We started out March 11 (I think). Made our way at a slow trot down to Tracy Lehmberg's in Tampa, Fl. where she and Dusty planned to run in a 1/2 marathon - they did, by-the-way and did good. Anyway, we stayed a couple of nights in Tracy's driveway...well, we did go in the house now and then. We went to the beach one day.
Wayne and Jodie came over one afternoon. Another day we went to a place where the manatees like to winter to see them. All we got done was viewing the museum while dripping wet. It was raining so hard when we went out on the viewing platform, we got soaked...and still didn't see any manatees. So, we left there and went to eat. Then we headed on down toward Key West. We have been trying to get to Key West ever since we bought the old Pumpkin, but something always seemed to steer us away. This time we made it.
We traveled down the west side of Florida to about Naples then cut across the Everglades on Hwy 41 over to Florida City. Saw some 'gaters on the way.
Spent a memorable night in the city's campground where there was everything from 42 ft. fancy dancy motor homes to run down pickup campers. The guy right next to us had a little (I mean little) travel trailer...no car, no bicycle, not even a skateboard that I saw. But, he did have a stuffed chair sitting outside under his raggedy awning and that's where he sat, seemingly the entire time we were there. While there I sat out my Dish TV Tailgater antenna (it just sits on the ground outside) to watch TV. A guy out for a wall knocked on the door to warn me not to leave it out over night if I wanted it the next morning. I had already figured that out.
We left the next morning and made it all the way down to Key West. Stayed a couple of nights at the Navy base's RV park, right on the beach.
Nice place, but we were in the temporary sites with no electric or water service. Had we stayed longer, we would have been moved up. But, neither Joyce nor I are up to much walking and with Ditto along, too, we mainly did a drive-by shooting of some Key West chickens...with the camera, of course.
I'd been there before and we did a Chevy Chase vacation tour and headed back north. We did stop at the Naval Air Station on Boca Chica right next to Key West. I spent a couple of weeks there on "hot pad" duty way back in the mid seventies. Lots had changed, but at least, the runway still looked the same.
We traveled on up along the east coast to Jacksonville - Mayport Naval Station. On the way we hit Cape Canaveral and did another Chevy Chase thing. We wouldn't have minded touring the museum, but again, too much walking and there was still Ditto. But, that's OK, we can see all that on-line. We spent the night at the Mayport Naval Base RV campground just a short distance from several moored ships. The next morning we were off again and heading across the bottom of Georgia.
We had to stay south longer than we had intended because cold weather was still hanging around up toward home. So, we toddled along the Florida panhandle, through Mobile, across Mississippi and just passed Alexandria, La. before it was safe to head north. As we headed into Arkansas, we realized we wouldn't be far from Ft. Smith, so we stopped and spent some more time there with Stephen.
That was pretty much our Great Key West trip we had wanted to make for several years. Of course, there were many more sights and sounds than I have mentioned here, like the $5 fresh strawberry milkshakes at Florida City, and the little lakeside campground in Mississippi with a sign by the fishing pier saying "no swimming" and another nearby saying "Please don't feed the alligators". I'd have sworn I took pictures, but I can't find them. All-in-all, it was everything we had hoped for in a Key West trip. We had fun.
