Key West and Dry Tortugas National Park

Love all the cool architecture in Key West. We walked around the Harbor walk to find our restaurant on the harbor and spotted this neat old house. There are streets all over lined with these cool houses.

The full moon on December 20th was absolutely beautiful. We didn't get to stay up long enough to see the eclipse because we had to get up so early the next morning to get on our catamaran for our

ride out to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas National Park.

Dry Tortugas National Park is 68 nautical miles from Key West

and only 90 nautical miles from Cuba.

It is a 2 1/2 hour ride on the catamaran, most of the ride within the coral reef. Only the last 45 miles was in the open seas (which mean the swells were higher). Fort Jefferson was built between 1846-1875, but it was never fully completed. These are the "DRY" Tortugas. Meaning there is no water on the island. All water had to be captured from the very low rainfall the region receives and saved in cisterns. The architect for Ft. Jefferson also did the Washington Monument in Washington D.C., but with Ft.

Jefferson the amount and the location of the fort settling were

miscalculated. Part of the fort was built right on the ocean and it sunk faster than the side that had some land. The cisterns were engineered into the structure of the walls and the ramparts, but the cisterns eventually cracked so very little "fresh" water was available. The first picture of Fort Jefferson is of the entrance to the fort taken from the boat. The second picture is of the 8000 square foot parade field within the fort.

All the wall and ceilings are curved so that what little water falls will be channeled down into the cisterns below each of these chambers. The brickwork was absolutely beautiful! Each brick had to be brought to the location by boat, some from as far away as Maine!

The cannon would point through these windows. There were cannons all the way around and on each of 6 ramparts at each corner of the fort. This Key had a natural harbor and we were protecting the harbor from occupation by any other country. Why? Because the Dry Tortugas are east of the Yucatan Peninsula and at the edge of the shipping lanes to the Gulf coast and the Mississippi River traffic. A very vital location during its day.

What you can see of this very small boat is one that landed on Dry Tortugas with a boatload of Cubans. If they make it to land safely, they can stay and become citizens. One year there were 1,100 Cubans who landed on this key. Lots of paperwork for the two Forest Service officers who worked here at the time!

This is again the parade field, but from the ramparts and yes there was quite a bit of cactus growing on the key. The key actually gets very little rain water per year.

This is Bird Key and is closed to visitors because there are some very rare birds who nest here. Our guide said on a good bird day she will see up to 91 varieties of birds on the Key.

One of the armories from the rampart. That is the ocean beyond the wall.

The water is very shallow with the coral reef and has lots of different colors. REALLY PRETTY!

This map shows where Fort Jefferson is located in the Gulf. If you double click on the map and make it bigger you can even see how far we were from Key West. Key West is only 143 miles from Florida City just south of Miami.

The lighthouse was a must because of the coral reef which surrounds this Key. Coral reefs and wooden boats didn't get along real well! There are still a lot of ship wrecks in these waters!

The Yankee Freedom is the name of our boat and it was a pretty neat trip out and back. It held about 150 people, including a great crew who did a great job taking care of us on our trip. The boat was also the only source of drinking water and restrooms while we were on the Key.

This was taken from the moat wall as we walked around the fort. It's about a half a mile all the way around the fort, but it is a really neat walk. The water is crystal clear and the birds are everywhere.

This side of the fort is built right on the ocean. We're walking on the moat wall with the ocean on one side and the moat on the other side.

This is the lighthouse again. I just liked this picture.

At lunch we looked up at the people sitting at the table next to ours and saw this Tshirt! We had to ask, yes she is a student at the University of Idaho in Moscow. The are from northern Idaho! I asked if I could take their picture because it was so cool to see some people from Idaho on our trip clear out to Dry Tortugas!

After taking the picture, I sat down and these guys asked if we were from Idaho. We said yes. They said "Well, we're from Sandpoint!" The daughter and son-in-law now live in Key West and they were down to visit. Small world!!!!

If you look real close you can see Key West with a cruise ship leaving. It was pretty close to sunset when we docked so we ran to Mallory Square so we could see the Sunset Celebration on Mallory Square.

It was worth hurrying! It was really beautiful to see the sun sink into the Gulf and all the music and booths around the square. Quite a finish to a great day!

As we were leaving the square, a rickshaw driver asked if we'd like a ride to our car. We said why not, we've never ridden in one before and it's been a day of new experiences! Our driver was a student from Serbia and it was a cool experience. What a day! This was our 20th anniversary celebration and it was a doozy!!!!!!!

Our Happy Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great Thanksgiving, although different! We rented a really nice 2 bedroom suite call the Tree House Suite in Layton on Long Key. This is our main deck where we spent most of our time. There is a little side deck also and that's where the boys loved to play.

The view from the deck was really cool and since it faced northwest, the sunsets were pretty cool too! The day I took this shot we were told the waves were too high for Kayaks (please note -- no waves!) We were good kids and waited until Friday to Kayak.

This picture of Rick & Koby and Di & Dean was taken from the deck. Then we went down so we could watch the boys play in the rocks and sand along the bank. There are only about a handful of beaches in the Keys, because they aren't islands, they're keys!

Even Tessa got to go kayaking with Mom and Dad. It was a beautiful day and we had lots of fun.

On Black Friday we had to go shopping so we went to the Keys version of a Bass Outlet. It's called the World Wide Sportsman and only has merchandise for fishing. Lots of fishing stuff. The boys favorite was a replica of Ernest Hemingway's boat. It's actually the boat built one year before Hemingway's in 1933. He liked it so much he had one built for himself.

We also had to get Florida Key T-shirts while we were in the Keys. The boys have pirate Ts, Di has a yellow T (of course!). The boys got their pirate sunglasses at the same time and wouldn't even take them off when the sun set!

Tessa got a sweatshirt from the Keys. She's sitting in her favorite place on the deck for this shot -- the porch swing!

Not much leftovers with a ribeye barbecue dinner so we "had" to go out to dinner on Marathon on Friday. A very nice lady offered to take a picture of all of us at our table so I got to finally be in a picture too! We had fresh catch of the day and it was great!!

Coming out of the Keys this morning was really pretty with the clouds on the eastern horizon. They help show where the ocean ends and the sky begins. This was taken while crossing a small bridge and shows the clouds, the Atlantic, a small key (where the road is) and the Gulf of Mexico. Thought it was a pretty shot. The Gulf water is not as rough as the Atlantic, but neither is bad because of all the reefs that surround the Keys.

Had to get a picture of this! Double click to make it bigger. It reads "Crocodile crossing." And yes, there are crocodiles in Florida and they are protected. They are only found where the salt water meets the fresh water in the Everglades. I didn't know that until I got here. We really had a wonderful trip and a very special spot of our trip was being able to Skype our family in Idaho! That was really cool to see you all.

Happy Thanksgiving

Yesterday we took Andy to a doggy motel so we could be at Di & Ricks' house by 6:30 this morning! From there we drove straight to the Florida Turnpike and drove to Homestead (south of Miami). At Homestead, you have to get onto US 1 to get to Key West. It's about 30 miles from there to Key Largo (the first Key) and 138 miles to Key West (the furthest south that you can drive to). US 1 is a narrow 2 lane road (kinda of like US 95 except there's water on BOTH sides of US 1. It's slow going, but a beautiful drive.

It's actually cooled down here, too. I think it only got up to about 80 degrees today so it was really nice. It's supposed to cool down to 73 tonight (yes, we have the air conditioning on!) The fence in the first picture is actually to keep the alligators off the roadbed! That's the Everglades behind the fence (I missed getting the picture of the "alligator crossing" sign that we saw.) The second picture just shows some of the keys that group to form the Florida Keys. They actually started with mangrove trees growing in the water. After awhile they start collecting soil and sediment and finally form a key (this process takes many hundreds of years.)

I had to get a picture of the boys watching the birds on Duval street as we walked by. The were so cute! The cage just behind Koby has a snake in it! I also got a picture of a guy with a bird on his shoulder when I was taking a picture of lots of flowers (I didn't see the guy until after I took the picture.)

Key West has lots of fun houses build in the Victorian style. Lots of the houses have gingerbread molding on them, one even has little
gingerbread men in a row all around. It's really a fun house to see!

We got to ride on the Conch Train with the kids all around Key West today. It's a good introduction to the Key and you get a lot of history about the Key while riding on the train. The boys were really excited about the ride. Those are supposed to be engineer hats they're wearing.

Howard and Rick didn't even make very many snide remarks about the tour. We went to both ends of the key and all around the older area of the key. Key West is 5 miles long and 1 mile wide and one of the biggest keys. There's lots of military on the key, mostly Naval Air Base. There's a good harbor on the north side of the key too. On the south side there's some beach, but no harbor because of all the reefs around the island.

This is a building built by the federal government to their specifications. It has a sloped roof so the snow will slide off easily and there are 17 fireplaces in the building so no one will get cold in the winter when the temperatures drop into the 70s! Our tax dollars at work more than 100 years ago! The statue in front of the building was really cool too.

To finish our day we got to eat dinner in a really cute little restaurant that sits under the 7 mile bridge. We seated on the patio facing west with the bridge behind us. As you can see, the sunset was beautiful tonight!

Tomorrow we'll celebrate Thanksgiving with a barbecue on our deck at the motel/suite we rented on Long Key. (The deck looks out onto the swimming pool and the Gulf of Mexico.) We'll go swimming tomorrow afternoon. We may just hang around and swim on Friday too. That's what you do in the Keys -- just hang around!!!!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. We miss all of our family and friends and we'll be thinking about you tomorrow!

High surf warning

There was a high surf warning on Friday so we had to take a trip out to the jetty to see what it looked like. The waves were high enough that they went over the top of the jetty a few times (Andy did not appreciate getting sprayed!) The tanker out from the rocks pretty much stayed there for a few days, probably keeping boats from venturing out to sea. When we drove across the island, we noticed any time a boat tried to leave the marina the sheriff's boat was right there. There was one small craft out just beyond the rocks, but the sheriff's boat went out and they came right back in!

This shot is of the sheriff's boat heading out to intercept the little boat out past the rocks.

This is both boats coming back in.

This shot is from the shore looking towards the jetty we were standing on. I was actually standing above the sea wall which is about 4 feet hight. The waves were pretty impressive! It was a really beautiful day though with temperatures in the 70s and a breeze to cool us off. We left here so we could go swimming at the RV park.

Happy Halloween

Since my last post (the day before my birthday) we have been busy! Howard took me out to a Texas steakhouse in Tupelo, MS for dinner on my birthday. I had a huge rib eye (with leftovers) and it was super yummy. We had some work done on the coach while we were in Tupelo and then we headed south. As we were going across Alabama and Georgia they were right in the middle of the cotton harvest. The huge things in this picture are cotton bales. They lift them onto huge flatbed trucks to haul them to the processing plant and only one bale per truck. It was really neat to watch them!

Just after we got here we were going on the on ramp to go visit the kids south of us and I had to take a picture of these thunder heads. They get really dramatic on the coast and I thought the contrast to the beautiful sunny day and the clouds was really cool. We didn't get any rain from these clouds, but there is a sea breeze every day so it helps keep it feeling cooler. We've had temperatures in the 80s since we got here so we're spending every afternoon in the pool to keep cool! I cooled into the 60s the last two nights though (cooling trend?!) A few of the people we met 2 years ago are here already, but most people will start arriving in December so the park
is pretty quiet.

This is our home for the next five months. Yes, the door is open, it's about 6:30 so it's starting to cool down some! (It's down to 76 outside.) Next week we get to watch Koby and Dean while Di heads to Burley so that should be a busy and fun time for us!

Branson to West Memphis

The Ozarks are beautiful and we're glad we got to spend some time here! When we got to Branson, all the hills were green; when we left they were a rainbow of color. The hills and all the hardwood trees are really something! The drive today was beautiful: lots of hills and small towns and we even passed a cotton field! We're camped right on the Mississippi here in West Memphis tonight. The picture of Howard and Andy is taken from our RV park close to our RV and that's Memphis across the river. Tomorrow we head to Tupelo for the weekend. Then next week we'll get some work done on the coach . This sure is a beautiful country!