Key West!

Hello for yet another three week late post. I have been so busy having fun at home with my parents that my blog has been pushed to the back burner. We arrived in San Diego a couple of days ago, so I should hopefully be a little better. Before I jump forward to the present, I wanted to share a some of the highlights from our wonderful trip to Key West. Kelson sailed there in his ship, and I met him there. I felt very brave as I flew into Ft. Lauderdale and drove down to Key West all by myself.

This was the first beach we visited in Key West. The whole thing was about 100 feet long. The beaches in Key West were all pretty tiny. This happens to be the southernmost beach in the continental U.S. In case you were wondering, moonshine is not allowed. Just read the sign.

This guy was just standing on the end of the pier playing the guitar and singing. He looked like he had a pretty good life. From this pier, we saw a stingray, a shark, parrot fish, pipefish, and all kinds of other neat wildlife.

That night, we went on a ghost tour of Key West. Spooky!

The big event was on Saturday. Spruance became the newest commissioned destroyer in the US Navy. The ceremony was amazing.

In addition to friends and family of the crew, thousands of people from Key West were there.

The ship was looking fabulous. It was an awesome sight to see all of the sailors in their whites running up to man the rails of the ship.

It was the first time I had seen Kelson in his dress whites. What a handsome boy!

That's Kelson right above the "R" of Spruance. Sorry for the blurry picture.

We spent one whole afternoon snorkeling. It was so fun!

On Sunday, we drove up the Overseas Highway while we listened to General Conference. Beaches are in short supply in the Keys because there aren't big enough waves to make sand, so we had to settle for this concrete wall to eat our picnic on.

Beautiful!

Many of the houses in Key West have the underside of their porches blue. It is a Gullah superstition. Ghosts can't cross water, so the blue tricks them into staying away from houses.

Key West is crawling with scantily clad, drunk people. I felt like this poster was a fairly good synopsis of downtown Key West.

Key Lime Pie!!

We went out early on our last morning in Key West to snag a few more minutes on the beach. This is at the country's southernmost point, just 90 miles from Cuba.

We went swimming at South Beach again. There were schools of tiny fish swimming around our legs, which attracted pelicans. It was great to watch them fly in, scoop up some water, and then do a clumsy splash landing in the water and fall over backwards. They were not very graceful, but we had fun.

We had a great time in Key West. It was a treat to be able to spend a few days together in the middle of our two month separation. After Key West, I spent three more weeks at home, and Kelson sailed south to Colombia. From there, the ship sailed through the Panama Canal and then spent a few days in Panama before sailing up to San Diego. What adventures!