Update on Nephew's Condition and KeysTrip Report

Update on my nephew's condition. Thanks to all who have been saying prayers for his health. He is out of the hospital and has been diagnosed with Bronchiolitis Obliterans with Organizing Pneumonia, or BOOP. He is slowly responding to steroids, but he has been very weak and gets winded easily. His mother withdrew him from college. I hope his condition improves greatly over the next few months. He's been so active in sports that his current limitations are difficult for him to accept.

Here is Friday's entry for our Keys trip.

After a difficult night, we made the decision this morning to start out very early for Key West. It was about 8 AM when we started on our journey. It was so easy to find – no way could you get lost. There is only one road – US 1 south. We passed through all the different Keys and made up our minds to stop on the way back at Anne's Beach for photo ops.

Key West was nice – better than I thought it would be. I've been hearing from other folks that they didn't think there was much to it. We made sure to take photos at the sign announcing the end of Route 1, and at the 0 mile marker. We did some shopping at a Margaritaville store, where I picked up the cutest little bib for you-know-who. We shopped in another store and picked up some souvenirs. At the end of Whitehead Road, we found the marker for the southernmost point in the continental US and took some photos there too. Had lunch at TGIFridays - fantastic broccoli cheese soup. We started for home, making the stop at Anne's Beach, as well as at a Scrubs store, and at the Key Lime Tree. Brought home a key lime pie – ummmm!

The weather this morning was very overcast, but not stormy-looking. We had some fog issues in a couple of places on the way down. The Key Deer protected area is no longer a 15 miles an hour for the 3.5 mile stretch of highway. They now post at 45 miles an hour during the day, 35 at night. I guess it's due to the fact that there are now fences erected along the side of the highway. I don't think that anyone but us was at all concerned with the speed limit. Traffic sure moved at a good clip, and passed us up in a hurry whenever they could.

A couple of accomplishments then for us:

I've always wanted to see Key West – done!
I've been wanting to make Jimmy Buffett a richer man by buying Margaritaville merchandise - done!
The most perfect parallel parking ever - done! I squeezed that minivan between two cars with inches to spare and never touched either one of them! A masterful job of parking if I do say so myself!
Got some exercise in walking up and down the streets of Key West.

The weather was perfect – the overcast sky prevented the sunburn I feared, and there was a delicious breeze to keep us comfortable. What a great day!



Wayne had a great day too. They dove the Spiegel Grove wreck and did some other reef dives. He set a new personal record for himself, reaching 130 feet on his wreck dive.

Dinner was at Senor Frijoles. It was good, but definitely a doggie-bag meal. Too much for me! Top photo is SIL Gladys at the Southernmost Point of the continental US.