm sitting in my rental home that I'll have for the next 30 days. I'm looking forward to entertaining Hillary, Adam and Maria very soon. Later, Mom and Dad will pop in for a couple of nights.

My trip started on saturday morning at 6am, with fairly slippery roads in Ohio. I-75 was OK, but tricky in some spots. Once I got out of Ohio, it was smooth sailing. I drove 848 miles on saturday. A very long day, but not a bad drive. I'm telling you, XM satellite radio really helps pass the the time. I finally stopped around 7:30pm in Cordele, GA which is about 100 miles from Florida.

Day 2 on sunday, I had a relatively "short" 635 mile drive. I arrived around 3:30pm in Marathon to stay the night with good friends, Bill and Gayle Worley.

Day 3 on Monday, I got to move into my vacation home for the month of March. I picked up my laptop at the Realty office and then went off to Winn Dixie for some serious shopping. I'm looking forward to giving you a tour of the house very soon.

Farewell.....for now.

Well Friends, my packing is almost complete. But the snow continues to fly and has been for what seems like 3 days straight. Of course it is...because I'm getting ready to travel. Typical luck for me. However, I am determined to get on the road early saturday AM and head south.

This lake effect snow has been relentless. It almost feels like rain, but I assure you, it is making one slushy mess of the Rock. We may have gotten close to 6" in the last 36 hours. Still coming down and could get another 2-4" by morning. I will be getting an early start and hoping for the best, but prepared for the worst. Look for me online again early next week. My laptop has been delivered and is waiting for me in the Keys. Meanwhile, I'll be able to post to Facebook with my Ipod. Can't wait to make my first post on "Around the Rock" from the Florida Keys. Until then, keep the home fires burning and I'll be talking to you soon.

Strange Duck

This little fella has been hanging out in the open water in the harbor all winter. We have a bubbler running to keep some piers from lifting with the ice and many different waterfowl gather here. My pics aren't too great, since this guy is so timid and shy. Everytime I try to creep close, he takes off. I'm no hunter, so I'm not sure what kind of duck we are looking at here. Feel free to leave a comment if you can help with the ID. (As with all the pics, you can click on them to greatly enlarge them.) Typically, we see your average seagull and Mallards, but this one is different and always alone. Our bubbler kicks up dead fish off the bottom of the harbor, offering delicacies only a bird would love! We are the largest open air sushi joint on the Rock right now!

Another taste of winter....and more to come!

The forecast called for a dusting.....no more than 1/2" of snow. Wooops! We woke up to at least 2" and another 1" fell during the morning. Not a big deal, as most of it is melting now, but man, it would be great to be a weatherman. No worries about ever being wrong. I know we've all thought to ourselves that if we were wrong so much at our jobs, we'd be standing in the bread line!

Just as this little bit melts, the wind is kicking up and the forecast calls for 2 to 4 more inches tonight and tomorrow. We'll see how the weatherman fares on this call.

Shout Out.........

I wanna give one to Kevin Smith and Anna Fontana, newly engaged and the cutest couple on the Rock ! Both of them enjoy my blog and have repeatedly passed on kind words to me and I just want to say thanks. I plan to keep up the work of bringing news and views of Danbury Twp., as long as everyone enjoys it! I wish I had a good way of tracking who all checks out the blog. I'd really like to know how many people are enjoying it. Feel free to send me an email, just to say hi and give me your thoughts about "Around the Rock". Suggestions would be welcome too. Is there anything you'd like to see a picture of or maybe someone?

shrockbryan@yahoo.com

A Special Invitation.......

I will be taking my blog on the road for the month of March. I will be travelling to the fabulous Florida Keys on saturday to spend the entire month at mile marker 15, just outside of Key West. We have a small home rented there and I look forward to spending some quality time working on my writing and improving my attitude. Most of all, I look forward to Maria coming down for some much needed relaxation, along with daughter Hillary and her boyfriend Adam. My parents will pop in for a couple of nights as well. I realize this is a tough assignment for me to tackle, but I am committed to bringing, you, my reader, quality postings, even though I'm away from the Rock.

Please join me, as I try to bring you down to my favorite place on earth to show and tell you about the fabulous scenery, history, fishing, entertainment and sunsets. It is with mixed emotions that I leave the Rock for such an extended amout of time. This will be a test to see if this is a place that we could someday call home. I look forward to the experience and would be honored if you would check back often for updates.