Key West Christmas Greetings from Padre and the Blonde!

Key West is so not Seattle in December.

We’ve got to keep our wits about us, since the wind-whipped backyard palm tree keeps flinging coconuts down on our pool deck. And don’t worry, Christmas won’t really be late (above pic), even though Christmas porch decorations here lean more toward Margaritaville than Bedford Falls. 

Christmas won’t be as late as our Ireland trip posts, at least there’s that. Ireland was one of our best trips EVER and I have plenty to say about what we experienced there, as usual – the full story will slowly show up here by and by. 

We did take many incredible photographs, and below we’ve included a few to bring some British Isles magic to your Christmas holidays. Nothing like the glorious beauty of this vast world to help us feel grateful for each and every day, a very Christmas way to be for us.

Meanwhile, we’re in Key West, Florida with the daughter and her husband, and two pre-teen grandboys. Tropical kid paradise, right? Well, mix that up with gale force winds, monsoon rainstorms, a potential tornado or two, no oven, and bouncing coconuts, and here we are.

So it’s not perfect, but hey, whose year is ever perfect? In 2019, we did enjoy plenty of almost-perfect moments, many while wandering the globe, but others with family and friends, including:

Tasmania, Tahiti, Aussies and Kiwis

We enjoyed our 2018 Epic Journey so much that in 2019, we basically did it again, only deeper south and farther west on the world map. Longest cruise yet – a 30-day, transpacific journey that sold us on living on cruise ships for long stretches.  

As usual, the best part? Meeting new people, and we’re joining two Tasmanian friends on what I’m calling The Middle of the World Map Journey next spring. Longest cruise yet, along coastlines in Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, and the top destination on my travel bucket list: Egypt and the pyramids, finally. 

We’re about to begin Year Five of the Ten-Year travel plan, with a New Year’s cruise home through the Panama Canal – and how’s that travel plan going, almost half way through? Let’s just say the kids may have to book a cruise to find us one of these days. 

It is fitting, of course, that here in Key West we live on Poorhouse Lane, considering all the travel (spending the children’s inheritance, one trip at a time!).

Poorhouse Lane used to be the site of the county’s home for indigent senior citizens, and now is home to Bill Butler Park, built in honor of the Key West Junkanoos, a celebrated Key West African-American band with 17th century Bahamanian cultural roots.

We did find some of those kids and grandkids near……..

The LAKE

That’s near Lake Michigan, at Lakeside Resort. We learned that you don’t have to go far from home (the kids’ home in Indiana anyway) to find travel adventures. We loved this little lake resort, and plan to see if we can convince more relatives to join us there in 2020. And of course our own backyard was pretty great, in fact, on……..

Puget Sound

Padre’s pumpkins thrived on the shores of Puget Sound, summer’s bounty turned into jars of jam, and our time at home flew by. Some of our family still hangs out in the Northwest, so we stuck around long enough to visit with all of them. But before we knew it we were in….

London and Ireland

……and here are just a few of our amazing Ireland photos. On our Fall 2019 Honeymoon Redo Trip, we lost ourselves down tiny cow paths, dodged livestock, and scrambled up granite cliffs to take in Ireland’s astounding scenic vistas, just as we did 30 years ago, albeit a wee bit slower of course. 

Holiday homes dot Ireland’s landscapes now, and modernity has transformed her urban cities, but her ancient cliffs and coastlines still astound. We may be inching our way up into our geriatric years, but we managed to scramble up several of those cliffs, including braving stiff winds to stand on the rocky precipice of the Slieve Leagues – just wow. Scramble as long as possible, we say (and thank heavens for the miracle of the titanium knee joint). 

….and now in Stormy Key West

Here at the end of the road, we ride the free bus downtown to do the Duval Crawl, take in movies at the Tropic (Star Wars of course –we joined the Resistance!), visit Santa, and say ‘aaaaargh!” to the pirates at the Shipwreck Museum. And our small backyard pool heats up so well that the preteens have turned wrinkly, swimming multiple times each day, howling tropical storms or no. Right now it’s ‘howling storm’ – so board games and holiday movies rule. 

And you know what? No oven means we’ll cook the turkey on the barbeque for the first time ever.  (Got that, gentlemen? That’s your job this year.) 

So the merriest of 2019 Christmases, everyone! We hope you’ll never be too grown up to search the skies on Christmas Eve, from wherever you are in this vast glorious world. 

Faith, hope, and love to all,

Padre and the Blonde