White-knuckling It

Well, we are headed home. I love most of the RV lifestyle.. wish we could do it full time at this point. But there are a couple things I don’t like about riding in an RV. One of them we have been hitting since we started on our way back from the Keys Sunday night… Wind! I hate driving or in my case riding in a RV in a heavy wind. The wind we’ve been dealing with have been hitting out front left corner gusting continually.

I was hoping that we would leave it down in the Keys after giving the arm rests until my knuckles turned white as we went over the many bridges of the Keys. Gusts hitting the coach making it feel as though it’s going to blow us right into the ocean. The sky’s pitch black with no stars or moon… only darkness after the tiny guardrails.. Can a coach tip over? I know it can.. but hope we never experience it or see it in person.

We stopped for the night at a service plaza after we made it through Miami.. something that is always better late at night or day time traffic. I went to bed with the prayers that the wind would be gone in the morning… alas no such luck and we are still dealing with it all the way through Georgia, maybe Tennessee which is coming up before to long will be better…

Right now, the wind has picked up and we are getting the snow flurries that the information signs keep warning us about.. granted it’s the Georgia snow flurries and not what this Colorado girl would call flurries… but still when I stepped out of the coach to stop at Sonny’s BBQ for lunch, part of me wonders why the hell we are going North instead of staying down South.

Georgia Snow

Oh yeah… money… I remember know we are going home to work in the shop and make some money. I think it’s time to find a way to make money that includes a warmer climate… and less traveling on windy days… But for now, we are white-knuckling it home…

Key West- Sun and Wind

Today was a lazy day in paradise.. Got up this morning and moved the RV to dump the grey tank.  I wish we could figure out a way to hook the grey tank to a black, because the grey  tank fills up to fast and our black doesn’t.  Since we have a 105 fresh water tank and a 60 grey and 40 black we could go a long time without anything if we could put some of the grey water into the black.  Something to think about.  That aside, I love being on the base.  We take the truck and drive to one of the bases closer to town and ride the bikes from there.  Today we went to the Truman Annex (next door to Fort Zachary- which is home to a nice bench that the locals like) to drop off a repair manual for the generator with a fellow RV-er who is having trouble with his and has the same type.  Hopefully it will help him.  Scot then spent the morning metal detecting the little beach there.. while I searched for that treasure that might have washed up on the shore.  Needless to say neither one of us got much more then a little to much sun.  Still it was perfect weather with a cool wind blowing and a sun shining.. so very enjoyable.

Beach at Truman Annex… no treasure, but what a view!

Found there we went downtown on bikes looking for some grub.  Wanted to try for some great seafood, checked out a few places.  Was hoping to go to Keyviche, but they were closed until 6, so ended up at Gran’s.  I had the grilled tuna salad (which was more of a seared tuna salad.  Had a nice flavor, but don’t think I’d get it again.  Scot had a blacked snapper sandwich (which I would order if we went there again, though I would prefer it as a salad instead) it was delicious.   Pricey as most of Key West is on food.  Lunch with two meals and one tea, one water $46 and change.

Goats used to keep down weeds on the part of Fort Zachary not opened to public.

Makes me wonder how much people spend if they are down here for vacation.. Hotels are probably $150 a night or so… plus meals.. Yikes.  Still it is hard to argue or be upset over it when you are at the beach.

I will say if you do come here.. bring or rent a bike.  It’s the only way to travel in the city.  Parking spaces are hard to come by and pricey.  The cheapest parking garage we’ve seen is $2 an hour or $13 a day… that would add up fast if you were doing it daily.

If you are retired military or active duty, make sure you check out the ITT at the MWR.  They had bike rentals and cheaper priced tickets for several tourist attractions.. including some of the diving and snorkeling trips.

Key West- Mel Fisher Museum

We explored Key West today. I love the fact that you can ride a bike or walk to get almost everywhere here. We checked out the Navy Annex and Trumbo Point Naval Base. In fact, we parked there and biked from there to downtown. Went to the Mel Fisher Museum. Pretty darn cool… so would like to find some of those treasures myself. Amazing to see the different things that they have found on shipwrecks, who knew that bars of silver look that way. So want to get back to diving. Road around until my hip was killing me… planning another trip tomorrow..

Silver Bars… Please let me find out of these as a rock in my garden!

Gold… please let me find one of these walking the beach!

Key West… was that a rooster?

I’m feeling blessed. Seems we were misinformed last year when we asked about staying at the Navy Base in the RV camping area. We were told that you had to rotate in and out of wet camping, but not that once you got in to camping you could stay forever. We originally planned on staying on base for two weeks, but when we came here a couple weeks ago they were totally filled. Seems that everyone has taken advantage of cheaper fuel and came all the way down to Key West for the winter, so we ended up back up in Marathon at Knight’s Key. They are still open, but only until December as far as they know. It’s nice and familiar, plus Marathon has a great Greek place – La Mediterranne. We had arranged to camp at the RV parking at the Key West Craft Festival, but were going to leave the RV at the base during set up since we couldn’t park until after 5. We decided to check just in case someone had checked out as it had rained the day before and sometimes that motivates people to leave. Miracles of miracles… they had one spot for our size rig! Sweet! We will be in dry camping the whole time we are head, because it’s taking about 6 weeks to rotate through right now… but the price is $14 instead of the cheapest we could find of $85. So Sweet.

Now let’s talk Key West… every time we come down here I find another reason I like this place… This time it’s chickens.   Yes, you know that funny bird that either crows at all hours of the day and night or lays an egg. Well apparently at some point cock fighting became illegal, so between that and people just letting their chickens out Key West has it’s own little flock running loose every where.. I do mean everywhere. Me, I like chickens.. so I’m enjoying cackling at them as we travel down the street or listen to the rooster that inhabits the campground crow.. even if it is 3 in the morning. Me.. as an old farm girl, finds it comforting. And these chickens, they are protected birds.. there is a fine of $500 if you kill one. That makes me chuckle…. Okay I laughed out loud when I heard it. But apparently it’s true. Makes me want to stay longer and see what else I like about the area.