Honeymoon Island Surprise

It’s just past 7:30pm and I'm sitting on the steps of Gus-Gus on a beach down in Clearwater FL somewhere near Honeymoon Island State Park. There’s someone a ways down the beach playing on their single bongo drum. I’m not sure how far they are down the beach since the fog rolled in, but now every nose seems to float twice as far on the mist. I can see a faint light in the distance past where the waves end their breaking point; it’s Mike. He’s got his hands in the water with a little red bowl trying to pick up some sea life to put into his future tank. We have a 5-gallon bucket sitting next to the steps with his now live rock and a few cleaners snails and shells that he mistakenly, but never the less happily, caught while doing a water change. The bucket next to me is now only half full, it would be completely full and we would be on our way from here, but his hopes of seeing some more sea life has driven him to take longer, look harder, and stay more patiently still waiting for something to swim into his bowl.

I have a slight burn on my shoulders from earlier, even though the majority of the day has been complete overcast, it did indeed not stop Mr. Sun from beating down on the massive amount of people that decided to come to this beach on a Monday afternoon. The few extra people that decided to stop in were a few that more than made my day. My father and brothers decided to come down for a somewhat surprise visit. I was on the phone with my dad a few nights before and he obviously knew I was completely home sick. He texted me, “It’s about to get warmer”. I only thought that Michigan was finally going to get out of it’s horrible cold spell, but that wasn't the case. My brothers and him just packed a bag and drove all the way down here. Now that’s family, I tell you what. I also told Mike that if we ever have kids he has an absolute obligation to be a father like mine, ha-ha. The complete overcast day aided in a matching burn for each of us to cherish and for them to get through the rest of the winter months. Since living in Gus-Gus only for a day with five people turned it into a hurricane disaster; the last thing I wanted to do was cook dinner for five people in it. The best idea we could come up with was fresh sea food. We were on the Gulf right?! So we found a awesome place called Crabby Bills just outside of Dunedin. We ordered half of everything on the menu and then ate off each others plates, couldn't of asked for a better short Fike reunion.

With a few hugs that completely cured my homesickness and a day in a half in the sun, they were off again; goodbyes that once again brought tears to my face. I'm really not good with goodbyes thus far I have found out in my life, but it’s more like ‘until next time’ I find.

After they left, Mike and I grabbed our blades, Monster, and began exploring the coast around us. We didn't make it too far before Monsters tongue was dragging on the pavement, our fault as parents for not exercising him as much as I suppose we should. At one point along the journey we spotted some moved ment among the brush. Since the first thing on my mind is sometimes the worst thing, I just imagined a rattle snake coming out since they were common on this island. Thankfully a little armadillo head popped out. We scared him at first, but not even a minute later he popped back out and continued his digging for grubs or whatever he/she was looking for. I brought my camera as well, A+ for me, so I snuck up on him a little bit and got a few okay pictures as it was paying little to no attention to us. Mike decided to take out his camera phone and get close; really close. With its head down not watching where it was going, the armadillo ended up running into Mikes rollerblade, looked up with confusion and then just turned around back on to it's business. Such a cute little moment. Mike came back grabbed monsters leash, and as I took a small skate forward to get a better angle with my camera, Monster thought that was a invitation to take off and go say hi to the little fella; leaving Mike on his bum. Afterwards we decided to head back to our home spot in central FL just in case the next day was going to be just as groggy, which turns out we were right. 

Now here we are; drenched from getting a tarp on the roof because a storm snuck up on us. We have all but one part to start repairing the hole in the roof, the most important one it seems as well. So until the rain stops and we get that delivered, here we will sit sticking out like a sore thumb with a giant blue tarp on top of us.

**Pictures soon to come when I find my camera cable!