Beautiful Naples

Observation Tower at 10,000 Islands Nature Preserve

Yesterday we took a trip 30 miles east to the boardwalk/preserves at 10,000 Islands. It was a fantastic day..weather in the low 60's...cold for most Floridians, but we liked it...light jacket weather. We've been here before, but it's the Everglades, and you never know what you'll see on each visit...not surprisingly, as it was so cool for temperatures, the gaters were not out sunning themselves except for one here and there.....what was fabulous to see were the roseate spoonbills. A flock was gathering at an open viewing area along the walking trail. We watched as the flock was far away, and then, they started flying in and coming closer! These are truly beautiful birds....it's only the second time I've seen them. The last time was when I saw one flying along highway 41 when we were driving and it went by so quickly I only got a glimpse of enough pink and rose to know that's what it was....I took these photos with a Canon Powershot SX 20 IS....it's got a 20X zoom on it which helps for nature watching. I need to bring a tripod next time. That lens focus point jumps all around when the zoom is all the way out! I know the pictures extend out into the blog today, but I wanted to make them extra big for extra enjoyment.....I love looking at these birds!

Aren't they beautiful?  And here's another view...We counted at least 14 of them....cool!

This was a real treat for several onlookers besides ourselves...we watched as they worked their way closer to us, eating their way towards us quickly as the tide seemed to be going out....there's an observation tower that gives you a nice overview of some of the Everglades...we'll go back again and again whenever we are here. There's a little walking trail, about 1.1 miles that takes you through a part of the marshes and water area, but there are not many breaks in the shrubbery and brush along the trail. However, they also have a few park benches spread out where there are viewing openings, which is really nice. And the wonderful thing about it, is it's free! It's a very heartwarming feeling to see all the wildlife here when it is so threatened in so many habitats everywhere else. We enjoyed the return trip home along highway 41, heading west...saw a bazillion egrets, some crested white birds which I think are another kind of egret, perhaps...tons of herons of all kinds...they all hang out on highway 41 in the water canal that parallels the roadway along the banks of the canal...and yes, the gaters are still sunning themselves along there as well. THAT'S the REAL alligater alley, if you want to see BIG gaters. Watch the north side of the road, after mile marker 74 or so, heading towards Naples.....unbelievable all the species of birds and then all the gaters that co-exist along that stretch!

Today is get ready for the Tastefully Simple party this evening at the clubhouse....made Absolutely Almond cake, beer bread, carrot cake crunch cheeseball mix, a spinach and artichoke warm dip mix that has Swiss cheese in it, and a Sensational Caesar dip mix....yum!  There's live entertainment this evening after cocktail hour at the club, so we'll see what that's all about. I hope I have some good sales! It's been difficult to keep Tastefully Simple going out on the road. I have to make 400.00 in sales each quarter to stay on as a representative...can't always get a taste testing party at a campground, as some places consider that sort of a solicitation, but now that we are staying longer in places, I might be able to work the "happy hour" angle a bit more...I really enjoy it, the food is delicious, and everybody loves the samples when I fix them. I've got a website so people can order from there if they are traveling and need to get something later or have it sent to their home base. I can't have much inventory on board because of weight and space limitations, so hope to get the internet going better!  If you haven't seen the website for T.S., here's how you get to it.... tastefullysimple.com/web/jsparks3  It's a very classy company..if anybody wants to do a catalog book party, you can get any item in the catalog half off if you get someone else to book a catalog party!  Let me know...I promise I won't mention Tastefully Simple again in my blog  except to state I fixed food for a party!

Zumba was fun this morning! I found out that now having done any official exercise classes for quite some time, that I don't have the good balance I used to!  Can't stand on on  leg and do the hamstring stretch any more without falling over! Darn! Great music, Latin tempo, lots of salsa and cha cha moves, the instructor was not quite as "loosey-goosey" with the swivel hips and wiggles as  some zumba class instructors I've seen, it was sort of low key zumba. Wonder if that had anything to do with the average age of the gals that came to class this morning? About 55 or older....that was probably a good thing, as a lot of parts on me don't swivel and move very well any more...I plan on going back to try and loosen those parts up next time the class is offered, next Wed. and Friday...see you tomorrow! It's going to get in the low seventies tomorrow...YEAH!

Sparky, The Negotiator

The beach at Naples Motorcoach Resort

You've heard of the Terminator? Arnold Schwartzenager? Well, just call me Sparky, the Negotiator....Eldy and I talked things over today....the resort is having trouble with their wifi...we thought, well, if they can comp us for doing a Tastefully Simple show, maybe they would comp us a couple of days for no wifi...he said, why don't you see what you can do? He said that because I'm the one who doesn't hesitate for one nanosecond if my steak is not cooked extra rare in a restaurant, (back it goes), if the music is too loud in the movie theater (I ask them to turn it down), lots of luck on that one! If people have their cell phones on and are having a  loud personal conversation in a public place, I'll say, "REALLY? YOU'RE KIDDING! I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!" just as loudly right next to their table and lean into their physical space...well, actually, I haven't done THAT one yet, but as I get older, WATCH ME! I'm chompin' at the bit to say it! The older I get, the easier it is to speak my mind! (uh-oh! says E.) So down I go to the office. I got us TWO free days after offering to do another Friday show next week, and a sizable discount for seven more days...we are now staying for $48.00 a night for the entire stay for this gorgeous, 3 pools, bar, lounge, billiards room, cards room, spa, sauna, fitness center, movie theater, etc. etc. etc. These folks are willing to deal, barter, negotiate and offer deals, that's for sure! Now if I could only figure out how the guy from Crooked Lake, Angola, IN, my former hometown, got an email offer for a whole free week at this Naples Motorcoach Resort, no strings attached! He doesn't even have to listen to a sales pitch!  Since it's been so cold, we wanted to stay longer to enjoy the pools and the facilities so we are really happy that they worked with us to get their normal 79.95 nightly rate down.....they do have weekly and monthly rates, but that was too high for us to consider....these people really want to get more business here, so they are willing to do whatever it takes to get you to stay....

While I was negotiating, I told the gals in the office here about Pickleball...they'd never heard of it...in case anybody reading this missed my blog on it, it's a new sport that is a cross between tennis, badminton, and ping-pong. You use rackets shaped like ping pong rackets, only larger. You use a whiffle ball with holes in it, only the ball is harder. You play tennis, sort of, only the court is shrunk down. Much less running around and reaching for those tough to get shots! You can play singles or doubles. After hearing my enthusiasm, they ordered a kit to start it here at Naples Motorcoach Resort....AWESOME!!! It's cheap to get started for the facility offering it...they can paint complementary lines for pickleball on existing tennis courts. Our experience is not as many seniors play tennis anymore..We never see anybody on tennis courts where we stay...but Pickleball is easier on the joints and movements, and it's really taking off in the west. Sporting goods stores are not stocking pickleball rackets and balls yet, it's such a new sport, you have to get them online as far as I know. But we're excited this place is going to invest in it, and we hope the equipment comes before we leave so we can help them set it up. I would have tried to get comped for starting Pickelball tournaments, but I haven't played the game yet myself! Hm-m-m-m-m-..wonder what other activities I could come up with that they could comp us for? (Don't push your luck, Sparky! says E.)

Ok...before we start wearing ourselves out at this beautiful place starting with Zumba for Sparky, Friday morning at 9:00 sharp, I'm going to show you a couple of things leftover from the last day at Jolly Roger and share a funny story about our trip to Hallendale Beach yesterday....I went kayaking in the mangroves...relaxing but didn't see much...that was ok..it was cool in the mangrove tunnels....

On my way to the mangrove tunnels, I passed by the Dolphin Research Center in Marathon...I caught some of the show to the chagrin of the trainers and speaker who were putting the dolphins through their tricks for the people who had PAID for the show...I got a polite shout out from the speaker, "HELLO TO THE KAYAKER OUT THERE IN THE ORANGE KAYAK! ARE YOU ENJOYING THE SHOW? [Everybody else paid to see this, how about you move on?] was the implication, I think!

Moving on to the story about the trip in the car to Hallendale Beach, FL to see our friends....we decided to stop at the rest stop to use the bathroom, rather, Eldy did. I stayed in the car knitting. He hops out, and hits the lock button on the key chain on his way to the bathroom. After a few minutes, I thought, uh-oh, I better use the bathroom, too. So I go to open my door...the lock doesn't work. The window didn't work either, none of the buttons on my side worked. I tried all the buttons, nothing was functioning. I thought, well, maybe Eldy hit the child lock button on the driver side accidentally. I reached over and pushed the child lock button. It was down, so when I hit it, it came up...but still the door wouldn't unlock on the driver's side and the window wouldn't move up or down. Now I was getting worried. I was locked into my own car! I hit the driver's child lock button and the unlock button in a panic and the car alarm went off! MAJOR PANIC ATTACK! Who knows how long Eldy was going to be in the bathroom! #1 or #2??? This could be awhile! The car alarm is loudly protesting, and I'm in the car, and people can SEE I'm in the car. Why isn't that idiot lady getting out of the car? Why isn't she disabling the car alarm?? BECAUSE I CAN'T DO A FRIGGIN' THING ABOUT IT, FOLKS!!! I'm too panicked to look it up in the car manual and I have no idea how to disable it. Like an idiot, I even hit the car horn button in the wheel thinking that would help. Now there's several people starting to come over to the car to find out what the hell is wrong with the lady in the car with the car alarm going off? A couple bangs on the window, gesturing to unlock the door. I try to tell them I can't, they can't hear me! WHAT?? JUST UNLOCK THE DOOR, LADY!   I CAN'T!  Finally, I yell to the guy that my guy is in the bathroom by pointing and gesturing towards the restroom. WHAT'S HIS NAME?   Eldon...WHAT???  ELDON. (I'm a little pissed at Eldy at the moment and VERY embarrassed for locking me in the car, so now it's ELDON, his real name.) OK, I'LL GO TRY AND FIND HIM!  the guy yells.  Just as the guy heads into the restroom, I hear the door unlock and Eldy comes out, totally unaware of the problem and totally puzzled. "What's going on?" he says. And he proceeds to get the DON'T YOU EVER DO THAT TO ME AGAIN, LOCK ME IN THE CAR! speech.  Poor guy, he didn't know what hit him..."I was just trying to protect you, I locked the car out of habit...."  Awww....I got over it quickly, but not so sure he did!  That's my story and I'm stickin' to it...see you tomorrow in beautiful, sunny but cool Naples...

Living in Luxury--Temporarily

The Clubhouse

main pool at night

This is quite the place---Naples Motorcoach Resort....it has 184 Class A sites, 26 of them are on canal frontage, the clubhouse has an owner's bar and lounge, theater and game room, there's concierge pool services for towels and food, there's a fitness center and sauna, 3 outdoor pools with hot tubs at each one, (one of the pools is a lap pool!) there are 32 boat storage sites, tennis courts, and a small lake with its own beach! The canal accesses the Gulf of Mexico. Wish I had a kayak on board! I'd be a paddlin'!

The largest of the pools is called an infinity pool. As you look at the other end of it, it appears to drop off the horizon,
there's no top edge at the end of it. It spills over the bottom into a recirculating filter and back into the pool again. Besides the hot tub at each pool, there's a cabana tent so you don't have to fry yourself in the hot sun. At this pool on the right, you can see the small beach right below where the water drops off the pool edge.

Here are some more photos of the amenities...

Movie theater on the premises

The 18 seat movie theater...The bar and lounge area in the clubhouse.....

There's a LOT of room to ride around the premises. The streets are wide and spacious, so today I rode my bike around to just see everything in the park. Did I mention it's a gated park? You have to either get in from the guard at the gate or after hours, a key code gets you in whether you are in a vehicle, or walking through.

It seems as though they are working on getting some more activities going...they have some kind of live entertainment Friday night, and a country western recording star is coming in Saturday night. There was a zumba exercise class this morning, but I missed it. I hope to catch it Friday morning.....are there any downers? There are no picnic tables anywhere...we eat on our laps outside sitting in our chairs, or in the RV or we eat out (my personal favorite!) You can't have any kind of campfires...no fire pit, not even a fake gas fire...(Yes, we actually have seen propane gas fire pits in parks where they don't allow regular campfires.) Florida has fire hazard warnings all the time down here, so it's understandable why no fires are allowed. One of my FAVORITE things about full time RVing, is the wonderful campfires you can have night after night after night, if you so desire, provided you are in a park that allows them. For all the wonderful extras they have here, I certainly can do without my campfires for a while! The other downer is you can't use the pools at night...well, phooey, I was thinking about skinny dipping, lol!  Actually, the pools are so lit up at night, I wouldn't even entertain the thought! (Darn, says E.)

Here's a typical street view of the park....there's a fabulous very large fountain in the center of the resort, not visible from this angle...It's a beautiful place AND I get to do a show, maybe even a second Tastefully Simple event Saturday night, so we are staying till Sunday.  

Eldy and Mike

Had a great visit with Eldy's friend Mike, and his wife, Barb, today...they live in Hallendale Beach, Florida, a lovely community. This is the first residential section of Florida that we've seen that didn't have parched grass and tons of dead palm foliage laying around (besides Naples). I know, we haven't seen much of Florida, so have patience with us. It was just a very beautiful area, with Hollywood, Fl right next door, and a fantastically long boardwalk filled with shops and restaurants, parks, and bandshells right along the Atlantic Ocean front in Hollywood. We ate lunch at one of the local restaurants along the boardwalk. Mike has a tremendously positive attitude about his illness and is doing very well. We really enjoyed their company today. It's always wonderful to reminisce about growing up together, and Eldy and Mike had lots of laughs remembering all kinds of things together that Eldy had forgotten. I was hoping to get some good ammunition about Eldy's early years, but nothing surfaced. I'll have to probe Mike for more stories next time! Laughter is good for the soul and good for what ails you....we hope we brought some joy to Mike and Barb today...take care guys and stay in touch.  Speaking of staying in touch, of course we will be back tomorrow... The knit shop is calling me, the sanctuary with the boardwalk, the alligators and anhingas are calling me, and so is Ron's Pizza place in downtown Naples!   See you tomorrow!

Time to Pack Up!

We woke up this morning to a heavy heavy condensation of moisture on everything...all our camping chairs are extremely saturated. It's been a 90% humidity level for the last couple of days here in Marathon...ugh! ..so we are going to wait for things to dry out a bit before putting things away in the bays. We're excited to have added two more followers to our blog, thanks to Gail Durham and Trailer Camper for picking up our blog. I've been a little remiss in saying a personal thanks to people who find us interesting enough to commit to being a follower. I think that's blog etiquette (which I'm rather new at.) I'm always amazed that my personal ramblings about what we do or don't do would be interesting to others! So thank you to each and every one of you previous followers for coming along on our journey.....Speaking of journeys, we wished we had checked out Islamadora (I-LA-MA-DOR-A) I've been calling it Is-lam-a-dor-a for most of the week...it's on our way from Marathon back to mainland Florida. Lots of cute shops, cool restaurants..it's a good thing I don't do a food blog! I'd be 350 pounds in no time! And Eldy and I would be broke...we'll visit some of the other keys like Islamadora and Key Largo next time down to this area...

We didn't go to the beach yesterday...it just seemed like a wonderful day to sit and relax under the palms right at our site. There was a nice breeze, and the songbirds were just going to town. Different songs I've never heard of, of course. One of these days, I'll have to get out the binoculars and see what kinds of birds sing these beautiful songs. Boy, I AM getting old! Listening to bird songs and now knitting!  I knitted for a good part of the afternoon--I'm learning how to knit starting with dishcloths. (We now have plenty, Sparky--can you make something else? says Eldo) I'm also working on my first knitted garment, a pretty sleeveless vest. It's actually my second garment. The first one was overly ambitious and way past my beginner skills. So after ripping it out three times, I threw away the pattern out of disgust, and am going to save the yarn for another project. At any rate, we were just being lazy like you should in the keys! As someone said, "Catching the Keys disease..".We chatted with some of the people in our park who passed by, and some close by neighbors stopped by to give us a tip about a park here in Marathon that only charges 400+ dollars a MONTH! They thought it might be worth checking out. So we went looking for it. I didn't whip my camera out to take photos, as this little park was so AWFUL, we didn't feel comfortable and got out of there quickly. It was jammed in trailers and mobile homes with only one RV in the whole park. Many of the units seemed to be about 20-30 years old  and falling apart, there was graffitti and junk strewn around, and the little streets and corners were so tight, you couldn't have driven a big rig into the little park without taking out someone's mobile home! So much for that idea!

Marooned in Marathon Store, just one section!

Yesterday afternoon we did go check out a little store in Marathon called Marooned in Marathon. I could get marooned in this store easily..it was jammed with everything tropical you could possibly imagine! Wow! A store that visually assaults the senses! I was looking for a whirly-gig to place in front of our site. I used to think those things were tacky...and to some people, I guess they still are. But whirly-gigs are commonly seen as a way to personalize your camping site and make it more your home away from home. In our case, our mobile yard.  I didn't pick the Volkswagon whirly-gig, nor the frog in the convertible whirly-gig,  but I did get a pennant/flag that looked very tropical, and says Eldys favorite saying these days, "It's five o'clock somewhere."  Hey, it's five o'clock all the time in the keys!  If you don't have a whirly-gig, you DO need tiki lights to RV...those are those little lights strung out across the awnings, or across your yard, or across something at your campsite. We have three kinds so far (uh-oh! you mean we're gonna get some more? says E.  Yup!)--little martini glasses, little box lights, and little hot air balloon lights. But we are having trouble getting them attached to our awning so much of the time, we haven't put them out. We can't decide whether to turn off the wind sensor and have the lights clipped on or put them up in a different location so we don't have to worry about the awning. We've had a lot of wind lately, so we're watching our awnings. It's a lot of trouble to put lights up when you stay for short periods of time, and it takes a ladder to get them on the awning. We've tried shepard's crooks and an assortment of foliage to put them up when we do... BUT when we get to Texas and stay for a month, they are ALL coming out and going to be on display. We're going to be REALLY tacky for awhile...but don't worry, Eldy, it's going to be tastefully tacky!  Here's someone's site at the Jolly Roger Park that shows a little personalization...

Here's another yard site...We don't have a sign yet, it's on my to-do list: Eldy will have a Notre Dame sign, for sure! but NO pink flamingoes in this house!

Some long time Jolly Roger residents or snow birds, even have a garden!

Well, we are leaving the Jolly Roger Travel Park in Marathon today...time to get going, Sparky!  Bye-bye pelicans! See you again in beautiful Naples..this is where we are staying for the next two days while Eldy visits his ailing friend. We are staying on the other side of town, far away from the knitting store (sniff, sniff). I won't be able to ride my bike there, which is probably a good thing....see you later! Oh, almost forgot...We can't possibly leave the Jolly Roger RV park without a bad pirate joke. What kind of socks does a pirate wear?

AR-R-R-R-RGYLE!

P.S. We've arrived at our destination, Naples Motorcoach Resort...change that two days to stay to at least four days...yes, it's expensive (69.95 a nite special running currently)...BUT--we got comped one night as in FREE after the office gal saw my Tastefully Simple sign on the side of my car. She says, "How would you like to do a show at cocktail hour on Friday?" Cocktail hour? We're in! Free night on the resort to do a taste testing party? We're in! THREE pools, we're in! Extremely large sites? We're in! An 18 seat deluxe movie theater, a fitness center, a boat ramp launch and lots lots more amenities. Count us in! You know, it's one thing to stay in the keys and pay top dollar to be jammed into a park, even if it is on the Gulf. At the Jolly Roger we were cramped, very little room between us and the next guy. No pool, very small laundry, no cable and it was 83.00 a night. THIS IS THE KEYS AND ON THE WATER, FOLKS! There was a deal down the street for 49.95 a night for three nights but that happened after we got to the keys and were locked into our stay at the J.R. We don't mind paying a little more money for this Naples RV Resort, when it has TONS of amenities. We know that next month, staying for an entire month in Texas for a little over $425.00, we will also be saving on fuel, so this allows us to do something special like this for just a few days. This resort used to be for Monaco coach owners only. The current owners snapped it up for a song, and are now offering sites up for auction in February, open to all motorhome owners.  Hm-m-m-m, wonder how much they'll go for?  More about this park tomorrow! Tomorrow we visit Eldy's friend, Mike and his wife. They live about two hours from here....see you then!

One More in Marathon

Our last day in the Florida keys is tomorrow....we've had a wonderful, wonderful time...the weather really has been perfect...it's funny how 73 degrees feels a whole lot hotter in the direct sun than 73 degrees feels in Naples or St. Pete's Beach..we're closer to the equator, so it makes sense that it would feel HOTTER! Eldy is getting tanned nicely, I'm trying not to..fair skin, blue eyes, skin cancer in my family. For years and years, my mother told me, "WEAR SUNSCREEN!" Stay out of the sun, wear a hat...for years I did the opposite. Baked in the sun summer after summer after summer..used to get out on the top deck of Read Center, down at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN,  in the spring as early as February holding our foil reflectors in front of our faces to catch the earliest sun rays. Used to be a lifeguard for many years and never wore sunscreen. I never did tan in a tanning booth, those came later, but I did do a home sunlamp many times. But the damage from years of tanning in the sun has been done. After becoming overly burnt over the years, I can no longer tolerate the sun. I break out in a rash due to sun poisoning, and I have so many brown age spots, I'm starting to look like a spotted lionfish! (That's the only thing I could think of that I resemble with all my age spots!) I have suspicious looking spots that I go to the dermatologist every year to get checked, so now I am vigilant about staying OUT of the sun! Where is all this going, you ask? Well, tomorrow we might go to the BEACH! You can't stay in the keys and not hit the beach! There's Annie's Beach and Sombrero Beach, for starters...decisions, decisions, decisions! PS. On the lionfish thing...did you know these are an invasive species and they are taking over the reefs? They have no predators and it's a real problem for the fishing industry in this state. The red lionfish eat the smaller fish off the reefs and are disrupting the natural fish food chain in Florida and the keys...they actually have lionfish hunts or kills down here to try and control the rapidly spreading lionfish. Here's an interesting article from a Miami paper on how bad the lionfish problem is...

If we do go to the beach, I'm going with SPF30 and going to stay in the shade...Eldy has darker skin so he's probably going to lay out and Z-Z-Z-Z-Z in the sun....

Last night we went out for dinner....I picked the restaurant this time...Now, you know my nickname is Sparky, so of course, we HAD to try dinner at....drum roll, please! Sparky's Landing.....it turned out to be fabulous and delicious and they had reasonable prices!  I had a flat iron steak (listed under appetizers for 7.99 and it was huge and flavorful.) Eldy had a slab of ribs that just fell off the bone. There was a guy out front by the entrance making coconut palm hats, animals and roses. He was a jolly sort of guy, his name was Jerry and he said he was world famous! Apparently, he's in a lot of tourist brochures from different parts of the world, toting the keys...he says to me, "Some people are rock stars...well, I'm a bar star..." and he handed me a coconut palm rose... aw-w-w-w...naturally, I had to give him a tip and take his photo!  And of course, I had to buy a tee shirt from the restaurant! On the way there, we saw this sign, don't you just love it?

Well, in the last couple of days, Eldy got an email from an old friend who is battling cancer and the prognosis is not great. He had not heard from him in years and found Eldy on Facebook. He wants to get together with us, so naturally, we are going to change plans and instead of heading to an Escapees Park in Wauchula, FL, we are going to head towards Ft. Lauderdale to visit him for an afternoon or evening. We'll probably stay a couple of nights as the traveling time tomorrow will be several hours, then we need time to visit...Eldy has been busy planning our route towards northern Florida, mileage estimates from one destination to the next, diesel costs. He does a fantastic job of planning and preparing and researching. Me, I'd just hop in the car and go and probably get stuck without a place to stay...we figure from now until we land for a month in a park in Dickinson, TX, the cost of traveling that far will be about $600.00 in diesel fuel alone. We are definitely going to stay put for longer periods of time now as we start traveling north and west, due to fuel costs. But for now, it's time to visit an old friend who needs our support.....see you on the road tomorrow!

Tying up Loose Ends

A little bit of this, a little bit of that today...A beautiful day...when I think about how much I love snow, and how my old home town of South Bend, IN is getting hammered with about three feet and more in the last couple of days, I just think back to how much I hated the shoveling and what the snow looks like after it melts and gets all dirty and how hard it is to drive on icy roads. Then I look around at all the palms and flowers and the aquamarine waters around me, and I count my blessings to be here and not there....but I'm a Chicago suburbs gal, and I do still love snow and probably always will until I experience a bad fall on an icy walk. Then I'll probably feel differently about snow.

Yesterday I found a bike trail--this is the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail...there are currently 60 miles of trails, but the completion is still a ways off. The vision is to have a continuous trail between the keys from Key Largo to Key West. Right now there are bits and pieces of bike trails here and there. Some of the trails require bicycle riders to cross the bridges between the keys using only the bridge shoulder, which is not safe. I rode the Overseas Highway 1 right outside our park for a little bit to get to the trail nearest our RV park. From there, it was a nice long ride towards Curry Hammock State Park and beyond. I rode about 9 miles today out and back. The trail has much shrubbery, palms and some trees along so it is partially shaded. There are breaks in the foliage so you can see protected areas, swampy marshes and brackish waters with baby mangroves areas developing.

View from a break in the trail foliage

Yesterday while riding my bike to the trail, I stumbled on a yard sale in Marathon, off the trail path. I got all excited, because I LOVE garage sales. I thought one in the keys just might be a little more classy, as this house was on the water....oh, BOY! Maybe I'll find something outstanding, I thought...well, it was quite the yard sale, that's for sure. I need to study fishing lures, I've decided. This lady had every possible fishing lure I have ever seen from my dad's fishing days. She had some old ones that I am sure were antiques. Heck, she even had antique wooden chests storing a ton of lures.  She had some that were STILL IN BOXES, the cardinal rule for selling stuff on ebay. But I've been bitten so many times, thinking I knew something had value when it didn't, I behaved responsibly, shopped responsibly, (I'm a compulsive shopper--there, the truth is out!) and I came home with-----NOTHING! Only because I was on a bike ride, and I DIDN'T HAVE ANY MONEY WITH ME!! RATS! (That's probably a good thing, says Eldo) Look at all the stuff she had, and this was only a fraction of the very large garage that was filled with everything fishing, and everything costume jewelry (his and hers sale, I figure) and it was extremely organized...a shopper's dream...

fishing rods galore

My problem is, I've been watching too many The Pickers, Pawn Shop, Antiques Roadshow and the new one about clearing out abandoned storage locker facilities, and I'm convinced Eldy and I need to start going to estate sales and yard sales on our travels so we can make a little extra money. (Eldy says, you mean so you can SPEND a little extra money!) You know the annual one in the summer that is on some highway for miles and miles?--I think it's on a route going south through Tennessee and Kentucky all the way to Florida?... Well, I'm going to nudge Eldy to travel in the vicinity of next year's World's Largest and Longest Garage Sale next year. Since I am spatially challenged, (and that's a conservative statement) I am going to need Eldy to navigate me to these yard sales. Even with modern GPS technology, I still get lost, that's how bad I am!

Jewelry section

You never know what you are going to see when out on the road, whether it be on a bike, boat, motorcyle, or RV....it's a great big world to explore out there....hope you are enjoying exploring with us....see you tomorrow....  Eldy and Jeannie

Weird and Wacky Key West?

doggie style

Naw.....pretty tame if you ask me. I had heard lots of stories about some weird things you would see in Key West at night...maybe for one of their festivals in October, or New Year's Eve, but as we walked the streets last night, we didn't see much shenanigans going on. But maybe my mind selectively filtered out some stuff...We didn't stop to check out the couple of dimly lit bars catering to the more unusual types of shows, or the upstairs bar off the street bar promoting "clothing optional"...So did we get into any mischief? Nope! We behaved ourselves but had lots of fun anyway...here are some things we did see...a creative twist to panhandling on the street...the dog was doing really really well in tips!

We saw a couple of young kids, about 8 and 10 years old singing on the street and playing a mean keyboard and they were doing some awesome harmonizing covers. They sounded almost as good as a young Michael Jackson. (Where were their parents, I'd like to know?) This was pretty late at night! They had quite the crowd around them..

Hm-m-m-m..let's see, weird stuff...ok, how about this? Does this bring back more memories of the '60's? I thought so! Is this stuff legal to sell in stores?

I thought about getting a tattoo, but Eldy would kill me if I did! Besides it's too painful! But these girls don't think so!

Now Eldy did see a kooky character...she looks like she is having fun, and she was!

Spider Man was there! Why, I don't know...he did a couple of twirl around and jump off the street lamp pole stunts for passersby....
Of course, the shops had goofy and vulgar tee shirts for sale....this was a tame one, in my opinion...it takes a lot to offend my sensibilities, but there were some really nasty shirts for sale...hard to believe that some people would buy them AND wear them!

Gosh, there's so much to do here!  There are schooners in the harbor available for day and sunset cruises. Earlier in the evening, we took a dinner cruise out to see the sunset. The cruise was on a catamaran...they provided "island style" buffet dinner (food was ok) and free drinks during the entire cruise, plus a d.j. just in case you wanted to stagger dance around the gently rolling deck while steaming out to sea....I thought it would be fun to try dancing to some of the great island music he was playing, but thought better of it....the sea swells made walking difficult enough as it was! No guarantees on cloud cover...we did get a major cloud in the way of a beautiful sunset, but still managed to see the beauty as it sunk rapidly into the sea....I was silly and didn't bring a jacket so Captain Greg loaned me his sweatshirt, making me an honorary crew member for a short time....if you go out to sea, BRING A JACKET, no matter how warm it is on land! For the last part of our evening, we went to Sloppy Joe's, the drinking establishment Hemingway was known to frequent...we saw a terrific duo, Pete and Wayne...they were vulgar but hilariously funny...as the evening set goes on, they get dirtier with their song lyrics. They were very funny just with their remarks between songs. We had a great time watching them and laughed hysterically at most of their jokes. They finished at 9:00 and an excellent rock and roll band, leaning more towards heavy metal and very progressive music rocked the place for the rest of the night. It wasn't our dancing style of music, so we did decide to leave around 11:00 as it was an hour's drive back to the Jolly Roger Travel Park. If we weren't so tired, we could have stayed and rocked out with them till 4:00 AM!...We wish we could stay longer, but it's pricey! Time to think about moving towards Texas, maybe on Tuesday....But tomorrow we'll have more about the things to do here...we are only scratching the surface...it's incredible how much they have to offer tourists, AND I found a bike trail---whoopee! See you on the trail tomorrow...both biking and kayaking!

Two schooners out at sea, view from our dinner cruise