Get a cup of coffee...

...and sit down for a spell. I am already two and half days behind and probably won't finish this post until two days from now, but we gotta catch up.

Starting up where I last left us with Saturday night, there was quite the windstorm and finally some rain which howled and swirled and shook the Beach House all night long.  Thought for sure we would wake up to at least some puddles, but somehow the rain all went somewhere else and not a bit of difference was noted the next morning, except the day was dryer and the temperature was lower.   We did get to sit outside and watch the lightening as the storm approached, but wisely took cover before it hit.  Thank you Pat and Nancy, the wine was perfect and I know you have received pictures of the curly straws in use.

Sunday we looked at the calendar and suddenly realized we were expected up the coast in Jupiter the next day, Monday, and not the day after.  Oops, we had lost track of time.  So we dashed around and took care of some last minute purchases, did laundry, and mapped out our drive.  Awoke early the next morning and dumped and refreshed the tanks, gave the Beach House a bath and bid adieu to Key West.  If you ever want to visit the Caribbean, but don't really feel like leaving the USA, then that's the place to go.  Seriously, that is the vibe down there and is is cheaper and closer than St. Thomas, St. John, etc.

Heading up I-95 we retraced our way up the Keys and encountered little traffic but crazy drivers. Having driven in most states, all of whom claim to have the worst (or best) drivers, we have to say Miami up to about Boynton Beach is filled with the worst of the worst drivers.  Especially ones who drive little black sedans and would be roadkill by morning if not for the evasive skills of the many people they purposefully cut off.  

We spent Monday night with our friends (and NM neighbors) the Scalas and their brood in Jupiter.  We were able to park in a neighbor's driveway by prior arrangement, but wouldn't you know the fella did not tell his wife to expect a strange vehicle in the driveway.  So when she came home and asked what was the Mercedes doing in the driveway, her husband told her he bought it!  That stinker; she was really disappointed when he said he was joking, too, so he might have to buy her one anyway.

-Sue and Pete's grandson Ryder-

-Sue and Pete's granddaughter Cheyenne-

Jake and Ryder in motion as always

Tuesday found us up the road a piece in Melbourne with Cheryl's former boss from 35 years ago and his wife, Bill and Shirley Barnhart.  I must also add that the Barnharts and their beagle Daisy are the only ones who truly and completely understand why the Beach House belongs to Hercules as much as to us.  We had such a wonderful time swapping stories and catching up on mutual friends, we could have stayed up all night talking if we had not agreed we were now all old farts that actually had to go to bed.  

View from the indoor-outdoor room  (yes Danny, you see a tee).  Poorly lit pond in foreground is where Hercules walked in during a moment of confusion about where the path was.

I have to interject here that we are so very lucky and blessed to have such wonderful friends all over the country who have shown us such tremendous hospitality, been generous with their time and opened their homes unconditionally to us and our dog.  You are all among the truly precious jewels in our life and we thank you.  

Tonight finds us just north of Jacksonville.  We will head to Savannah, GA tomorrow for three nights and some charming southern history in the Squares of Savannah.  (Jackie, we are getting closer, you've got mail)

Cheryl

Stay Tuned

Hey folks, I know I am a day or so behind on my trip reports and it is going to be another day or two before I catch up again.  Rest assured all is well, we are just trying to find the time to adequately report all the goings on.  See you soon.
p.s. Nobody is going to hell, offensive blog bomb post removed.

So many devices, so few pictures

Sorry folks, went to town today and did not want to carry the purse with all the stuff, so just put my wallet in the shorts.  And Tom chose to  take pictures with the real camera, not the phone, so you will just have to trust me that the conch was tasty AND pretty, the salad and blackened chicken with ju ju sauce was pretty great too.

Went to Mallory Square, Southernmost Point, JB Margaritaville and took several wrong turns and got happily lost downtown midst scooters and buggies and two cruise ships full of visitors.

Pictures to follow whenever they get downloaded from the camera, which is after the trip, sad to say.

Health update:  Tom is a trooper. Herc is having one of his bouts with infections, but is on antibiotics and eating again.  He is having a few problems with bleeding from his hemangiomas, but nothing too awful.  Cheryl, the klutz, has a fully recovered back (thank you Magic Golf Ball) but twisted her ankle and fell today.  Ice, elevation and Capt. Morgan are all doing their job.  So now she limps on both legs and at least it is matching gait.  

Because it is all we have to show you for today, here is the swollen turned ankle, the trooper and the dog blissfully sleeping off his first meal in 36 hours.

Greetings from Milepost Zero

Well folks, we finally made it.  We are in Key West.  We managed to get a waterfront spot on the base, and while it does not have hookups, we have a generator and they have dump stations and water fill close by.  You probably could not find a prettier spot here on Key West.  Duval street is just down the road a couple of miles, which only takes a few minutes on the scooter.  In fact, it takes more time to put on the required safety equipment (gloves, closed toe shoes, long pants, long sleeve shirt or jacket, helmet with face mask and at night, a reflective vest) than it does to scoot from the base to Duval.

Shrimp boats and jet skis are in the bay in front of us, the local Sunset Bar at the marina (1/2 mile) serves shrimp, conch, burgers, salads and beer.  Duval St. is nonstop bars, restaurants and tourists, so this little oasis is a welcome respite, too.

Gators and Glades

I have bit more time to post now, so I thought I would bring you up to date on our adventures of yesterday, traveling from St. Petersburg to Key Largo.  I would give you some photos of the scenery but it was one of two things, either a commercial zone that could have been plucked from any city in America, or it was mangroves and grass.  You already know what the commercial zone looks like, CVS across the street from a Walgreens, a supermarket next to that, a gas station, some fast food joints and then stir and repeat.  Here, then, is the part that is the Everglades.

Miles and miles and miles of it.

Fortunately, about halfway through it, we found Wooten's Airboat Rides and Gator Show.  We skipped the kiss a gator and hug a gator opportunities, but we did see a particularly happy gator while waiting for our airboat ride.

Forty minutes later we had mud splatters and wind blown hair, but we thoroughly enjoyed our ride with Capt. Robbie through the glades.  

Key Largo

We are safely here in the Florida Keys. Not much time to post right now but I'll try and get back later, in the meantime enjoy the view.

South

Today dawned too early.  Or at least too early to make our intended departure of 8 am.  We did manage to leave at 9:30 and poor Tom has had to do all the driving today as Cheryl ended up with a back spasm between her shoulder blades.  Don't know what caused it, don't know what finally fixed it, but after a large glass of wine she can now take a deep breath without paroxysms of stabbing pain.  

One of Tom's goals this trip was to see the Dali museum in St. Petersburg.  Last time he was here, about 12 years ago, it was closed.  This time, they closed the road but the museum itself is open. We found a parking spot in the alternative lot, and Tom toured the museum while Cheryl tended to her back . (Nope, had not yet discovered the wine effects.  She was on her back with a golf ball under her shoulder.  It sorta got a little better as long as she did not have to move.). He forgot both his camera and his phone, so the only picture you get is his wristband.  He says there was a Warhol exhibit, too.

Late afternoon found us at the campground du nuit, this one called Frog Creek.  It is actually kinda cute, with many tree and a meandering creek suitable for fishy and canoeing.

Tom wants you to know the sign on the tree says "Beware of Alligators".

Moving On Over...

Somewhere after the late lunch at LuLu's, and the receipt of a lovely copy of her cookbook (Thank You Matt) we ended up at the one-and-only World Famous Flora-Bama Bar and Music Mecca.  We opted to have Bushwackers for dessert as they are mostly ice cream freezes with five different liqueurs. We don't know the top secret recipe but we do know it contains milk, and the five liqueurs include some sort of cocoa, chocolate, coconut and rum with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

After all that, it was early to bed for an oh-dark-thirty departure this morning. Slight adjustment to original plans today; we discovered the beach route we had thought of doing was going to be lots of stop and go driving and would take waaaaay too long to reach our destination.  So we tootled on over via  I-10, found us a nice little park with a lake full of ducks and Spanish moss-filled trees above.

We are just here for a quick overnight stop, and then it is off south tomorrow (tailwinds!)

Food, Friends and Fun

After leaving New Orleans we crossed Mississippi and Mobile Bay to arrive in Daphne, AL.  Our kind friends, the Simpsons, are hosting us and sharing their home and hospitality in exchange for green chili and Albuquerque Tortilla Co. Gorditas.  We figure we are getting the better end of the deal, but they insist they are.

We were enjoying a lovely glass of red wine before dinner when Cheryl got a little too enthusiastic and apparently slammed down the wine and glass with a bit too much force.  Sorry, Valerie.  I'll be replacing your glass shortly.

Last night found us in downtown Daphne at Manci's Antique Club.  It is a hole-in-the-wall diner/bar/Jim Beam Bottle Museum.  If you check out the display case behind me you can see some of the collector JB bottles.  They reportedly have all but three of them.

Mishmash, succotash, day-two-fey

Answers to yesterday's food:

Red beans and rice, muffuletta, gumbo, red jambalaya and Tom after the Hurricane(s). 

It was all delish.

Today's breakfast in pictures, after we forgot and already had started eating:

Took one of the mandatory carriage rides with Howard and Beauty the Mule.  Could not really hear much of the spiel, but it was a nice ride.  

This is Lafitte's; it's a bar.  Might be one of the oldest in NO. Or maybe it was the building that is the oldest.

Look closely behind the wrought iron cornstalks on the right, the groom is kissing the bride. <3

There were a few more cool buildings and homes, which may or may not belong (at some point in time) to Delta Burke, Nicholas Cage and Brangelina.  We met Stella, waved at Antoine's, and now know the best places to get hubcap burgers and alligator fritters. 

It was also surprising to us both how different the Quarter was between Friday and Saturday.  Many more crowds, many more early imbibers, we even saw one guy break a beer bottle to wave around as a weapon.  Not sure how that turned out as we skedaddled around the corner the other way.

'Nawlins!

My brother Bill made a special request when we got to New Orleans. Therefore this post will be rather short in words but long on pictures for his benefit.

Now that's some spicy sauce

Today found us headed to Avery Island, Louisiana where we got to visit the Tabasco production facility. 

If you saw the 60 Minutes feature, what they didn't tell you is how cute and pretty the island itself is.  From the guard at the bridge who hands your driving pass out on a long pole with a clothespin on the end to the rolling hills up to the 168 foot center of the island, it is all very quaint and picturesque.  Avery Island is also home to egret colonies, many other birds, and even has a Japanese garden along with camellias and azaleas and rare species of bamboo.  As for Tabasco products, we tasted Tabasco Ice Cream, Tabasco cola, Tabasco worcestershire, Tabasco teriyaki, Tabasco soy sauce, Tabasco jam, Tabasco red hots and that didn't even begin to cover the meat marinades, dip mixes, mayonnaise and what not.

And now for your quiz:

1.  What are the ingredients in Tabasco?

2.  How many varieties of Tabasco pepper sauce are there?

3.  Which corporation owns Tabasco?

Answers at the end.  In the 'Gee, I didn't know that' category we learned that Avery Island is atop one of the nation's largest salt domes, measuring 2.5 by 3 miles and believed to be as deep as Mount Everest.  And they mine the salt as well as use it in Tabasco production

And now for your answers:

1. Tabasco peppers, vinegar and salt.  That's it.  Of course it marinates and ferments for about three years before it is deemed worthy of being bottled in case you were thinking of making your own.

2. Seven-original red, green, garlic, chipotle, sweet and spicy, buffalo and habanero.  There is technically an eighth, the Family Reserve blend sold only at the factory, but they don't count that as a flavor since it is not commercially available.

3. None.  It has always been privately owned by the Avery-Marsh-McIllhenny family.

Greetings from Beaumont, Texas

We have officially crossed the Lotion Line.  That is the line between the dry air of New Mexico or West Texas where one must drink three extra glasses of water a day just to keep from shriveling up and the moist, humid coastal air where nothing ever dries out completely.  The line itself moves around a bit depending on the seasons, but we have put away the large economy size pump bottle of Extra Dry Skin Relief until our return loop gets west of Oklahoma City.

Yesterday we continued our visit to the Pacific War Museum in Fredericksburg, tootled down the road to Luckenbach and then wandered over to visit the LBJ Ranch National Park alongside the Pedernales River.  The bluebonnets and wildflowers were blooming, the grasses were green and the view of the hill country from the ranch was inspiring.  One really could imagine what it must have been like when LBJ hauled those city slickers from Washington D.C. out to the ranch for some down time and discussion.

We ended the night in Driftwood, TX and spent the evening with friends from Cheryl's college days. ( We figured out over dinner and a couple of bottles of wine that it has been 40+ years since those days!)   This morning found us on the road early, but by midday we decided we would rather take a leisurely pace and stop early, so here we are, still in Texas, but the border is just over yonder.  We took advantage of the extra time to catch up on chores and email and will hit the road tomorrow and head to Louisiana.

Laundry drying 

Tom 'watching' the news while checking his email.  Hercules is swathed in his blanket, having survived his shower.

Irish Day in a German Town

Our full day here in Fredericksburg was spent doing a little shopping and a lot of museum visiting.  The WWII Pacific War Museum here in the birthplace of Adm. Chester Nimitz is world class, and takes several hours to see just the highlights, but is truly a wonderful museum with a tremendous amount of artifacts and displays. 

In between we celebrated St. Paddy's Day in this German town by eating German food instead of corned beef.  But yes, we had the cabbage (or in our case sauerkraut.). Followed, of course by a stroll through several art galleries and shops where we almost managed to not buy anything, but ultimately failed in that regard. 

Wrestling an Octopus

Greetings from Fredericksburg, Texas.  We had a lovely night at camp in Big Bend National Park with some beautiful tropical colored small birds and cottonwoods all leafed out already.  Our trip down was better than the last time we traipsed through Fort Davis (five inches of half-inch hailstones) although the wind we battled on the way down finally caught up with us and stayed all night.  This is the picture of the clouds as the sun rose on our way out of the park this morning.

Despite our best intentions, we seem to be dashing up and down and across Texas just in time to let the cold front winds catch up every night.  This is now the third day of this back and forth race and it is getting a little tiresome.  Each day has been just a little bit windier and driving today was about a 35  mph crosswind with gusts up to 45 and we agreed it felt a lot like we were arm wrestling an octopus.  Lane management was a big challenge, but as our brother Jim said at the outset, "Keep the greasy side down".  We got here fine, although Cheryl is now drinking a few glasses of wine to get rid of the tension in her shoulders and brain from all the white-knuckle driving.  Tom, OTOH, has no problem with "ground turbulence"  because he has "experienced worse flying in thunderstorms and lenticular clouds and this only moves in two dimensions".  Well, OK.

Fortunately, we have two nights planned here in Fredericksburg, so we are gonna let the storm move right along without us.  Tomorrow we will relax a bit, sightsee in town, do some retail therapy and head to Driftwood,TX  on Tuesday.

Day one is Complete

Greetings from Van Horn, Texas. We had a relatively uneventful day driving down, a little wind, seven hours, a lot of traffic through El Paso (ugh!) but we got here safe and sound in plenty of time.  Van Horn is not much more than a wide spot in the road with motels and gas stations and four RV parks.  We are at one called Mountain View.

We have free cable, free Wi-Fi, full hookups and a very nice couple at the front desk running the place under new management. We're off to take the dog out for a walk, cook up a little chicken for dinner, and check the weather for the winds tomorrow. We're heading to Big Bend National Park, and we likely will not have much in the way of either cell or Wi-Fi service for the next 48 hours or so, we'll catch you on the other side.

Packing it in

Just after we bought our land in Corrales, which was 21 years ago this month, an early summer thunderstorm dumped so much water in just a few minutes that the arroyos nearby filled, re-carved their spaces and filled the local streets to within inches of flooding the few homes just east of the arroyo.  At the time everyone said it was a 'storm of the century' and unlikely to be repeated for fifty to a hundred years.  The politicians did eventually build a storm runoff pipe to divert the arroyo water to a concrete lined flood channel to the north.  And they did put up signs on the local streets which advised 'roads may be impassible in times of heavy rains or inclement weather'.

Thirteen years later Corrales had another major flood during a summer thunderstorm.  The runoff pipe did its job and diverted most of the water to the concrete lined channel.  But added to this water was mud and debris from the mesa and growing streets to the west.  So much mud and debris came down the concrete flood channel arroyo that the main road was closed because the bridge was weakened and the asphalt road had washed away.  When everything finally dried out and the mud was removed from the streets we were told it was one of those very odd 100 year flood events.  Nobody seemed to pay much attention to the fact that the prior '100 year storm' had been just 13 years earlier, about a tenth of the predicted timespan, but then again it was a different batch of politicians and a different batch of homes impacted.

Fast forward seven years to last summer, when many more homes had been built and now filled the 1992 storm arroyo and flood plain runoff area.  One big summer thunderstorm and mud filled basements, mucky water ran 6-8 inches deep through courtyards and kitchens, asphalt sinkholes captured firetruck wheels and pallets of firewood travelled half a mile from their arroyo starting position.  This time, people sort of remembered the 2006 storm, so they called this storm a 500 year event. And the village is trying to do some additional flood control channeling and hardscaping in the arroyo flood plain.  The six or seven homes built in the middle of this same arroyo flood plain are demanding the village do something, while some of us are left wondering why they were allowed to build homes in the middle of the 50-100-500 year water flow at all.  

It will be verrrry interesting to see how it all turns out.

If you have read this far, you may wonder what this has to do with our traveling adventures.  Well, it goes like this:

1. People have short memories, and selectively short in many cases.

2. Statistics can be manipulated to fit the situation.

3. Mother Nature and history both tend to repeat themselves; because of #1 and in spite of #2

4. We are beginning to pack for our upcoming trip.  Due to #3 it's like starting all over again, as if we have never done this before and not just two months ago.

5. In the middle of December, March and 65 degrees sounded like springtime and lovely weather, not the rainstorms back east and cold wind we have been told to expect on portions of our trip. 65 degrees as a high can be be calm and sunny (lovely!) or gray and rainy (miserable).  This also makes choosing clothing more of a 'take everything' proposition.

6. The Packing Corallary says if you 'take everything' in clothing you will also 'take everything' in supplies and provisions.

7. We do not need or want to 'take everything', but that requires that we know what will be needed.  

8. See #1-7 again.

<Sigh>  It will be verrrry interesting to see how it all turns out.