Wednesday, April 3, 2013

LAST CALL

Where has the time gone?  The last post made to our blog was just before we left Grassy Key and Florida for Texas on March 1st.  Much has happen since then.  Essentially, we were interested in getting home, although the weather seemed to be still in winter mode in North Texas; we wanted it to be spring before we returned, so we vowed to take our time.  After leaving the Keys, we wandered up across Florida, parking occasionally for the night in different, unremarkable places.  Once we crossed the panhandle, we stopped for a week at Bella Terra, our favorite RV Park in the Gulf Shores area of Alabama.  The weather was crappy (wind and rain), but we enjoyed our stay as the park is first rate and the things to do there appeal to us.  We spent some time on the beach with the Spring Break crowd that began gathering soon after we arrived, and had a marvelous day exploring Mobile, a city we had only passed through and not spent any time exploring.  This time around, however, we took a day to wander the town some, and we liked what we saw.  We visited the downtown area and had a pretty good lunch at a local bistro that catered to the local business crowd.  We also explored the USS Alabama (a WWII battleship) Park, complete with war memorials and featuring a tribute to Korean Veterans.



Girl Gone Wild!


Bella Terra Sunset


USS Alabama - Mobile Bay


Downtown Mobile
Next on our agenda was a stop in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to see our friends from Leadville, Rick and Nancy.  On our way to their home, we stopped at Bellingrath—an early 20th century mansion and gardens created by the fellow who owned the first Coca Cola bottling plant in Mobile.  It pays well to be a soft drink baron.  Bellingrath Gardens is a spectacular place.  The place was built by the Bellingrath family and the gardens were developed over a number of years, but it has been operated by a foundation for several decades.  While spring hadn’t quite sprung in this part of Alabama, the azaleas were in full bloom.  Lots of other plants were blooming, and lots of stuff was just budding.  The mansion was fairly nice and would suit almost anyone who needed housing.  In any event, we had a pretty good couple of hours there and then continued our journey to Ocean Springs.

Bellingrath Gardens

Bellingrath Gardens
Ocean Springs, MS - View From the Hard Rock Casino
Since Ocean Springs doesn’t have a decent RV park, we stayed in Biloxi.  That also gives us an excuse to go to the casinos.  We had a fun dinner out with our friends on our arrival and then lunch with them the next day.  It was great catching up with them and finding out about all of their travels (it seems that they go more than we do).  We drink a lot of whiskey and wine and tell tall tales (actually, most of them are true).  It can be a couple of years between visits, but we always take up where we left off and begin talking as though we had just seen one another yesterday.
Friends Rick and Nancy Toasting Happy Hour in Ocean Springs

After wrapping up our stay in Biloxi, we headed north.  Normally, we go through Baton Rouge on I-10/12.  We hate every inch of that drive.  The road is crappy and always under construction—additionally, the traffic is Satanic.  How anyone can live there and function normally is clearly beyond us.  Anyway, we decided to go through Hattiesburg and Jackson with the idea of spending the night in Vicksburg.  After sharing this routing with Rick, he was quick to point out that I-20 from Jackson to Vicksburg was a nightmare.  He said it was rough and bumpy and would probably beat us to death before we got to the River.  Well, since it was his state, we assumed he knew much more than we did and followed his advice for a shortcut.  It turned out that he was right, and we had a delightful shortcut through rural Mississippi that took us across the Natchez Trace Historic Trail on our way to Vicksburg.  We spent the night in a casino RV Park in Vicksburg and had a cheapo dinner at the Ameristar Casino on the Mississippi River located just adjacent to the twin bridges (rail and auto) across the River.

Floating Casino on the Mississippi River
After one more night on the road in East Texas, we rolled into Denton on the day before Saint Paddy’s Day around noon.

Beginning back in Florida, we started a conversation about what we were going to do next.  After much cussin’ and discussion, we decided that we needed to make some changes.  While our travels were pretty nice and we were having a pretty good time, the operative word became “pretty.”  We don’t want pretty…we are seeking more than that.  Without boring y’all with the details, we decided to sell our motor home and pursue other avenues of entertainment and travel—at least for now.  Initially, we planned on putting the rig up for sale on consignment, but then the guy at the I-35 RV Center offered to buy the thing outright, and we decided to avoid the hassle of trying to sell it that way and took his offer.
A Fond Farewell!
We are now homeless—well, motor homeless.  We figure that we live in a great place here in Texas and we might as well get the most out of it while we can, so that is what we are doing.  It has taken us a couple of weeks to unload, give away, sell, and toss unusable things from the rig and try to get our life here organized better.  We have a long way to go before the latter happens, but we are committed to getting it done.  We don’t know when we will resume this travel blog and we don’t have a clue to what it will look like, but don’t give up on us.

We'll Be Back!



 

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Turtles, New Friends, & Sunsets


February has flown by.  It is our last night in the Middle Keys. 

We rarely go out to dinner on Valentine’s Day as it is usually a zoo, but since we haven’t done it in many moons; we decided to dive right into the fray.  Getting a good meal with decent service has been a challenge here, so we plunged in with some trepidation.  We selected Lazy Days South for our Valentine dining experience.  It is situated on the water near the 7-mile bridge and boasts a magnificent sunset setting on the ocean side of Key Vaca as well as excellent food.  Without belaboring it, we had a great evening.  The food was as good as advertised and we weren’t rushed (some of these places really like to churn the tables on special occasions like Valentine’s Day).  The lack of a sunset wasn’t the restaurant’s fault.  The weather turned out to be cloudy—one of only a very few the last two months—so we were disappointed.  It didn’t put a damper on our evening however.  We drank a lot of wine, had great food, and enjoyed one another’s company.
D
St. Valentine's Day @ Lazy Days

Sunset @ Lazy Days--Such as it was.

 Just so you don’t think we have been slugs and have spent all of our free time laying around in the shade all day, we want to point out that we have a pretty regular regimen of cycling, yoga, and water aerobics to help stave off the winter spread.  Not that we have been completely successful at that—there are just too many meals eaten out to maintain complete control—but we are holding our own.  We are excited to get back home as our fitness center has been remodeled and now has all new state-of-the-art exercise equipment and weight machines.  Burn, baby, burn.

A visit to the Turtle Hospital is an interesting way to take a break from reading and relaxing on the patio.  It is a non-profit (How could anyone make a profit fixing up broken turtles?…They don’t even have insurance…) organization that specializes in rescuing and repairing a half-dozen different kinds of sea turtles that are found regionally.  They have about 29 in residence now, 13 of whom will never be released into the wild because they are too damaged.  However, whenever possible, the hospital’s goal is to get their charges re-released into their natural habitat.  The organization has an excellent educational program and we now know more about sea turtles that we ever thought possible, and certainly more than you care to learn about here.  Suffice it to say that for $13 apiece, we received an excellent education in damaged sea turtle care.  One last note: Unlike dolphins, sea turtles don’t perform tricks for their visitors—they just wallow around doing whatever it is that sea turtles do.

Turtle Bus

Green Sea Turtle

Say Cheese!

Oooh, tummy rub!

Turtle Aerobics.

What a Pretty Shell!
One of the joys of RVing is meeting new and interesting people.  This winter has brought a dearth of those opportunities for some inexplicable reason.  However, we have hit the jackpot, so to speak, in Grassy Key.  We have met two different couples at different times this month with whom we have clicked amazingly well.  We’ve shared many sunset cocktail hours and memorable dinners with these folks, much to our unending delight.  Both couples have now left the park for destinations up the road, as we will tomorrow.  That, too, is one of the joys of RVing.  Who knows when we will meet again?  When we do (and the odds are that we will) we will take up just where we left off in February 2013.

Sunset on the Point

Sunset @ Grasssy Key

We Never Tire of Them
As we wrap up our winter stay in the Florida Keys, a cold front has moved in and the drop in temperatures threatens to acclimatize us to northern climes.  We note, not without some trepidation, that the weather in the areas we are headed for in the next two weeks still boasts winter temperatures.  We hope that we can gradually get used to cooler weather, as this past week has, once again, has been unusually warm even for the Keys.

Adios, Grassy Key

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Dolphins , Dead Bodies, & Where Have All The Birds Gone?

We are spending the month of February on Grassy Key.  We’ve not been in the Middle Keys previously, so all we do will be new. Our RV park is small and recently built.  It has the usual amenities (pool, laundry room, and club-house) and includes a marina and a sunset point with a tiki hut and lounge chairs.   We’ve already enjoyed many 5:00 cocktails on the point, talking with fellow guests.
Sunset at Grassy Key RV Park

The group of islands/keys where Grassy Key is located is called Marathon, although Vaca Key is actually Marathon.  Confused?  So were we.  But a quick review of the history of the area clears it up:  The original native peoples gathered in the Middle Keys for reasons that are largely lost to us, but one reason certainly had to do with the abundance of manatees--their gastronomical mainstay.  When the Spanish finally found the Middle Keys in the early 1500s, they found the place awash with manatees, which they called sea cows.  Spanish for cow is vaca; hence, the name Cayo Vaca or Vaca Key, as it is known today.  Marathon got its other name when, in 1912 as the Overseas Railroad was being constructed, a worker suggested that the pace of construction being set was a regular marathon.  See how easy that was?  In any event, the Middle Keys have only a few things to offer the casual tourist because the only through road is the Overseas Highway, a very long strip mall of small shops and marine services establishments.  It is, as we have learned, primarily a boating/fishing region.  Since we do neither, the pickings are slim.  However, not to be deterred, we have found a few things to take us out of the shade of our patio or out of the pool.
Underneath Seven Mile Bridge Connecting Middle Keys to Lower Keys 
Seven Mile Bridge & Old 1912 Railroad Bridge

Crane Point Natural Museum and Reserve is named for the family who owned these 63 acres of pristine hardwood hammock on Vaca Key.   Historically, the US government stopped Bahamians from wrecking (salvaging wrecked ships) in the Keys around 1840; after that time, many Bahamians moved to the Middle Keys to live.  They became residents and could, therefore, deal with wrecks once again.  Wrecking was sporadic as an occupation, although it paid well when available.  On Crane Point, several Bahamians set up a small village and made a consistent living sponging, among other things.  They eked out an existence in a very hostile environment.  One of the houses from this village dating back to 1890 has been preserved and is available for visitor access on the Reserve.
Old 1890s Bahamian House on Crane Point
Crane Point has been set aside to protect it from the encroachment of modern life.  Except for the bayside, the area is completely surrounded by development, so it was a good idea that it was protected or it would probably be condos and shopping centers.  The museum was pretty run down, as were all of the constructed facilities.  The Crane’s 1950s home was closed for renovations and based on the exterior, was in dire need.  Our mile and a half walk through the hardwood hammock was interesting, but had the sameness that all such overly vegetated plots have.  The most interesting thing on the property was a wild bird hospital.  There were lots of pelicans and other shore birds as well as several types of raptors.  It is sad to see magnificent creatures penned up, but in this case they are being protected.
On The Trail at Crane Point
Red Tail Hawk At Bird Hospital at Crane Point
Pelicans & Other Shore Birds in Rehab
Peregrine Falcons Can Fly at 250 MPH in a Dive; This
One Has Had Her Wing Removed it Was so Damaged
The critter highlight of our Florida wintering has got to be the Dolphin Research Center right here on Grassy Key.  They have 22 resident dolphins and three harbor seals.  None of these creatures will ever be released into the wild.  Some of them are rescue animals and others were born at DRC.  The oldest dolphin is a female who is about 57 years old (keep in mind that dolphins live to about 25 in the wild and slightly older in human care) and the youngest is a two-month old calf.  A visit to DRC is an all-day affair and can be very enjoyable event just watching the various training/feeding activities.  One can also pay many dollars (up to $650) to be a trainer for a day.  Of course, for the money you spend, you get to get into the water with the dolphins.  We did general admission and had a ball watching all of the goings-on for many hours.  Several of the trainers took the time to stop and chat with us, giving us an opportunity to learn about their charges.  Did you know, for example, that a dolphin sleeps with only half of its brain at a time?  Dolphin respiration is voluntary (as opposed to involuntary), so if they fell fully asleep, they would stop breathing.
Looks Like Flipper Doing Tricks
Hula Hoops Anyone?
The Next 6 Photos Show the Same Dolphin Performing a Jump





Wow, Wasn't That Fun?
We have traversed this land of ours for years and have been fortunate enough not to encounter serious accidents or other things that might lead to a person’s demise.  However, last week a body floated into our marina.  Egad!  That certainly created a lot of excitement among our park’s denizens.  It turns out that while the police have identified this chap from Homestead, when, how, where and by what circumstances he wound up in the Gulf of Mexico remains a mystery.  Sad but true.

--Sorry, No DB Photos--


Have you ever had a Lobster Reuben sandwich?  Neither had we.  However, there is a place here in Marathon called Keys Fisheries that takes fish, crabs, and lobster right off their boats and offers them for sale.  They have a great walk-up restaurant with picnic-bench seating around the marina.  One of the specialties of the house is a lobster Reuben sandwich.  Amazing.  Who would have thought that those combinations of flavors would work so well?  Fifteen bucks for a sandwich is kinda steep, but that’s also par for the course here in the Keys.
I'll Drink to That!

Keys Fisheries--Home to Lobster Reubens
We have mentioned before the dearth of wild birds this winter.  Of course, this may not be new to Floridians, but it is new to us because eight years ago when we were in the Keys there were lots of birds.  The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission recently reported that their research shows that nesting pairs of ospreys have fallen some 56% from 1980 to 2007.  By the same token, the number of roseate spoonbill nests has fallen from 1,200 at their peak, to 550 in 2005, and this year the number is down to 87 nests.  They FWC is working on ideas to better protect imperiled species via a management plan that will hopefully address the commonalities of what’s necessary to conserve all the wildlife represented in the plan.  We can only hope that it is not too little too late.
Roseate Spoonbills-Photo Taken on Sanibel Island 2003
In 2012 We Saw None.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Last Post from Key West


In the gap between the NFL conference finals and the up-coming Super Bowl, we attended the 28th annual Key West Craft Fair.  They barricaded a couple of blocks near the Truman White House in Old Town and let a hundred or so artisans and craftsmen of all kinds set up tents and sell/display their wares.  We have attended these kinds of events all over the country and find them to be largely the same.  Some of the themes are different because of the specific locale—i.e., water scenes vs. mountains, palm trees vs. pines, etc., but, if you’ve been to one, you’ve been to all IMHO.  We didn’t find anything we couldn’t live without, but with unlimited funds and unlimited space, we might have picked up one or two things. As it was, we made it home empty handed.  Since it took little time to get around to all of the tents, we rode our bikes home the long way and stopped for a pretty good pizza a Roostica, a Stock Island eatery.  We certainly love to cycle everywhere on KW, but recently the head winds coming home have been nasty.


Followers of this blog have figured out that we are staying on Stock Island, a grubby little chunk of land situated between Key West and Boca Chica (the Naval Air Station).  It has: a power plant, a waste water disposal facility, a retired Tip (a landfill to y’all not from Commonwealth countries), the Monroe County Jail, a hospital, golf course, many marinas hosting both pleasure craft and working boats, the botanical gardens, a community college boasting the Tennessee Williams Theater, an elementary school, the SPCA, a bunch of restaurants, lots and lots of run down trailers/mobile homes, and a couple of expensive RV parks whose tariff exceeds the quality of their facilities.  Our photographer has become intrigued by the many shrimp/lobster docks proliferating on Stock Island.  The stacks of lobster traps, piles of netted buoys, and rows of working boats have become the fodder for an exasperated artist seeking beauty where there is none…well, one can argue, it is in eye of the beholder. 

  





We have frequented several of the restaurants, but have for weeks passed by a little Cuban hole-in-the-wall called El Mocho (the butt) almost daily and have not darkened its door.  This is the kind of place that locals and workers frequent and where every morning pockets of old men sit around outside having coffee catching up on life.  We vowed to have breakfast there some day; Monday was that day.  Well, we were mildly surprised.  While the place was very small--you couldn’t swing a dead cat around and not hit something--the quality of the food was excellent and the prices were very reasonable, quite unlike Key West restaurants as a group.  Long-time customers are treated as familia and warmly welcomed and greeted with abrazos when they arrive.  It felt more like home than the northeast coast dominated Florida.  Actually, that’s probably not fair to Key West.  There are many Cubanos and Bahamians (and other islanders, too) working in every kind of service job you can imagine.  They lend their cultural influences to this place in ways that are both obvious and envious.  Who among us hasn’t become addicted to café con leche?
El Mocho
We have spent some time making observations about cruise ships docking at Key West.  We do that in part because you can’t avoid ship passengers if you go down town and because it is such a hot topic among the citizens here.  There is a proposal underway to dredge greater access to the ship piers.  The effort would be a mile-long and 150 yards wide, allowing for more than two ships to dock at once.  Current estimates indicate that ships disgorge some 3,000 to 9,000 passengers and crew daily.  Most of them don’t wander too far from lower Duval Street.  The primary argument seems to be around whether or not Key West should focus on quality or quantity of visitors.  The cruise ships offer quantity, but it is estimated that cruise ship passengers spend $1 for every $10 spent by other visitors.  The ultimate question for Key West is do they want to be more upscale, like Nantucket or the Hamptons, or continue to stoke mass tourism that provides a reliable stream of dollars, but which results in the proliferation of T-shirt shops and other tourista crappola.  Only Key Westers and their leaders can answer that question, but for us it is probably already too late, as the masses of humanity are a big enough turnoff to keep us from returning any time soon, or ever.
Carnival Cruise Ship
 We seek entertainment wherever we can find it, and local theater productions are pretty good places to have an enjoyable evening.  Key West is no exception to that, as you may recall that earlier in the month we attended a play at the Waterfront Theater and a drag show at La Te Da.  The local Red Barn Theater, which is housed in the old carriage house for the island's oldest home, offers a series of plays throughout the year.  “The Divine Sister” just opened last week to sellout crowds (not hard, as the place only seats a hundred or so) and it was our last opportunity to attend a play in Key West.  The play stared Randy Roberts, a well-known drag queen playing the title role.  It was an outrageous evening of nearly slapstick ribald humor complete with Junior High School scatological jokes, etc.  None-the-less, it was a pleasurable evening capped off with Key Lime pie and exotic coffees at the Grand Café across the street.
At The Red Barn Theater  

Long before arriving in Key West, various friends and acquaintances told us not to miss “Latitudes,” a romantic restaurant run by The Weston Hotel on Sunset Key.  “Be sure to take the boat over to Sunset Key and have lunch at the most romantic place in the Keys,” they told us time and again.  Time, like it often does these days, almost got away from us, but we managed to sneak it in on our next to last day.  The short boat ride was fun and the island, sprinkled with excessively over-priced 1%er housing, was charming and, yes, romantic.  The color of the water around the island cannot be captured easily in photos, so you will have to take our word for it.  “Latitudes” has a gorgeous setting with tables arranged on the sandy beach, a lovely patio, and plenty of indoor seating when the weather doesn’t cooperate.  On this day the weather was perfect.  As expected, the tariff for a meal was on the steep side even for KW, but we complained not, expecting a stunning lunch.  This not a restaurant critique blog, but given the raves we received about the place before our arrival, we must say that the food was pedestrian and the service terrible.  We often grouse about the apparent lack of training wait staff and others in the service end of restaurants receive.  Even given training there is a worse lack of supervision.  It is countless times that waiters and other food servers reach across a table in front of a diner so they won’t have to walk around to serve properly.  Sadly, our staff at “Latitudes” had to be reminded to serve correctly on more than one occasion with more than one staff member.  There were many other sloppy errors made by staff here, but we won’t dwell on them.  However, we cannot recommend a restaurant that has such poor service.
Sunset Key

Key Lime Martini - A First


On a happier note, we leave tomorrow for Grassy Key, which we will enjoy for the next month.  To cap off our stay here, we had lunch at Hogfish Bar & Grill again today.  We'll repeat breakfast tomorrow morning at El Mocho.

Vaya Con Dios Cayo Hueso