Day14 27Feb25 - KW

Thursday after breakfast June and I scootered to Mary and John's hotel, The Key West Capitana Hotel, it is very boutique. 

We eventually decided to take a boat ride.  We decided to take a glass bottom boat ride but somehow, Fred, booked a snorkel trip.  I am still not sure how that happened but it was done, we were booked on "Reef & Ritas" by Fury Adventures for a 1300 departure.

June and I scootered back to camp to get our swim suits and we met at Mallory square around 1100 to find a place for a quick lunch before our 1230 check in at the boat.

While looking for a place for lunch it started to rain, not a good sign. We ducked into "Pickel's Pub Sandbar", it is basically a bar with food. We both ordered Nacho's to share, good lord two of us could not even finish them, and they were pretty tasty, if you like lots of jalapenos. 

We made our way to the docks in plenty of time, checked in and looked at the beautiful boats with envy, it must be an entirely different life. 

The Fury departed on schedule with about 36 passengers, the weather was still iffy but so far the rain was holding off. 

The cruise is basically a 1 hour ride to the reef, 1 hour snorkeling and 1 hour back with drinks, thus the name Reef and Ritas.  It started raining pretty hard on the trip out but eventually it cleared and the sun was quite warm, it remained very cloudy looking back at KW. 

Despite the marginal weather, it was fun to get out on the water again and for us northerners, it was still quite warm.

June and I snorkeled, June went down the stairs and I jumped off the side, but I failed to find her in the about 1/2 hour of snorkeling. With heads down, everyone looks the same and the little women didn't care for me coming up on them to see if it was June, so I just did my own thing. 

The reef was a fair distance from the boat but that is where you had to get to for good snorkeling. The fish were plentiful and colorful, but I did not see any turtles, or rays we always look for. I decided to look for June again so swam back to the boat only to find her standing on the rail.  

June and at least one other woman we spoke with saw a large shark swim below them and that was enough for June to head back to the boat.  She spoke with one of the deck hands about it and he said they won't bother you, but June was having none of it, I am sorry I missed it. 

Once done snorkeling we were served drinks of beer (Land Shark) or Margaritas.  The Ritas were surprisingly good!  June needed a few just to calm down from her close encounter with a shark!

The ride back was fun and everyone enjoyed themselves. 

The "people" watching on the boat was almost worth the trip. The girls sat next to a young man that had to be 6' 5" and built like a Greek statue. Mary said he had to be a model but neither would ask him. Of course they said his girl friend was not pretty enough for him.  There were also attractive and not so attractive women with suits that just disappeared in certain places, the girls kept saying stop staring....(of course that was only to John). 

Once back on land we wandered KW taking in the sights. We get a kick out of the chickens, they are everywhere and quite noisy. 

Some of the shop owners put up funny signs. 

Baker could post this sign on his property!

We walked by the little white house with its impressive banyan trees. 

The girls look small next to the massive tree. 

We eventually wandered to the south section of the city to eat at the Ram's Head Southernmost restaurant. John and Mary ate there on their first day and liked it. 

The girls shared a bucket of painkillers. 

It was a great meal, with live music and great food.  

We even shared a piece of Key Lime Pie that was very delicious. 

Our neighbor, Tom, keeps asking us to bring him back some Key Lime Pie, but we keep eating it.... Sorry Tom, it wouldn't survive the scooter ride anyway....that is my story and I am sticking with it. 

After dinner, we sent John and Mary further south to the buoy, if you are in KW you have to get the obligatory picture, we got ours in 2020, they done good. 

June and I set back for Mallory Square where we left our scooter. When we arrived the sun was below the horizon but being a cloudy day it made for a spectacular post sunset. 

The entertainers were still playing to the crowds, Mallory Square is the place to be at sunset. 

It was our last evening in Key West, we were a good kind of tired and scootered back to camp.  

Friday we will start our way north, we have no set plans other than we want to visit Bruce and Melissa on Sunday. 

Day13 26Feb25 - Moving to the southern most point in the continental USA, 90 miles to Cuba

On Wednesday we left for Key West as early as we could manage, a bit before 0600.  We hoped to get to Boyd's campground around 12N but an accident just north of Key Largo added over an hour to the trip. 

We sat there quite a while, people got out of their cars and just sat on the Jersey Barriers.  We turned off the engine and ran the roof air on batteries, just because I could, knowing the batteries will recover when we drive (and when we plug in at the camp ground). 

I popped my head out of the skylight for this picture. When we got moving the north lane was still parked since the accident was in that lane..they might still be there. We later heard that Liz's son, Nick, was stuck there trying to go north. 

The trip to KW is pretty scenic, especially the 7 mile bridge. 

We arrived at Boyd's at around 1300, what should have been a 5.5hr drive took 7.25hrs but we still had plenty of the day left. 

We quickly unloaded the scooter and got settled. The sites at Boyd's are close but everyone has a table and enough space to open your awning. 

We headed for downtown KW to meet John and Mary.  Boyd's is actually on Stock Island, but is the closest campground to KW.  It is about 3 miles to KW, about 5 miles to Mallory Square.  On the scooter it is an easy commute and we don't need to worry about finding a place to park it. 

We were downtown by about 1400 and parked at Mallory Square. We found John and Mary after a bit of looking and cell phone work. My sister refuses to share her location with me, she plays dumb but I know!

The cruise ship is massive.

We enjoyed a drink and listening to music along the water front. 

We enjoyed watching the beautiful ships pass close to the water front, they all blew their horns for the tourists, but this one had a canon...very impressive!

We wandered the streets of KW taking in the people watching and other sites. 

Some people are just silly!

Of course we had to visit Sloppy Joe's. Much to our surprise we were able to walk in and get the only open table in the place.  We had a nice dinner and drinks. 

We eventually made our way back to Mallory Square to be there for the sunset. The entertainers were in the square, but not as many as I recall from 5 years ago, the last time June and I were here. 

The square was crowded but we managed to get to the edge where we could get the sun on our faces.

It is hard to get a picture that looks anywhere near what one experiences but still not bad.

The sunset at KW doesn't disappoint, it was quite beautiful. 

After sunset, John and Mary set out to Uber to their Hotel and we scootered to the campground.  Boyd's was having customer appreciation night with free food and drinks.  June and I walked down to check it out, it was packed.  Since we were full anyway, we just retired to our campsite, it was a long day.

Thursday we have no real plans, but will certainly hang out in KW.  

Day 11/12 24/25Feb25 - Old Friends

Monday Liz fixed us a nice breakfast and since it was forecast to rain, we were a bit lazy.  We did some projects. Liz and I did a run to a Lowes that only existed on google but eventually got what we needed at Home Depot. Some projects got done, some didn't, but we had fun doing what we did. 

For dinner June and Liz prepared a big meal and we were joined by the neighbors Sal and Susan.  Sal and Susan are Canadian, they have wintered here for years but are selling their US property. It is a combination of things, like the strength of the US dollar, politics, and grand children pulling them back to Canada full time.  

The meal was great and we had a very nice time. 

Tuesday, we did a few more projects and the weather turned in our favor, it was a nice day.  The water here is a bit hard, so we spent a good part of the day draining and flushing the hot water tank. 

We went to dinner at the local Italian restaurant, The Saucy Meatball, the meal was great. 

Tomorrow we will move onto Key West where we will meet up with Sister Mary and her husband John for a few days. 

Day10 23Feb25 - Moving farther south

On Sunday we took our time at CB and set off about 0930 for Saddle Creek Country Park to dump our tanks before heading for Liz and John's.  We didn't really need to dump but the RV will be sitting in the sun for 3 days, so it is best they are empty.  The park is huge, there were fishermen everywhere and huge vultures in the trees and on the road. Saddle Creek campground is a small RV park on the creek, there were plenty of open sites, had they answered the phone, we would have stayed in the campground last night. 

I wandered around and asked a camper where the office was, it was a house trailer in the middle of the park but no one seemed around. Eventually, I heard someone yell "come on in, I am being lazy today".  The elderly man and his wife were sitting in a dark screened in porch, it was about 60F and they were dressed for winter. He even had an electric jacket on, he said you must be from up north...too funny. We had a nice chat and for $10, we dumped and got rid of our trash. 

We set out for Fort Myers around 1000, for the most part we stayed off the highways, mostly CR663. 

The roads were good and we are always amazed how straight and flat the roads are in Florida.  

With stops for coffee, groceries, lunch and fuel, we arrived at John and Liz's around 1345. 

We unloaded the scooter and spent the afternoon/evening hanging with Liz and John, we have not seen them in 5 years but it seemed like yesterday. 

Liz wanted an inspection of her new roof, so I put up the drone. Cypress Links

We sat on the lanai and had drinks before dinner, very relaxing.

Monday, we will work on the todo list. 

Day9 22Feb25 - Goofing off in Orlando

On Saturday we went back to the Marriot Grande Vista in Orlando to hang out with Tom and Lori another day.  

We arrived around 10AM and went to the pool to hang.  It was still a bit cool but the pool was warm, the hot tub warmer and when the sun came out it was really warm. 

It was nice to soak up the heat of the sun after having such a cold winter up north. 

After sammiches for lunch we decided to seek out the mini golf place we drove by when going to dinner on Thursday, Pirate's Cove.  

We had a great time, there were some cool holes. 

You don't realize how "not golf" it really is until you hit your first ball in the water......and it floats! 

Regardless, we had so much fun on the first 18 holes, we did another 18 holes on their second course. 

For June and I one of the coolest things was most holes had a plaque giving some history on some pirate character. Ordinarily this would mean nothing to us, but we have been watching the series 'Black Sails' and many of the characters are the subject of the plaques on the holes, kind of cool. 

This is Anne Bonnie, they did a good job depicting her in the series. 

If you want to watch Black Sails here is a link to the trailer.

Black Sails Trailer

Some of us did not behave and had to be put in the stocks for a bit. 

After our strenuous 36 holes of golf, we went back to Tom and Lori's place and cooked dinner. The hotel provides grills and Tom grilled up pork chops, chicken and veggies.  It was a feast, but after 36 holes, we earned it...wink wink.  

It was a great day of fun in the sun with friends, we left around 1945 and headed for the Cracker Barrel in Lakeland, FL which is just outside of Tampa. I tried to get a campground, but on a Saturday night in Florida in the winter....it is hard.  The campgrounds don't even bother calling you back, we really don't care but it seems to be the state of our world, no common curtesy.  The Lakeland CB is great, just off the highway, easy access, good parking, gotta luv CB. 

If anyone has read this far, here is a tidbit of data completely unrelated to the blog. You can skip to the end of this post. :-) 

When we left home on Friday February 14th, I turned the hot tub from its usual setting of 102F to 80F since we will not be home. The hot tub sits in our garage which is heated to 40F, it is butted up to an overhead door which makes that area a bit colder. I monitor the temperature and power usage of the hot tub and can do it remotely.  I was somewhat amazed at how long it took the hot tub to get down to 80F.  

It took over 7 1/2 days.

I know, who cares, but I find it interesting and it tells me a few things.  I don't need to worry about it during a power outage (don't waste my battery backup capacity on the hot tub), since it will probably take several weeks to get to freezing. I also often wondered how much of the hot tub heat contributes to the heating of the garage, given how long it takes to cool, I would say it contributes very little, if any. 

How much does it cost to run a hot tub?  

Ours is about $34/month @20 cents per kWh for electricity in VT. VT has about the highest rates in the country, so check your rate and scale accordingly. 

OK, sorry for that diversion, but I had to record it somewhere. 

Sunday we will make our way to Fort Myers to visit John and Liz, it has been 5 years. We used to see them almost every winter, I blame Covid for messing up our lives. 

Day8 21Feb25 - Visiting Cuzes

On Friday we had a good breakfast at CB, then continued our way north towards Gainesville to meet some of my cousins for lunch.  

We stopped at Tractor Supply along the way and filled our propane tank. When we arrived in Florida on Tuesday, it was nice, 70's, since then, it has been chilly.  In the 40s when we get up and barely reaching 60F in the day, so we have been using the furnace every night. That being the case, it does a great job and the fill-up only took 6.7 gallons of propane, our tank is 15 gallons.

We met with my cousins at 1300 for lunch at a Chinese buffet, something for everyone. We ate and chatted for over 2 hours. It was nice to catchup.  We go years between seeing each other but there is something about family that let's you just pick up where ever you left off. 

June and I with Cousin Danny, Cousin Brenda and Dan's wife Rachel. 

It was great to see some of the Cuzins and we might see more on the way home...I have many. 

After a big breakfast and a big lunch we visited George and Gail's again on the way back to Orlando. They insisted we go to dinner with them and their friends Rick and Amy.  We went to Chili's and June and I were still pretty full so we split an appetizer, we did the best we could. We enjoyed dinner and meeting their friends.  

After dinner we went back to the Winter Gardens Cracker Barrel for the night, it is just outside of Orlando where we will visit with Lori and Tom again on Saturday. We then plan to make our way towards Fort Myers where we will visit Liz and John.  We have not visited them since we were escaping covid in 2020.

Day7 20Feb25 - Orlando Visiting our VT Neighbors

Thursday morning we loaded up the scooter, filled our water and dumped our tanks and were headed for Orlando around 0930.  The Florida traffic is getting worse every year we come here, but it moved along pretty good; we arrived at the Marriot Grande Vista around 11AM. We had to park the Serenity Falcon in a sales lot, since they don't allow RVs, Tom met us and chauffeured us back to their suite. 

We dropped our stuff and walked to the golf course, we had an 1130 lunch reservation and a 1300 Tee time. 

The course was an executive type par3 that was kept in perfect shape.  

I hacked my way around the course in my usual fashion. 

We had fun, Tom is a better golfer and my putting was horrible, but that is nothing new. 

Dang it, I left that out there. Tom over the green. 

Almost This is my almost hole-in-one....so close.

June and Lori had a nice walk of about 3 miles. 

After golf we decided to do a nature walk. We drove to the Tibet-Butler Nature Preserve and hiked out to Osprey Overlook. We did not see any Ospreys but did see an Anhinga sunning himself.  

It was a nice walk at a nice temperature of around 60F in the sun.

After the hike we headed for Charley's Steak House since we had a 6PM reservation. Charley's Steak House

We had a nice time catching up over a nice meal.  We returned to the Marriot resort, where we watched the start of the 4 Nations Hockey final. We left during the first period since we did not know where we would park for the night. We started north towards Gainesville where we will meet my cuzins for lunch tomorrow. Our first Cracker Barrel stop had a sign that said no overnight parking, even though there were RVs there, so we moved on. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Winter Garden, Fl and parked for the night. 

I could not watch the game, but listened until the end of the 3rd period, it went to overtime, I went to bed. Unfortunately the USA lost in overtime......

Friday we will meet with some of my Stevenson cousins in Gainesville for lunch and then we will wing it but probably start our way to Fort Myers to visit Liz and John. 

Day6 19Feb25 - Recreation Plantation, hanging with the Pilgers

Wednesday we spent the day getting oriented with Lady Lake in the morning. 

George and Gail own a spot at an RV Park called Recreation Plantation, they spend about 4 months here when it is deep winter at home. It is close to The Villages where they have many friends from wintering there previous years. 

The place has over 1000 RV spots and all the amenities of a typical resort: Pickle Ball, Bocci, Shuffle  Board, swimming pools etc. 

The Pilger's spot is a corner lot near the back entrance, it is one of the largest lots and we were able to park on their spot with them.  If you look closely, it is circled in red. 

Their corner lot gives them room for a bit of a yard.

In the morning, June and Gail went for a 3 mile walk around the Plantation while George gave me a tour with his new to him golf cart. 

The Sandhill Crane's that roam the property are huge and beautiful, we found this couple hanging around the Pickle Ball court. 

It was forecast to be a rainy day, so we did a tour of the area by car; to say the Villages continue to grow is an understatement. The amount of new building is hard to comprehend, it is endless. 

George ordered a passenger seat for his golf cart, it came, so it gave us something to do on a rainy day. 

There were a lot of parts that mostly fit as they were supposed to, but required tools like grinders and drills, there is no way this project could be completed with the tools specified. 

It came out pretty well. 

Thursday morning we left George and Gail and set off for the Orlando area. We may swing by again on our return trip, we/you never know. 

In Orlando we plan to visit our Vermont neighbors, Tom and Lori whom we have not seen since last fall...yeah, we drove to FL to see our VT neighbors...hmmm.