Last Friday, we wound up going down to Key West with friends for the Fantasy Fest Street Fair. Bev's friend from MA was visiting and had never been. The title pic was taken of "the girls" at Carol's house in Big Pine before we left...Bev, Lori, Carol, and Barb all bought the same "dress" to wear, painted their hair blue and adorned themselves with beads. I didn't get the dress since we weren't originally planning on going :(

In the pic you see Carol feeding a Key Deer...this guy is full grown (they get about as big as a Great Dane). The Key Deer are endangered and only found on Big Pine Key. Many of them have become quite tame...this one didn't even run from Daisy!

Some sights along the street....some clever costumes this year...


The girls had a blast meeting the firemen....
...and so did Granny:


We encountered King Neptune and his favorite mermaid:


And a couple of bakers...


Some folks were still "getting ready"...


While we had fun seeing the "sights", Daisy was unfazed and more interested in the food booths -


Since Al and I had rehearsal at the theater we headed back to Marathon around 4:00...but Daisy had to have her picture taken at Mile Marker 0 on the way back to the car.


On Saturday, Daisy donned her Pirate Wench costume and went Trick or Treating along the dock, delivering goodie bags to neighbors and her doggie friends.


This morning (Monday), Al decided it was time to clean the bilge. Fairly simple, albeit a bit dirty, task - right?? WRONG!! VERY WRONG!! In the midst of this fairly simple project, he realized that our greywater bilge (aka shower water) was not emptying. As he went to inspect the pump, lo and behold the hose disintegrated in his hand! No big deal...just replace the hose with a new one. WRONG AGAIN! The end of the hose that attaches to the seacock where the water leaves the boat is in a location unaccessible to a normal human adult. It requires slithering over one of the engines with about 14" of clearance, and getting legs past another bulkhead mounted pump, into a space just a bit bigger than Daisy! So rather than spend A LOT of money and probably have the boat half dismantled, I took a long look at the space and decided that I could probably get in there. Well I did manage to squeeze myself in, contorted unnaturally in order to get rusted clamps off, then get the new hose on. If I thought getting in there was hard, getting out was WORSE! By the time I finished and crawled out, I had truly earned my "Certified Bilge Rat" T-shirt! I was dirt, grease, and sweat from head to toe! Praise God for hot showers! LOL!

Here's a pic of the space I had to get into...those of you with boats will naturally have a greater appreciation of the perspective.


The upside of today's ordeal is that 1) the hose got changed, 2) we can still take showers/baths on the boat, 3) we know that I CAN get in there if need be in the future AND 4) it only cost us the price of the hose...which was left by the former owner!!!

Will be going to Key West on Wednesday and Thursday for Meeting of the Minds (Parrothead Convention)...stay tuned....