EARLY MORNING WALK

Glass Bottom Boat

Kayaks Ready for Use

Kayakers

Beach 

 

 

Ibis

This is what I get to see on my early morning walk...right in my backyard!  Sometimes I can't believe I get to stay in such a beautiful place for two whole months!  And we have already been here two weeks..one quarter of our time here, hard to believe.
Tom and I work 20 hours a week each, three days a week.  The days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, how lucky are we?  We have a four day weekend every weekend!  And we make the most of it, believe me.
Tom works maintenance and helps the rangers.  He does a variety of jobs, such as helping to repair and maintain racoon-proof garbage cans, clean up seaweed from the beach, clear out vegetation to make room to park cars, etc.  I think he is having a good time and meeting lots of nice folks.
I am working for the Park Specialist in the office and doing odd jobs as well.  I maintain spreadsheets recording volunteer work hours, I am working on a project to convert old VCR tapes containing ranger lectures over to DVDs and I am working on a big project scanning a huge library of slides and scanning them so that they can all be found online.  I really am learning a lot of new things and enjoy what I am doing although some days I would rather be outside!
We have met another wonderful group of workampers.  In the State Parks they are called Volunteers rather than workampers. We volunteer our time for the park and they provide us with a place to stay.  To get to live in Key Largo for two months isn't anything I would have ever thought I could do.  On our days off we take little trips to enjoy the surroundings and find new places.  We have driven as far south in the Keys as Marathon, just a little more than halfway to Key West.  It is incredibly beautiful and the weather is great.  Still in the low 80s.  Last week we got to visit with Todd and Hailey and next week Lisa and Gary will be down for some R&R in the keys and we will get to spend time with them then.  Looking forward to that and to having Todd and Hailey spend the night with us the day after Thanksgiving.
Hope all is well with you and yours and we will keep you posted.  Stay tuned!