It was another early morning today, this time to catch a plane for Miami Florida, from where we rented a car and drove to Duck Key, a small town in the Florida Keys, south of Key Largo, and north of Marathon, the location of our concert.  Getting up at 5:30 a.m. is not my idea of fun, but the knowledge of where we were going certainly helped make it more tolerable.  We were only going for three days, but escaping the cold of a Toronto winter, even for that length of time, is one of the perks of this business. 

The flight to Miami was 2 hours and 40 minutes; unfortunately, it was also full, and as a result, we both got stuck in middle seats.  When we finally landed, the airport itself was mobbed.  Saturday morning is the time most people come to Miami who are going on cruises, so there were seas of travelers milling around waiting to be directed to buses from where they would be driven to their cruise ships.  The baggage claim area was a long way off, and it took us 10 minutes to get there.  After getting our bags, we boarded the bus that took us out to the car which we had rented ahead of time, put our golf clubs in the trunk, our bags in the back seat, and finally set off for the Keys. 

The drive took about two and a half hours, and the first part of it is pretty boring; the road on both sides is lined with trees, so you can't really see anything.  However, after about forty-five minutes, suddenly you come out onto a long causeway, and on both sides is the ocean stretching out to the horizon, east and west, with the most intense blue colour imaginable.  That, and palm trees.  I think it was seeing the palm trees in a non-city context that finally hit home to us that we were in the tropics.  The stress of the flight started to wear off, and had totally evaporated by the time we arrived here in Duck Key, the location of our friends Jean and Bennet, with whom we are staying. 

Jean and Bennet live in a beautiful house on one of the town's many channels, within view of the ocean.  Bennet is a gourmet chef, and has one of the most extensive wine cellars we have ever seen.  Tonight, we had prime rib au juice with a spectacular cabernet, and vintage port to go with desert; we finished the port sitting on the dock overlooking the channel under moonlight, with Venus and Jupiter hanging in the western sky, still close together after the grand conjunction a few days ago.  Paradise! 

I should mention that, even though we arrived here this afternoon, Jim and I couldn't rehearse today, as the pianos are not being delivered until about 1:00 tomorrow.  All was not lost, however.  We spent the time before dinner on a driving range hitting golf balls! 

Because the pianos are being tuned right after they get here, we won't be able to run the programme until about 4:00 tomorrow afternoon, but given that it's pretty fresh, and that we just rehearsed it in Toronto, we should be fine.  Also, Jean and Bennet have a beautiful grand piano, so we can at least do individual work.  The programme is as follows: 

 Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun (2-piano version by the composer).....Debussy 

 Variations on a Theme of Haydn  op. 56b............................................Brahms 

 Intermission 

 Two Slavonic Dances...........................................................................Dvorak 

 Rhapsody in Blue (original version by the composer)..........................Gershwin 

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