February 27, 2012

We left Dunn, N.C. this morning after breakfast and arrived home 6 hours later. The change in the scenery over the past two days has been very dramatic--from green grass, plants, shrubs, flowers and the beautiful palm trees in Florida to barren trees and brown grass of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. It sure makes me anxious for spring to arrive.

After we stopped for lunch in La Plata, Maryland, we searched for a geocache in Tilghman Park. Cordell was able to find it fairly easily from the clue we decoded. I dropped the traveling bug that I retrieved from a cache on one of the Florida Keys into this cache in La Plata. So that traveling bug traveled 984 miles as the crow flies! I think the owner will be surprised to see how fast their bug has moved this long distance.

We had a lot of stuff to unload from our vehicle and still have some to put away.  I will wait until tomorrow to start washing this pile of laundry!

We had a wonderful time on our trip and really enjoyed the warm Florida weather. However, it feels good to be back home and we look forward to continuing our new stage in life with Cordell’s retirement.

February 26, 2012

We awoke to clouds and rain this morning and decided to make a serious drive towards home. Our room was in a hotel right off Route 95 so we quickly hopped on the interstate and drove on it all the way to Dunn, North Carolina. It was raining heavily at times while we drove through Florida.

At the exits to Daytona Beach, we saw the Goodyear blimp circling the racetrack area. The right traffic lanes were filled with cars going to the NASCAR 500 Race. Earlier in the week, we had half seriously considered trying to get tickets and go to the race. I am glad that we didn’t follow through on that idea because the race was postponed until tomorrow due to the rain.

So we were on the road 10 ½ hours and by the time we arrived here in Dunn at 5:30 p.m. I was pretty much done! However, we estimate only a 5 ½ hour drive to Dunkirk and both of us are ready to be home once again after having a nice taste of spring and summer weather to tide us over.

February 25, 2012

Today, we met with our friend, Remy, whom we have known for several years. He is originally from Haiti and has resided in the U.S. since he came here to attend high school. He was sponsored by my hometown Lutheran church and my late mother provided housing for him. At the same time, she took him under her wing and became like a mother to him. Remy graduated from college, went to seminary and pastored a church for a while. Currently, he is a hospice chaplain, he teaches at the local college and he is working on his doctorate degree. I think that is quite an accomplishment for someone whose mother tongue is French! His mother from Haiti has been staying with him.

We reluctantly left the very warm weather of Fort Lauderdale and drove to Fort Pierce. The air became cooler and cooler as we traveled northward and we watched the temperature gauge steadily drop from the high 70’s to the 60’s. I changed into long pants at a rest stop realizing that the time for wearing shorts was over until warm weather arrives to stay in Maryland.

We visited with Dorothy, an old friend of my mother’s, who moved to Fort Pierce ten years ago to be closer to her son. She told us that she made a mistake and wishes she never left southwest Virginia.

February 24, 2012

This was a restful day for us.  We spent the morning doing laundry and catching up on personal things.

After lunch, we took the opportunity to look for one geocache. Cordell found a magnetic key box attached to a fence post behind some trees.

We would have liked to have looked for some more caches, but we decided to spend our last day of warm weather at the hotel swimming pool. When I left the pool, there were 4 people sleeping in the lounge chairs!

 

February 23, 2012

We left Marathon this morning and headed back north on U.S. Route 1. It is a 3 hour drive to Fort Lauderdale, our next destination.

On our way to Fort Lauderdale, we stopped by Sawgrass Recreational Park to go on an air boat ride. We ate lunch while waiting for our tour time and Cordell had alligator tail. I tasted it and while it had a good enough taste, I found it a bit hard to swallow just knowing what it was!

 

Since it was a 30 minute boat ride, I felt I could tolerate it without suffering motion sickness. It was a totally different ride from any that I have experienced on a boat---just a smooth glide. People on the boat with us were very excited that we were able to see 3 alligators. While it was interesting to see alligators, Cordell and I saw so many more of them when we toured the Everglades.

 

 

 

When we finally arrived in Fort Lauderdale the tempenture was 92 degrees.

February 22, 2012

Today we went to Pigeon Key which is only accessible by boat, bike riding or walking 2.7 miles over the old bridge. This 5 acre island is said to have been named after the large flocks of White-crowned pigeons which once roosted here. We traveled by boat.

We have learned a lot about Henry Flagler who had a vision to develop the east coast of Florida. He was responsible for building and consolidating railroads and eventually extended train service to Key West. All along the route he built hotels and resorts providing vacation opportunities for the rich people from the northeast and he also provided accommodations for the middle class citizens.

Between 1908 and 1912, there were at times as many as 400 workers housed on the Pigeon Key who worked on the railroad to Key West.

We passed an iguana when we returned to the dock at Marathon. We have seen iguanas at other places during our travels.

During the afternoon we went to Sombrero Beach which is the #1-rated beach in the continental United States. It is a public beach and there were a lot of people there today.

We stayed there about an hour and then went looking for some more geocaches. I continue to stay amazed by how many geocaches are hidden every place we check out. Today, we were able to find all 5 caches we were searching for.

A really clever hide was in a wooden box sunk to ground level and covered with a coconut and mulch.

Another one had a travel bug that I grabbed. I need to drop it in another cache. I plan to bring it back to Maryland and look for a good place to leave it.

Lost Beach cache was a magnetic key box stuck up in the post of a sign in a parking lot.

We attended Ash Wednesday service at Martin Luther Chapel which is located in Marathon. We joined them for a soup supper before the service and it was nice to meet some of the folks and talk with them. Not only did they serve a delicious corn chowder, but they had chicken salad, tuna salad, rolls, lettuce, vine ripened tomatoes, brownies and chocolate chip cookies. I commented that we would not have such ripe tomatoes to eat in Maryland until July.

February 21, 2012

A fifty mile drive to Key West this morning took over an hour due to the amount of traffic and the lower speed limit. We had expected to see beautiful views of the ocean and gulf but were disappointed that shrubs and trees blocked a lot of our line of sight.

However, we did cross the new Seven Mile Bridge which links the city of Marathon to Little Duck Key and we had a wonderful view. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland will not seem as daunting to me anymore.

I found it interesting to see utility poles standing in water along many of the keys.

There were a lot of people visiting Key West today and it was difficult to find a parking place. Thanks to a tip from our friend, Bill, we located a lot that was within reasonable walking distance to the center of the town.

We took a 90 minute tram tour which was very informative.

There are many styles of houses here. I had never seen an “Eyebrow House”. The roof extends down over the windows of the top floor because it was thought to keep the house cooler.

Some people painted the underside of  their porch ceilings blue or a blue/green color to deter the wasps from building nest there. The reasoning was that the insects became disoriented and thought that the ceilings were, in fact, the sky so they flew on their merry way.

Several old homes were constructed using the cookie cutter trim similar to what we have seen on Victorian Era houses. Notice the row of bottles cut out on the fence. One theory is that this was done during the days of Prohibition to signify that alcohol could be had at this site.

We saw "gypsy chickens” walking free all over the island. Our guide explained that many, many years ago, when Cubans settled in Key West to support the booming cigar industry, they brought roosters with them and had rooster fights. In the 1970’s, when cock fights were declared illegal, the Cubans just released their fowl. Over time, these chickens were given protected species status and no one is allowed to disturb them.

We also learned that there are no squirrels on Key West. Another fact—only two keys have fresh water. Even though there are a few cisterns, most all of the fresh water is pumped in from Miami.

This photo was made at the southernmost point in the continental United States. Cuba is only 90 miles away and it is said that on a clear night one is able to see the lights of Havana.

We reached the southern terminus of Route 1…

…and then we headed back north.

On our way back to Marathon we stopped at Veteran's Park so Cordell could wade in the Gulf.

After arriving back on Marathon and since this was Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday, I ate pancakes for dinner tonight as many people do to observe this last day before the season of Lent begins.