Saturday July 23rd – Friday July 29th 2022
This week’s headline. Recharged & ready.
Day 36 – Saturday July 23rd: Out with the Old
Today I spent a little time setting up for my return to work. Next week, I will be starting back to work in a full time capacity at Brightmove. It really feels like winning the lottery in some ways. I get to work with my long-standing & best friend for the company that I own on initiatives that are interesting & rewarding. I spent the morning putting some thoughts together on my 90 day plan, and making some hotel reservations for a work trip in a couple of weeks up to St. Augustine.
Day 37 – Sunday July 24th: Local Snook
Today, while seeking some pilchards, we stumbled upon our first snook on the ocean side of Key Largo. John & I were thrilled to know that we could catch snook so close to the house. I threw the cast nest 2 times, filling the live well with bait. We then subsequently casted into the 2 foot deep perfectly clear water and caught several beautiful fish, including this snook.
Day 38 – Monday July 25th: Dunhams Round 2
Today, we were blessed to get our good friends back for another visit. They were down in Big Pine with their family for a few days, and stopped on the way back north to spend a few days with us. For dinner, we had the greatest fish fry in the history of mankind. We friend it all in the new 12L, side-by-side commercial grade fryer (after we figured out how to keep the electricity from blowing out).
Day 39 – Tuesday July 26th: Rainy Day
The girls headed to the mainland today for shopping at the Dadeland mall. The boys stayed at the house. And it rained the whole day! We watched the radar continuously from 9A until 5P, and finally at 5:15PM, we got a break that allowed us to roll out to South Creek. As we left the dock, I realized the hydraulic steering seemed to be performing poorly. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the cards for us today. To top it all off, I crushed my cowling lifting the motor up while trying to move out of the way of an oncoming boat. Tough day fishing, but a fun day hanging with old friends.
Day 40 – Wednesday July 27th: Fishing By Myself Part 2
After our friends left in the morning, I went to work fixing some things on the boat. By opening the cowling and taking it off the motor, it simply popped back into place. There are a few cracks and scratches, but it’s mostly cosmetic. I was glad to find no real damage. The next thing to resolve are the steering issues. After inspecting the helm, I discovered it to be low in hydraulic fluid.
Once I got the boat squared away, I ran around looking for bait again on the ocean side of the island. For some reason, I feel so pleased when I can find it close to the house. No significant fish caught today, but had a nice time in the quiet. John was sleeping over (his first one in history) at a friends, and the rest of the crew was enjoying their silent past times as well.
Day 41 – Thursday July 28th: Pilchard Capture
At the start of the day, Jackson and I went on a pilchard hunt in anticipation of an afternoon trip with Johnny NS. We caught many pilchards after hunting hard for them up and down South Creek. After our fishing expedition, we headed to Harriet’s for lunch. We brought some delicious muffins home too. Certainly, this will please momma 🙂
Day 42 – Friday July 29th: Train Ride
This day marks the last “work day” off during my summer sabbatical. Jack and I made the trip up to Miami for a day in the big city. We started off the trip with a statistical approach to determining where to have lunch – we made a list and voted. The winner of the vote was Golden Corral, but it was very close.
After lunch, we headed to the Dadeland North train station and caught the metrorail up to Bickell Station. We switched over from the metrorail to the metromover, and stopped in at the Bickell City Centre: our targeted destination for the afternoon.
We headed up to the CMX Cinema and got our tickets for Top Gun: Maverick (our second viewing of this awesome movie during the break), and then wandered the outdoor mall for a bit. We got great seats and enjoyed popcorn in the VIP seats at the theater.
After the movie, we took the train back to the truck, and then headed for dinner. In researching fun experience restaurants, I found a hot pot location in North Miami that I was interested in trying. Jackson and I braved it for the first time for dinner on Day 42. Overall, pretty good, but we didn’t like it as much as the shabu shabu restaurant we used to frequent in Dallas, Texas. I’m going to keep looking 🙂
