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Theater of the Sea - Islmorada

Ever play a pin ball machine? I'm talking about the real ones not the virtual hand held games on your iPhone or tablet. The ball would get released and bounce back and forth hitting targets, setting off lights, and scoring points. And then, just before it disappeared at the bottom of the table, you got a chance to propel it back through the game again with the side flippers. It was erratic and often tense if you were truly competitive.

While playing pin ball might be fun, when it comes to choosing a vacation rental for that dream getaway the last thing you want is erratic and tense. The new Dwellable app for your iPhone or iPad delivers a clever and engaging way to search for the perfect spot at the price that suits your budget.

I was amazed when I downloaded it to my iPhone at how easy it was to navigate. The home page is a video of the ocean washing up on a beach and it asks you "Where are you going?". Well actually the search bar has that printed on it. Click there and you're off!

If you don't know where you're going and just want to look around, you can go to All Destinations and find the states listed there. Pick one and your next stop is a listing of cities or areas depending upon the state. From there, you begin to find listings for vacation rentals with the number of beds and price right up front. And it's all done in beautiful photographs with more information about the rental when you click on it.

It's pretty seamless and if you get to the end and don't like what you found, you can hit the Home spot at the top and get another chance at it. Kind of like those side flippers on the pinball machine but if you're a traveler like us, you won't mind exploring more.

Let's see, Alaska, Clam Gulch. Ah, only one rental there. A note pops up asking me if I'm always the first to arrive at a party. Not many listings here yet. It promises more listings soon. I check out the other end of the USA, Florida. Now I could be bouncing around this place for quite a while. Lots of listings.

I can hear those pinball noises in my head and the points are racking up. I'm a winner! I found the perfect place. And I didn't even have to put a quarter in. The app was free!

Just down the road from where we were staying in Key Largo in February is a place called Theater of the Sea. We've passed it by often in many visits to the area but never took the time to visit. In talking with someone we met at our complex, it was highly recommended as long as we didn't expect a Sea World experience. When our son and his family came to visit, we all packed into the van and went to check it out. Are we glad we did!

No, it is not Sea World but we thought it was in many ways better. The shows were great and we were much closer to the animals performing than we would have been in a bigger venue. Your ticket covers all the shows which includes a dolphin performance, sea lion show, a ride down the canal where the dolphin joins you, a couple of nature walks, and a parrot show.

The park area is landscaped beautifully and quite shady. There are several pools which hold turtles, rays, fish common to the area, and the ever popular nurse sharks which the guide feeds as you watch. I wasn't sure I'd want to get my hands as close as she did even if they were the more placid nurse sharks.

There were also a few pens with alligators although those are a little more exciting to see in the wilds of the Everglades National Park. And the parrots were on display between shows.

Everything was well organized. We went from show to show almost as a group. If you arrived later in the day, you joined in at a different time but still got around to all the shows. It takes about 3 hours to see it all and you could do it over again if you got there right at the beginning of the day.

 For the adventurous and those with deeper pockets, you can pay extra to swim with the dolphins and interact with the sea lions. A lunch patio is convenient for those who want to eat on site and on your way out, you can peruse the large gift shop.

All in all it was a great day as you can see from the pictures which describe better than I can with words this time.


[Postscript: We had lunch at Burger King after our morning outing at Theater of the Sea. To my husband's dismay, he discovered that we could have save 15% with a coupon from BK. The BK is just 2 miles south of the Theater. Worth the trip to get the discount coupon.]

He's smiling. Really!

It is always a delight to discover a new release from Janice Thompson in my mailbox waiting for a review. I love her sense of humor which she so keenly infuses into her writing and Picture Perfect was just the perfect book for this time in my life. You see, it's got a lot of Irish heritage in it and well, my birthday is St. Patrick's Day. . .you get the picture.

Picture Perfect is related to the Bella series (Weddings by Bella) Thompson wrote but her new leading character, Hannah McDermott, is a photographer who specializes in weddings and thus the connection to Bella who owns the popular wedding center in Galveston. Of course life is complicated by her arch rival photographer, Drew Kincaid, who just might be of a line of ancestors her father claims feuded with the McDermott's in the past. Add to the mix Bridezilla and Hannah's life gets very complicated. Lots of tongue-in-cheek and wonderful Irish sayings make it a delightful read.

Download it to your ereader or pack the paperback into your carry on. It's a great easy read for the road.

The Everglades is home to one of the best preserved Cold War relics--the historic Nike Hercules Missile Site called Alpha Battery or HM-69. We visited once before not long after it first opened to visitors but heard that now they actually had a missile on site. It is certainly a step back in time.

The tours are free and are daily at 11 a.m from mid-December to the end of March. After that, they are only on the weekends. Check the park's website for more information on times. It is about a 15 minute drive from   the Royal Palm Visitor Center where the Anhinga Trail is. The guides are often people who have worked at a nike site somewhere during the Cold War era. They make the most interesting guides, but on our second of two visits in February, we had a ranger for our guide and he did a great job as well giving us some good stories as well as history.

The Nike missile site in south Florida was the first line of defense against the threat Russia had set up in Cuba. Our missiles had nuclear warheads and were assembled in a small building on site. The painting on the side of the building (remarkably well preserved) was done during that time. They are still looking for the name of the artist. The reason for the nuclear bomb power was because we had a slim margin of error in hitting a plane with a missile. With the nuclear power, we could take out a fleet of planes with the explosion any where near them.

The men took shifts, being on call for instant action where, if needed they would roll out a rocket quickly from one of the three barns that housed them, set it up on a launch pad and then "run like ****" into the bunker where if the word came, they would push the launch button. That's a simplified version, I'm sure, but you'll get a little more info on the tour.

The bunker was actually open enough to be able to see into it and will soon be open for visitors to go into and get a better view. I found it interesting that the reason was because of lead paint. Yet, we were allowed into one of the missile barns which I would guess had lead paint since it looked as though nothing had been renovated.

As we stood in front of the huge doors of the missile barn, the guide and one of our men from the group pushed back the doors. It was very dramatic on the first tour we took as the guide didn't mention that the rocket was right there. The doors groaned, metal against the metal track, as the darkness inside was cut by the Florida sunshine and revealed a Hercules missile. For my grandson who has shot off rockets with his dad, it was very impressive even though he didn't understand the history behind it.

 When I think back to the time of the Cuban missile crisis, even though I was a teen, I remember how intense those days were. I grew up with the Cold War and the fear of nuclear war. We practiced ducking under our desks at school and covering our heads, hiding our eyes, as if that would have protected us. Seeing all of this at the Nike Site, always brings back those memories. We came so close.