Alice's Beach on Islamora Key

We've been wanting to go to the beach since we got to the Keys. We went by Alice's Beach (a city park) Sunday. It was extremely busy, so we waited until today and drove back (it's about five miles from Fiesta Key.) The tide -- what little there is -- was out.

The beach looks very nice, but it actually isn't. It's very muddy sand. If you don't stay on the sand bars, you sink eight to ten inches into the mud. It's not even pleasant wading...

 The water is very shallow, with lots of sand bars that stretch way out...

This is one of several dogs we saw chasing sticks in the water --

 There is a fairly nice boardwalk that stretches along the back of the beach --

When you look out into the Atlantic, you can see the various colors of water, with that by the horizon almost turquoise green --

 We had hoped to see shore birds while we were at the beach, but all we saw were Laughing Gulls --

 

We got back to Auntie Violet in time to get showers and start dinner. Our friends, Leslie and Bill, were driving down to spend a couple of days with us in the Keys. They arrived about 7:30. We will be driving down to Key West with them to spend the day tomorrow.

A Very Nice Day

The wind was flopping the awning enough this morning to wake me up. I got up to push the switch to bring it in and it was so gorgeous outside I stayed up to watch the activity of the birds on the water. This coconut palm is to the left of Auntie Violet in front of the rock wall that lines the canal.

It has these sorta half size coconuts. I've seen others with various sizes of green fruit. I'm going to have to find out if they grow and ripen all year long or if they have a harvest season.

We took Toad and went back to Mile Marker 82.2 to the Lobster Trap Gallery to pick up the picture frames we had ordered last week for our granddaughter. Then we made a stop at WinnDixie to pick up a few groceries. As we came out to the parking lot, we saw this White Ibis family strolling amongst the cars. The mottled one in front is a yearling chick just beginning its molt to adult white plumage --

 We got back to Fiesta Key RV Resort just in time to watch the evening sunset --

It was a nice end to a very nice day!

To Mile Marker 70

It's Saturday and once again, a moving day. We moved a whole fifty miles today, up the Overseas Highway (US 1) from Sugarloaf Key to Long Key and Fiesta Key RV Resort.  We are now at Mile Marker 70, about the midway point of the Florida Keys.

As you drive through the Lower Keys, you start running into these interesting signs. There are many miles where the speed limit is 45 miles per hour during daylight hours and 35 miles per hour at night. The way the signs are made, at night ONLY the 35 miles per hour shows.

 The signs are because this whole area is part of the National Key Deer Refuge for this endangered species. The deer are a sub-species of white-tailed deer that actually swim between the islands. We've not seen any, but I found this picture on Wikipedia --

A Key Deer Buck seen on No Name Key

 While the deer have no natural predators, the largest number of fatalities are caused by automobiles, so there is a great deal of effort put into trying to prevent collisions.

This is Seven Mile Bridge that is basically the division point between the Upper and Lower Keys --

And here is Auntie Violet, in her site along the canal that is the back entrance to the marina. It was 80 plus degrees this afternoon. It was so pleasant to sit out on the grass with a can of lemonade and my Kindle, watching the pelicans flying back and forth.

Ernest Hemingway Home

This morning we went back south to Key West. We had bought tickets on the City Trolley when we were there a couple of days ago. So today we took the trolley tour around town --

The trolley allows you to get on and off at various sites on the tour. One of the places in Key West I wanted to see was the house that Ernest Hemingway lived in before he went to Cuba.

 One of the first things you notice in this Bahamian-style tropical house is that there are NO ceiling fans! Hemingway's second wife was into "high-fashion" and she thought that ceiling fans were tacky! The guide commented that it was sort of hard to believe that this chandelier was supposed to be "classier..."

Hemingway did his actual writing on the second floor of this little bungalow behind the main house --

The room he wrote in is just as he left it. Note the small typewriter on the table --
  

Outside in the courtyard was one of the forty-four! six-toed cats that inhabit the house and grounds. These cats are descendants of the cats that the Hemingways owned and have the run of the place. There were even two of them sleeping on the bed upstairs.

The gardens of the house were like a lush tropical paradise. A few of them were actually labeled, including this one, a "Christmas Palm."

 The fruit on it was these interesting seeds --

Also in the garden was this rather interesting cat watering fountain. The pot is a large olive oil jar while the base is actually a urinal that Hemingway rescued when one of his favorite bars was remodeled. Evidently his wife was appalled, so had the pot added and the base tiled to make it "more respectable."

After the tour, we were allowed to go back into the main house and take pictures. I was intrigued by the living room with its multiple screened doors to the outdoors. This made for a nice breeze through the room -- even with the "fancy" chandeliers instead of fans...

We saw many of these sorts of peddlers' carts around the city as we rode the trolley around. This one was selling all kinds of nice, but very expensive, hats --

While this one had all kinds of sea shells, from the size of conch shells on down --

There's SNOW in the Northwest!

It's been interesting to watch the news; to talk to Daughter MM and Son Sean on the telephone; see comments on Facebook; and to read the Seattle Times to get all of the news about the big snowstorm in the Pacific Northwest. Comments range from very happy skiers to less-happy comments about repeating "it's good for the wheat, it's good for the wheat."

When I looked at pictures of our neighbor's young son making snow angels in 7-8 inches of snow and heard about the Cascade mountain passes being closed, I could not help but shudder. Then I look outside and see blue sky and see people walking by Auntie Violet in their shorts and tank tops and I am VERY thankful to be where I am. It's been warm enough at night to sleep with the windows open and just a sheet on the bed.

I sat outside on my lounge chair this afternoon in the sunshine with my Kindle and a big glass of water -- it was nice!

Long Key State Park

We made a trip today back up the Keys to Mile Marker 82.2 to purchase some picture frames from the Lobster Trap Art Gallery. We had seen their display last Saturday at the Seafood Festival in Key West, but they hadn't brought any of the size we wanted to the festival. The lobster trap frames are made from real lobster trap or stone crab pots used to harvest seafood in the keys. After 5 or so seasons, the hardware that holds the traps together starts to rust and the fishermen can no longer use them. The artist takes these older traps, breaks them down and uses the weathered wood to make picture frames. We have a couple of small oil paintings which have been gifts of Granddaughter Kyra, that we think would look really nice in this kind of frame. They did not have the right size in stock at the gallery either, so we had to order them...

On the way back we stopped at Long Key State Park in hopes we might see that elusive White Crowned Pigeon (which the ranger said hadn't been seen there for a while). As we came into the Park and stopped to pay the $6 entry fee, we saw this elegant iguana alongside the road --

Long Key contains the remains of ancient coral reefs and is covered with many plants. There is a boardwalk that leads to an observation tower that overlooks this mangrove forest --

Brackish water in the lagoons nourishes the roots of the mangrove trees and provides shelter for baby marine animals --

We came upon this interesting vine with 2 1/2 to 3 inch green pods --

In another area we saw brown dried pods and then some that were open with a whitish seed --

This dried up pods may have been from last season. I sure need to look for a book identifying Florida flora, especially the sub-tropical ones --

The Nature Trail we walked on was called the Golden Orb Trail. I'm not sure if this was one of the spiders that it was named for --

It was getting late by the time we headed back to Sugarloaf KOA and we decided we were getting too hungry to wait until we got home and I fixed something. We made a stop at the first seafood place we saw, one called the Crab Shack. It was pretty tiny, only half a dozen small tables, but the menu on the whiteboard looked good.

I ended up ordering a bowl of Maryland Crab Soup that was full of vegetables and was absolutely delicious --

As were the crab stuffed mushrooms I ordered to go along with --

Forry ordered a crab cake sandwich which he also said was very good!

Crab Shack lived up to my faith in the goodness of food at hole-in-the-wall restaurants!

My Kindle 2

I've been using my Kindle DX since Fall of 2009 and I really like it. I have over nine hundred books in the archives -- can you imagine how much space that many books would take up in Auntie Violet? Plus I've got about thirty more on my home page either waiting to be read or to be used for reference!

I wish I had kept track of how many of the books I've gotten for free from the Facebook on the Ereader News Today site. It's a good way to sample many different authors that I probably would not have considered. The bad thing about it that they often will have the first book of a series for free; you get hooked; and then you end up buying the rest of the series...

I've been VERY impressed with Kindle's customer service. I told you how they replaced my first Kindle DX last month for the minimum service price after the five-way switch quit working -- even though it was out of warranty.

Today I was trying to buy the last book of Lauraine Snelling's Daughter's of Blessing series, Rebecca's Reward. When I went to the store, it kept telling me I had purchased the book last December, but I could not find it in the archives anywhere, searching under both title and author. When I called Customer Service, she reviewed what I had already done; put me 'on hold' for five minutes; then came back and told me to look on my HOME page -- and there it was!

And this Customer Service Rep was every bit as cheerful and nice as the one I worked with last month! Kindle definitely has the customer service thing down pat!

Truman's Little White House

There are a couple of "must-visit" places in Key West. One of them is Harry S Truman's Little White House.

The land the Little White House is on was deeded to the State of Florida by the Navy. It was originally the house of the commandant, but was remodeled for his use after President Truman decided that vacations at Key West suited him well.

Unfortunately, this is as far as you can go with a camera --

The streets of Key West are beautifully landscaped. This pretty flower has nasty thorns on its stems -- 

I've never seen this plant before -- even in a florist shop. It is gorgeous!

This is a banyan tree on one of the downtown street corners --

We had wanted to go to a Cuban restaurant for dinner, but the most highly rated one is closed on Mondays. So we headed back home and went to Mangrove Mama's which is right across the road from the turn to the KOA. We both had seared scallops and yellow rice which were delicious. I can't say the same for the carrots (though Forry thought they were great...)!

And you can't be in the Keys without eating Key Lime Pie! (too bad the point disappeared before I took the picture...!)