Auntie Violet's New Addition

Way back when we were in Florida (a few months ago), I bought a fish with hooks for hanging keys. I thought it would be fun to have something in the motorhome that reminded us of our winter in Florida and the Florida Keys. Forry did not want to put screws into Auntie Violet's nice cherry wood walls, so it's sort of sat around waiting for inspiration about how to hang it.

Finally he decided that he would mount it on a board that I could attach to a motor home wall with velcro strips (like I have done with everything else I've hung on the walls). While we were in Altoona visiting Bill and Leslie, Forry and Bill took an afternoon and made a Home Depot run. While they were there, one of the things they bought was a nice oak board that they had cut to size.

I put several coats of Liquid Gold on the board, then Forry screwed the fish to it. We've mounted it over the right side of Auntie Violet's doorway. The board is pretty heavy itself without the addition of the keys, so I used two inch-wide strips of heavy-duty velcro on the back.

I am quite pleased with how nice it actually looks and how well it blends with the various shades of the cherry wood. Now if we can just remember to hang up the keys...

Finally, THE KEYS!

It seems like we've been heading in this direction for a l-o-n-g time and now, we are finally in the Florida Keys! We're a long, long way from Washington State.

We basically drove down Highway 1, which goes all the way from Homestead to Key West, the end of the island chain that makes up the Keys. The mainland portion of the highway skirts Everglades National Park and is very swampy --

As you get further down the Keys, the highway is a two-lane road with a blue concrete barrier down the center line. (I have a feeling that there used to be head-on crashes from impatient drivers...) The Atlantic Ocean was on our left and the Gulf of Mexico was on the right -- as we crossed the many bridges we could see them both at the same time.

The battery on my camera went dead, so I didn't get any more pictures until we got to Sugarloaf Key where the KOA is located. Believe it or not, these are residents of the RV Resort --

 I think we spotted three roosters and the one lone hen strutting in and out among the RVs --

It was getting towards dusk when we went for a walk around the park. This Brown Pelican flew into the mangroves to roost --

I almost missed getting a shot of this one, beginning to show breeding colors on the head.

This is the swimming area at the park --

And here's one more Brown Pelican (the American White Pelican is not on this coast) sitting on the bridge --