Key West Week 4

February 28

We're back!

After an absolutely fantastic week back in Beaufort, today we flew back to Key West.

What made the week absolutely fantastic?   Clara got a clean bill of health.  Everything is going great.  She has one rib that is still healing, but that's better than five.  It was certainly worth the trip home to find that out and to clarify that a previous CT scan provided a false indication of further problems.

While at home, we had dinner with the same group that was down here in Key West a couple weeks earlier - Les and Carol and Joe and Susan.

Although it was nice to be home, it's great to be back where we don't have to close the windows and we can wear shorts without freezing.  The temperature yesterday morning in Beaufort was 35 degrees.   Here it is 73 with a low of 65.  Yeah!  Key West is Okay!!!

Last night we went to bed at home with the heat on.  Tonight, we'll go to bed at home with the windows open and enjoying the cool ocean breeze.  Lovin' life!

Key West on arrival

We had a smooth flight back.  The only problem was that the batteries were low on the motor home.  But a little generation will solve that problem.

We're probably going to stay here for a couple of weeks, soak up the warmth and then slowly meander back North - where we hope it's warmer than when we left.

Monday, February 29

We quickly fell into our routine - work out in the morning and do an adventure in the afternoon.

Today's adventure was a tour of the Little White House, Truman's Key West Retreat.

Slade had recommended that we go to a restaurant - Blue Heaven.  We got there too early for dinner, but they were serving Key Lime Pie.  And what a pie

We spent a pleasant afternoon just walking around.

There are a lot of statues around town.  I think this is the biggest one.

As we were walking down Duval Street, we saw Janie Jones from Carteret County coming toward us. We knew she was in town, but certainly did not expect to run into her that way.  It's pretty amazing considering the thousands of people and the various routes we could have taken.

Tuesday, March 1

I had ordered a new slide-out tray for the basement and it came today.  We spent a good part of the afternoon  installing it.  It will certainly make it more convenient to get chairs out.

Our new-found friends from Havelock, Lynn and Bob invited us to ride downtown with them for Happy Hour.  We had a great evening getting to know them better.

Wednesday, March 2

This is our third day back and it has been in the upper 70's each day.  This is what we came for.

After having installed out new slide out tray yesterday, today it was time to completely reorganize the basement.  Now I have extra room.  As with any home, we find that we accumulate stuff we don't need and the same is true in the motor home.  I'll be unloading quite a lot when we get home.

After sweating through all the work cleaning up the basement, I took to the water and had a great swim off the beach behind the motorhome.  Lovin' Life!!

A neighbor told us that the local American Legion hall is having a Lasagna dinner tonight.  Having no other special plans, we went, had a nice dinner, met some real nice people.

Thursday, March 3

Our highlight of the week!  Today we took the Park Service Ferry to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas National Park.

We were ferried to Fort Jefferson on the Yankee Freedom

The ferry was very comfortable and certainly did not seem to have 175 people on it.

I had previously visited this remote island at the end of the chain of keys stretching South from Florida 20+ years ago by sail boat.  The occasion of that trip was with a group of friends from Asheville.  A friend of ours had moved from Asheville to Key Largo, bought a 40 foot sailboat and lived aboard.  He invited us down and we sailed from Key Largo to the Dry Tortugas in a very memorable trip.  It was my introduction to sailing, which led to many new found adventures over the years.

Today, we went in a much faster and smoother riding boat for the 68 miles out to the Fort, taking only 2 1/2 hours rather than a day and a half.

68 miles from Key West to the Dry Tortugas National Park

This fort was built over a period of years starting in 1846 by the U. S. to protect our interest in the Gulf of Mexico.  ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Jefferson_(Florida).  It seems rather archaic today to comprehend how a huge fort sitting 60 miles offshore could be of strategic value, but, as the guide explained it, it made good sense at the time.  The Dry Totugas are a small group of islands that are actually attached to the Florida Keys by reefs and small islands, making it impassible to ships of the day.  In order for any ship to get to ports in the Gulf region, they had to sail around these reefs.  Thus, the fort provided a formidable obstruction to any country intent on trying to attack any of these Southern ports.

At one point, there were nearly 2,000 people (including some officer and enlisted wives and families) living at the fort.

There was no potable water on the island, so cisterns were built into the walls.  However, they were so massive that they quickly developed cracks in them allowing sea water to contaminate the fresh water.  They eventually developed a system of boiling the water, condensing the steam and making fresh water.

Just about the whole island of Garden Key is occupied by the fort

As it turns out, the fort, although huge and fully armed was never finished and never fired a shot nor was it ever challenged.  It served as a prison during the Civil War and afterward.  Obviously, it served well in that capacity as no one could swim to the mainland.

This fort is the largest ever built by the U. S.  Fort Macon would fit inside this fort many times.

After a tour of the fort, Clara tried snorkeling a bit, but she isn't ready for that quite yet.  However, I did get to enjoy a nice long swim while viewing a few fish and coral.

On our return to Key West, I noticed an unusual use of a weed eater 

It was a very pleasant day, and we're both very tired tonight.