water lily, originally uploaded by estacey.

So we didn’t go the Dry Tortugas.

#1. Kimmie and her girlfriend had to go to North Carolina.
#2. After doing the calculations, Chris became worried we wouldn’t have spare gas once we got back and forth, and that’s no good. It may be doable in the future, but we were not ready to do it last weekend.

We were going to go to the Marquesas, a set of islands between Key West and the Dry Tortugas, instead, but the weather was really not all that nice, so we were home instead.

Friday night it was Bubba Gump Shrimp Company down at Fort Lauderdale Beach. Chris’s Bulgarian friend George was in from out of town for a conference – he’s a doctor in Des Moines – so we went out to eat with him and Dean & Meredith. It was gooood. Thank god I eat shrimp.

George is hilarious because.. well, he sounds just like Borat. And he loves Borat, so he does Borat impressions. When he’s TRYING to do Borat, it’s uncanny. Crazy.

After dinner, George went back to his fancy-schmancy hotel room and we went out for one last drink. I had had my huge pomegranate margarita of the evening already, but Chris wasn’t drinking his cough-syrup-esque margarita at the place we were at.. He’s always complaining about the drinks being too weak, which pisses the bartenders off (playfully, of course) so THEY SHOW HIM. And make him a drink that makes you choke and cough every time you take a drink. Yeah, half a margarita and I was whoa-mama-tipsy.

Saturday morning, um.. what did we do? I don’t know. Then we went to the boat store, and the camera store. That’s very us. Chris bought me the nice 70-300 zoom lens, grumbling (playfully, of course) the whole time. “Is this worth it?” he asked the camera store guy. “Every penny,” he answered.

Saturday afternoon George helped Chris put the boat back in the water.. We were going to do it that morning, but Chris mentioned maybe George helping to do it. I said yes, yes, yes! I knew that George being a GUY and FROM UP NORTH, he would probably love to help.

So they did that. I took a bath.

The whole plan was to take the boat to Bahia Cabana for dinner, and Dean & Meredith were going to come with.. But then, um.. ha.. plans changed. So instead, we went to our local beachy place for appetizers. Then out to a fabulous Greek restaurant for dinner, where we got stranded until after midnight because of a downpour. Chris and George kept doctor talk to a minimum, and it turned out to be really nice. :)

Sunday, Chris went to church like a good boy. I made pancakes. In the afternoon, we went down to Coral Gables to visit the Fairchild Tropical Gardens, finally – someplace I’ve been wanting to see forever. Sadly, it was only open for two hours after we got there. D’oh! I got a few pictures though.

Then we went out for ice cream in Coconut Grove.

When we got home, while feeding the dogs, we had the pleasant surprise that the boat was full of water. Apparently the bilge pumps had stopped working… and, yeah, thanks to the aforementioned downpour the night before.. Well, yeah, the boat was flooded.

Thankfully, it’s a Boston Whaler, so it will never SINK, but you still don’t want rainwater + intracoastal water sitting in the boat and the bilge for days, so we got to bail it!

After getting sick of using a cereal bowl to get the water out of the delicate gas compartment, I got the 10-gallon shopvac out, which was the star of the evening. We still spent a good two hours out there, though. Whee, boats!

So yeah, that was my weekend. This weekend is another at home. Then next? NAPA!

¶ 7:56 PM