Long Key State Park Florida

Thursday March 4, 2010

The temperature was in the 60’s when we got up but 11:00 it was 67 but very comfortable for a short sleeve shirt. The sun is warm but Ben says the water is cold. He was wading out into the deeper water to throw his fishing line. Not for me and he says no skin diving with his new gear this year!!! He went diving last year, discovered his old gear was not in very good shape so bought all new gear on sale as we left the keys!

Great French toast for breakfast – sunshine, calm ocean barely lapping the shore, and good cup of coffee – what more could you want in the dead of winter!!
The day was totally uneventful. We read books; Ben fished (without even a bite for about 3 hours) and I looked for sea shells along the shore. There is interesting ball shaped coral that has possibilities for something so I am collecting near perfect ones and several other shells that may be useful for jewelry or crafts. Interesting that there is very little of the coral I collected last year.

Late in the afternoon we thought about buying fish for dinner or going out to eat. We decided to eat at the only restaurant on Long Key – Little Italy. I was not able to find much out about it other than they had seafood and Italian dishes. I did find a great free app for my i-phone that finds and gives recommendations for restaurants near your location. It is from trip-advisior which I sometimes post to when traveling. The restaurant looked small from outside but it was larger than it looked. We had an excellent dinner. Ben had Seafood Italiano - shrimp, scallops and mushrooms in a light Italian sauce and I had Snapper Lorenzo – snapper with a crab stuffing and a lemon/sherry sauce. It was absolutely delicious. We could have shared either dish and had a full meal – but we forced ourselves to eat the excellent food. I left behind enough broccoli for both of us for the next night!

Coming back into camp was difficult since you must work a combination lock that is hard to see in the daytime – we had to get a flashlight to read the numbers in the dark! The rest of the evening was spent reading and playing computer games. We again had to turn on the heater but keeping it on low kept the temperature very comfortable. The wind is what really cools it down.