Florida Keys Intro

Just 13 days ago I was sitting in my office staring out the window at negative 12 degree weather outside when my phone rings.....it was one of my good friends and client Mike. He was down in the Florida Keys and it was 89 degrees warmer down in Islamarado. Anyhow he was wondering if I was able to head down with a couple guys at the end of next week for a few days of fishing?????

Now I am sitting in Ft.Lauderdale airport waiting for my flight back to Midway. I have been without internet for a week and have quite a bit to catch up on. Instead of catching up on gobs of emails and voice mails, here I am at the airport for a couple hours sorting through pictures and updating blogs and various websites of my latest fishing adventure!

On the phone that cold day with Mike I played kind of cool, relaxed, interested and had to check my schedule......honestly though I was literally jumping up and down, my heart was beating excitedly and I had to somehow convince Brook into letting me head down there! The next phone call I had to make was the one I was pretty nervous about and naturally she didnt pick up the phone. About an hour went by before I was able to get ahold of Brook, and you can imagine how productive at work I was during that timespan..... weather.com- islamarado, google.com- florida keys fishing reports, expedia.com- ft. lauderdale flights. I even spent several minutes trying to think of the best way to approach the upcoming phone call. I figured I could tell by the tone of her voice at 'hello' if this would be the right time or if I would just end up asking how the kids and her day was going.

Brook called back and was having a great day! Plan was moving forward and she was actually very receptive to the idea of me heading down to Florida for just a few days while she stayed back in frigid weather holding down the fort with Mae and Noah. The only problem was that I was supposed to return on Wednesday with the fishing group and Brook and I were suppossed to head to Wisconsin Dells with her family on Tuesday. That little detail took a few hours to get all worked out. Our final plan ended up having me fly out of Bloomington with John and Ryan and fly into Chicago early Tuesday. Then Brook, Star, Brett, and the kids would pick me up at Midway and head straight for the Dells indoor waterpark.

My flight from Bloomington was early Friday morning and after a few pit stops and a nice lunch, John, Ryan, and I made it down to Key Colony. We picked up 3 shopping carts full of beverages and snacks at the local Publix and then headed to the house. Here is a pic of the house we were staying in.

Here is a pic of the view from the house:

John, Mike, and Ryan have made some real good local friends down here over the years and they all stopped by that night to welcome us to the island and lay out our fishing plans for the next 3 days. They also brought quite a few pounds of jumbo stone crab claws for us to enjoy......believe me, I enjoyed them! For the next 3 days I gorged myself on as much of those claws as I could possibly eat- breakfast, lunch, and dinner........