We're leaving Sugarloaf Key, on route to Tampa via Alligator Alley.... my next post will contain pics of the 'gators.

Ruth and Bill McKeever are Show Offs

They have flamingos, they have palm trees, they have all sorts of lights, and you can also see an American flag in the background.

Ruth and Bill collected the buoys that are hanging from their awning frame after a hurricane a few years ago.

The amusement park atmosphere they've created has raised the standard for the appropriately decorated camper exterior in the southern keys.

Key West Botanical Gardens

Linda Dayton and I took a short trip to the KWBG yesterday.

The gardens were a WPA project and over the years, the gardens fell into neglect. A recent restoration project has begun and the gardens and walkways are becoming well groomed and inviting.

By drilling and cutting through solid coral, a fresh water pond is being built over a natural aquefor. I imagine this project will be finished within the next year.

It's a perfect place to bring a lunch and relax among the numerous rare palms, lignum vitae, cactus, and butterflies.

At the end of one of the trails, we saw a frenzied and determined male duck run into a pond and, I thought, attack another duck. The male duck held the female's head underwater. I thought he was going to kill her. It was, however, a mating ritual. Wild stuff.

How Many Roosters?

Many people come to the KOA park and stay for a month or more. Some of the long termers express themselves by decorating the outsides of their campers. So, I often see plastic flamingos, wire parrots, buoys, blowup palm trees, and strings of lights on the ground that outline and identify the camper's territory. I'm beginning to think there's some kind of unspoken competition to see who can have the tackiest and most novel outside decor.

When I was walking one of the dogs yesterday, I saw something new. There is was: a corral of paper mache roosters with feathers glued all over them. In the background on the right is a single hen with three eggs.

There are quite a few live roosters that live in the lower keys, including the KOA campground, and I was fooled at first. This is my idea of great campground decoration.

I don't know if I could top this one!

How Does He Paint Like That?

I don't paint, and I can't understand how someone can take a canvas and a bunch of paints and brushes and create a beautiful painting.

Lucky for me, I'm married to someone who has a great skill for painting. I appreciate his gift.

This newest painting is another great one.

He keeps getting better all the time.

Mallory Square Right Before Sunset

Hundreds of people funnel into Mallory Square every evening to watch the sunset.

There's always a variety of performers to entertain the crowd, and as soon as the sun sets, it's all over.

The sunset wasn't all that spectacular partially because there weren't any clouds in the sky, but that didn't matter.

The street show was enough.

EcoTour in the Keys

First of all, Pete just can't help being himself. He has to be seated in the Captain's seat.

The KOA offers a morning tour in a pontoon boat that goes in the shallow waters off Sugarloaf Key.

The morning was perfect. Most of the water surrounding the lower keys is very shallow. It seems that if the water were 5 feet more shallow, the landmass of the lower keys would be at least twice as large as it is now.

The seastar is red............the ones we see in Maine are brown.

We were on the EcoTour with Lyn and Linda Dayton and Bet and Bill Crain.

This Man Needs Your Help

Do you see the bumblebee socks? Does the man appear to be proud of the way he looks?

The socks are from www.flightclubny.com and while they are stylish, I don't think they were meant to be worn with shorts and deck shoes.


We all know who does marketing for Flight Club. Will this person please come forth and advise this man about how to wear shorts and shoes.


Or, maybe I'm wrong.

Fish Fry at the Southernmost Firehouse

Of course we went. You didn't have to ask. But what I didn't know was that the biggest band in the Keys would be playing music. It was a great day. We went with Ruth and Bill McKeever.

www.milemarker24.com

They're similar to Jimmy Buffett and they play at our KOA sometimes too.

The fish was outstanding and the beer was cold. AND at the end of the day, books were selling for $1/bagfull (I got about 10 travel books) and regular flea market items were $2/bagfull. Ruth filled up a bag of goodies for their camper.

High Standards at the KOA

This is an example of the serious decorating that I have seen here at the KOA.


Palm trees, flamingos, alligators, old buoys, and strings of lights are all part of the night scenery here. The sun goes down and the lights come on. And they really come on. You can see that people take great pride in their campground decor.

Sky is in Rio

And this is the one picture that he sent us. What a life.

You can see his black toes from soccer cleats.

Nellie and Lena, AKA "The Goobers"

Pete had been wanting to get a dog, and in the spring of 2000, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Also, at exactly that time, I heard about a litter of about a dozen lab puppies that were just about ready to be sold.

It was the last few days of the school year, so there weren't any students in the school. The teacher who was in the classroom across the hall from me brought her new yellow lab puppy to school with her. I was in love.

Pete and I went to look at the pups and Pete picked his favorite. We bought the pup and immediately bought a crate for the pup. She has come to be known at Nelliethegooddog.

Lena came to us in a different way. Sky was dating Miriam whose family bought a pug for the younger kids. I think we knew we would end up with the dog, and about a year and a half later, after a few families kept her for a week or two and brought her back, we said that we would take her. She has come to be known at Lenathebaddog.

Pete's Back and He's Painting!

Wednesday evening, I picked up Pete at the Key West airport and he told me he was ready to paint. So, early Thursday morning, out came the paints, he loaded up the car and he drove south to the same house on Key West that he painted last year. Last year's painting is on this blog too.

He spends about 4 - 6 hours on a painting this size, 24" X 30", and when he drives back to the KOA, he rests for a short while, then he adds the Master's finishing touches. Then, he's done for the day. Good night, Pete. It takes all of his energy to paint a canvas. It's a good one!

Key West Sunset

In case you weren't on the beach in Key West last night, this was the sunset you missed. Oranges, pinks, and yellows dominated the blue sky for about 3 minutes.

Watching the sunset from Mallory Square is a Key West tradition. It's a circus atmosphere there. There might be a one man band, a juggler, a unicyclist, a contortionist, and a magician drawing crowds and accepting tips. Everyone has fun there, but we decided to go to the beach instead and I do think we saw a more dramatic sunset there. It was a lot more quiet and there are parking spaces all along the road. Finding a parking space in downtown Key West is more difficult every year.

Tropic Cinema in Key West

My friend Linda has been visiting us here at the Sugarloaf Key KOA and yesterday we decided that we wanted to see a movie.

http://www.fandango.com/ is a site where you can enter the name of a town or its zip code to find out what movies are playing nearby. I was surprised that there are two movie cinemas in Key West, so we had about 8 movies from which to choose. We decided to see Milk.

The Tropic Cinema is right in the heart of Key West, just off Duval Street. I'm sure we drove past it many times and never noticed it.

This movie theater is totally charming. The interior looks like it was recently rennovated in an Art Deco style. There are four screens, a small eating area, and a Monday night film festival. One of the movies was sold out (2 pm showing), and ours was fairly full, so the movie business in Key West seems to be doing just fine. I'm going back soon.

No Name Pub on No Name Key

Lots of places in the keys aren't heavily advertised. Case in point, the No Name Pub.

Imagine walking into a pub that has its walls and ceiling completely covered with dollar bills. This treasure is a small, dark pub with its menu printed on the placemat. Our waitress was one of the happiest and funniest wait staff I have ever encountered. She loved her job and we knew it.

Almost everyone orders a pizza. When Pete ordered his pizza with anchovies, he was reminded that the menu offers "furry fish", and that's how he should order.

According to a sign in the ladie's room, it's estimated that between $60,000 and $70,000 is hanging in the pub.

Pamela and David Howard

Pete has known them since the mid 1970's, when he had the post and beam house built on Woodmont Road, Hopewell Junction.

David advertised in Yankee Magazine and Pete was the second person to answer his ad.

Pete and I lived in the little house, but we outgrew it; we needed more space, larger rooms, all those middle class things. So we had Dave design the addition. Dave does have a great sense of humor and on the plans that we would have to get approved by an engineer, he drew a tugboat in one of the bays of the garage. Pete took the plans to the engineer, and the engineer threw the plans back to Pete. David's style was not appropriate for him!

We found someone else to put his seal on the plans.

David and Pamela spend some of the winter in Hollywood, Florida and the rest of the year in Walpole, NH. We were glad they had the time to come south to spend a day with us. David's website is http://www.firstdaycottage.com/

Do not come to the Florida Keys

The picture of this caterpillar doesn't show the dramatic colors it has. I took the pic with my phone and emailed it to myself, but I couldn't upload it because it wasn't in a format that the blog could read.

So, I slept on it; I do my best work in my sleep. The next morning, I made the pic large, took a pic of it with my camera and uploaded that pic to the blog.

What you don't see is that the caterpillar is bright red and the legs or spines are black and have little knobs and the ends like a hairbursh with plastic bristles would have. It was about 1 1/2 " long and it moved like an inchworm.

Patty's weakness

I love having lots of prints on our walls, and I also know that since we're retired, out print buying days are over.

But, yesterday afternoon we were at an event for Habitat for Humanity event on Big Pine Key. There was music, music, music, music, and beer.........and two tables of silent auction items. No surprise then that the Audubon print you see here to the left was among the items being auctioned. It is matted and framed beautifly so I talked myself into it.

I huddled around the table at 3:59, so I could get the last bid, $1 higher than the previous one. The print was mine.

I did a little research this morning and we did get a great deal. And a great, large print.

Dumb da dumb dumb

An email from Denis Minervini yesterday included this link:

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/just_fun/games/mapgame.html

The site itself, www.rethinkingschools.org has many articles and links that are worth your time.

Wildlife at the KOA

Pete and I were walking the dogs yesterday and we spied this lizard in a tree. According to Pete's estimation, it was about three feet long.

Once Lizzy realized there were two people and two dogs nosing around her, she scrambled up into the branches.

I had to climb onto a picnic table to take this picture, so I hope you realize I sacrificed life and limb to share Lizzy with you.

I've been trying to copy and paste the embedding line from YouTube, and I just can't get the whole line moved to my blog, so I'm going to send the link for this video that Pat Buckley emailed to me today. It's very funny. Do you think Pete would like one of these cars?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAqPMJFaEdY

Pete and his paints hit Key West

One morning last winter, Pete packed up his paints and easel and drove to Key West. He returned that afternoon with this beautiful painting. I think it was either 12 X 16 or 16 X 20. The painting hung in the East Boothbay General Store and it sold within a couple of weeks. He sold 8 paintings last summer, so there is definitely a following for his work.

He's been thinking about driving to Key West in the next few days to paint the same house again.

Last year, we had the Airstream motorhome and storage was a premium. This year, we have a larger Monaco motorhome, so Pete has a lot more room in the basement for his canvases. He's ready to paint. Watch out, Key West.

This Past Year's Annual Lyman Boat Rally

Boating is, of course, a big important pastime in Maine. Many people have sailboats, some have yachts, and some have wooden Lyman boats. We have a 1967, 24 foot Lyman that I lovingly refer to as the money pit. The first weekend of August is the Lyman Rally in midcoast Maine, and this year it was held at the waterfront restaurant in Christmas Cove, just across the Damariscotta River and a little south from where we live. The photo is taken from our boat looking down the river to some of the other boats at the rally. Maine really is a great place.

This is one of my new favorite sites

On the news a couple of days ago, I heard about http://www.ted.com/. It sounded interesting, so I wrote the site's address on a piece of paper, but later, I couldn't remember why I wrote it. And then, of course, I forgot all about it; but then this morning, I opened an email from Sky and he had sent this link to me

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness.html

Now I remember why I wrote the address in the first place. Take some time and explore this site

I like this life.

We drove from the freezing north to the very warm south a few weeks ago. We'll stay here at the KOA on Sugarloaf Key until the end of February. Life is good. We keep trying to think up ways to keep our house in Maine..........B and B............... or maybe B and NoB.........B and Kayak............. I wonder if it would be possible to rent the two upstairs bedrooms, each with its own bathroom. It's possible we'll be there for the summer if we don't sell the house. We keep forgetting to buy that winning lottery ticket. I think we're waiting for a miracle.

http://www.tindalandcallahan.com/910950.htm

We had to celebrate the big day!

It's about time

Since Pete and I will be leaving for Florida next week, I figure it's about time I start a blog.