The Everglades

One of our major objectives was to see Everglades National Park. Fortunately, the southern entrance was only twenty miles from our RV park between Miami and Homestead.

When we drove in, we found these black-headed vultures all over the top of this car. We wondered if the owner should consider an extended warranty. Actually they were after rubber parts. When we returned, we found them on top of our Jeep and nibble marks around our sunroof.
Of course, I was very interested in the plant community. There were square miles of sawgrass, with more open areas dominated by swamp apple and spatterdock shown here.
There were also mangrove thickets. These were in the northern edge of the park along the Tamiami Trail. We drove eighty seven miles of the trail on our way to Naples.

Not all vegetation was good. This water hyacinth, escaped from culture as an ornamental, covers acres of Florida waterways depleting oxygen in the water and making them virtual biological deserts. Unfortunately, bureaucratic, poorly timed, poorly executed, chemophobic control efforts have allowed further spread of these and many other invasive weeds.

One of the walks was called the anhinga trail. It was aptly named. Here, a female anhinga poses for us.

A few feet away, a male anhinga poses for the females.

Further down the trail, we found this nesting pair.

This Wurdman's heron is actually an uncommon color variant of blue heron found only in Southern Florida.

These green herons had the most interesting color patterns.

Here's the boss. This big bull was at least eight feet long, around two feet longer than any other gator we saw here.

One thing we didn't expect to see was a wood stork. It is on the endangered species list. It has a huge appetite and requires large hunting territories, particularly during mating season. In the ever shrinking Everglades, large territories are increasingly difficult to come by. They catch their prey by feel, not by sight.

We weren't alone on the path. This fellow, around five feet long decided that he needed a warm dry place.

So, he helped himself to a comfortable space on the paved walking path, about six feet from Penny.

Unfortunately, the paparazzi wouldn't leave him alone. A few minutes later, he got tired of the harassment and returned to the water.

Day to Day Life on the Road

We've been asked to tell a little about our day-to-day life as we travel. We've described living in our coach as having a five star hotel room anywhere we want it. Perhaps we are on the move today. Travel in a motorcoach is really a treat. Sitting high as we do, the scenery can be far more spectacular. The coach itself is quite easy to drive, and we both do. The GPS shown above (Jason, as in Jason and the Argonauts) has many of the campgrounds through out the U.S. in its memory. This makes it quite easy to find the next place. We seldom drive more than 200 miles in a day, and often far less. When we arrive at our destination, setup usually takes thirty minutes or less, then we go about enjoying our new locale. When we rise in the morning, we usually go through our morning exercises, consisting of calisthenics, aerobics, and/or weightlifting usually followed by a nice bicycle ride.

This is followed by a good shower. By the way, that is real ceramic tile on the floor. We have one sink near the shower,
and a second in the commode room. Very helpful when we're both trying to get ready to go somewhere in the morning.

Some days, we choose to just relax in the coach. Penny has her sewing machine and stash of fabrics; electronic keyboard, large tackle box full of cardmaking supplies, tub of genealogy records, and lots of yarn and embroidery thread for knitting, crocheting, and counted cross-stitch. Her Kindle satisfies her need for a library. I have woodworking and mechanical tools in the "basement". That is the compartment underneath the living quarters of the coach. Note the table behind the chair to the left. That is actually the steering wheel. We have a plastic cover that converts it into a table. Penny made the covers.

We like to be as open to the outside as possible. Here in Naples, Florida, that isn't too difficult. If the weather doesn't cooperate, however, we have two air conditioners/heat pumps, and two propane furnaces that keep us comfortable in the most extreme conditions. The coach has enough room that we have accomodated ten people for dinner.

Although we make it a point to sample the local cuisine wherever we are, we do eat in more than we eat out. We have a nice freezer/refrigerator with ice maker that can run on 120v AC or 12v DC power, or on propane. Not exactly frost free, but still convenient.

We have a three burner stove and a microwave/convection oven. We eat from real dishes and glasses. When we travel, we use curtain spring rods to keep them in place. When we're finished with a meal, we simply put our dishes into our dishwasher. All the conveniences of home.

Usually, we use the water, electricity, and sewer connections provided by the park,

but we have tanks that hold our water and sewage when those connections are unavailable, and this is a diesel generator that can supply sufficient electricity to power everything in the coach, and it does it all on half a gallon of diesel per hour. A couple of years a go, we were caught in a blizzard in Spearfish, SD. When the power to our campground went out, we fired up the generator and drank hot cocoa while the town around us struggled to keep warm.

When we decide to see our surroundings, we jump into our Jeep and feel comfortable going nearly anywhere. It has been everywhere from Jeep trails near Sedona to the beach at the Padre Island National Seashore. Note the awnings on the side of the coach. They make a comfortable place to sit outside the coach on a sunny day, or a convenient place to set up our grill on a rainy one.

If we're going in different directions, we also have a motorcycle, so we can each have transportation. The device at the bottom of the photo is the tow bar which enables us to tow the Jeep when we are on the road. It's much nicer to travel together. Since our coach engine is in the rear, we can carry on a conversation at normal tones, listen to a book on CD or music while traveling.

Often before we leave the coach for the day, we toss some laundry into our washer/dryer.

When we return, we simply pull out our dry clothes and fold or hang them in our cedar-lined closet.

In the evening, we close all our curtains and blinds and retreat to our comfortable little den and read, watch TV, surf the net, or do whatever pleases us.

When night falls, once again, we retreat to our comfortable king bed and read, watch TV, or talk until finally the lights go out. One of the benefits of being retired is that it doesn't much matter when that is.

Despite the fact that we aren't ready to leave the road, we've now purchased house above the Columbia River with panoramic views of Mt. Hood, but still love hanging out in our coach. More about the house later. This doesn't mean we're leaving the road, far from it, we just now have a home base. More on our new house later.

Miami & Key West

The day after the NASCAR races, we went to downtown Miami. It was cleaner than I remembered from an earlier business trip.
One of the buildings that seemed completely in place was this condo building with the Tiki head columns. Penny says they looked like Mr. Potato Heads. So expected of a former first and second grade teacher.
Outlandish colors and shapes seemed perfectly at ease here,
as did this art deco area in Miami Beach.

We've gotten rather used to seeing cruise ships, but this one certainly had a most interesting paint job. Click on the photo to enlarge it, if you are interested.

The next day we went to The Keys. There were several long, impressive causeways. We passed over several keys which had various levels of development.

Remember Henry Flagler, namesake of Flagler College, and Standard Oil partner of John D Rockefeller? After the completion of the Panama Canal, he expected Key West to be a major freight hub for ships coming through the canal from the west, so he invested a considerable amount of his money to build the Florida East Coast Railroad from the mainland to Key West. He rode it to Key West shortly before his death at 82. Here is a remnant section of that railroad.

When you arrive at Key West, you are at the southernmost point in the Continental U.S. as indicated by this monument. One of the most striking things here is, of course the tropical plant life. Here, Penny stands between aerial roots of a huge Mangrove.

This huge philodendron also attracted our attention.

It is hard to tell, but there are two cruise ships in port. We were impressed with how quickly they left once they steamed up. Within about fifteen minutes, both were gone. Does the lamp post in the foreground decorated to look like a candy cane seem as out of place to you as it did to us?

This was one of the neatest buildings in historic Key West.

We had lunch at this restaurant. They had very good jerked chicken. If you double click this photo, you will note that before it was turned into a restaurant, it served as the first headquarters of Pan American Airways.

This building was once the customs house. It is now the Key West Museum of Art. Of course, all of the bricks had to be hauled from the mainland.

This is a closer view of the sculpture, entitled Whispering Finish outside the art museum above. To me, it alluded to more elegant times here. There were several smaller sculptures of people, one of which looked like a soccer mom out jogging, another was a photographer taking a Polaroid of a fisherman. All seemed to point toward Key West types of activities.

This is the "Little White House" of Key West. Harry Truman used this as an escape. It was here that Truman wrote a memo urging a two-week truce during the Korean War. You may recall that General Douglas MacArthur objected publicly to this, resulting in his dismissal by Truman. It has been used almost all of Truman's successors. It was also used by Colin Powell to host peace talks between Armenia and Azarbaijan.

This is the second story of Ernest Hemingway's house. Can't you see him out on his veranda, daiquiri in hand? It was here that he wrote A Farewell to Arms and The Snows of Kilimanjaro.

We stopped for a pop on the way out of Key West and saw this hen with her chicks walking across the driveway. A car on the way out honked at her (as though it would really move her along faster), and the rooster in the background acted like he was ready to take her on for threatening the little family. P.S. One of our birding friends identified these as wild red junglefowl. They've been here since the 1800s. Thanks for the tip Steve.

Southern Florida:NASCAR

One of our objectives in this part of Florida was to attend the season's final NASCAR race in Homestead, Florida.

Of course, we had to have photos of several key drivers. This is Dale Earnhart, Junior, Tyler's favorite.
This is Vancouver, Washington native, Greg Biffle.
Here is Brent's favorite driver, Tony Stewart.

The festivities started long before the race. The RV park where we stayed had live bands every night. One evening, this balloon showed up and gave free rides to anyone who wanted one. They were right out our windshield.

One of the things that first impressed us was all of the fan gear we saw in the park and at the raceway. Of course, many sports fans are not only race fans. We thought this bike was really well done.

Not only did it have Yankee pinstripes, but this very nice depiction of Yankee Stadium. It was a true work of art. What do suppose this cost?

Of course, there were lots of caps around, but we thought this one was the best. Note the rear spoiler on the back of it, similar to the ones you see on the race cars. This guy must have been a lot faster than he looked.

The number of profit centers here was astounding. Of course, you would expect race gear, every driver had one of these. There were also lots of food and drink courts, and much gear that had little to do with NASCAR for sale. There were also Army and National Guard recruitment centers.

Here's another profit center. These scanners pick up the race broadcast. You can buy one for $150.00, or rent one for the weekend for $49.00! One of these or something similar by Radio Shack was the only way that fans at the track could hear the announcer.

The next thing you notice is that cameras are everywhere. Here's one on top of the building, and another coming around behind it in the form of the Goodyear Blimp.

Tthe ceremonies started. This flag was towed around the track.

The stage was towed into place and introductions were made.

There was the prayer, National Anthem, and flyover.

Because of where we were, we got a bonus from the flyover. Homestead Air Force Base was behind our seats, so the jets had to fly over once more as they landed. This one just happened to come in as the blimp passed in the background. You remember Homestead Air Force Base, it was where a defecting Cuban pilot landed a Mig 17 only a few hundred feet from Air Force One in 1968.

From our seats, we could see the entire racetrack, but if we didn't have good view of the action from where we were seated, this big screen TV showed what we missed. We did, however, miss some of the TV narrative, so Pen kept up a constant text message flow with Brent who was watching the race at home in Vancouver.

Just before the race started, we saw this sad exodus. This was one of the drivers who failed to qualify, so he loaded up the truck and headed home.

Finally, the race started. This is the first lap of the Nationwide Race. It is the junior circuit, although several of the senior circuit drivers usually participate. Overall, we thought it was the better race.

Although he didn't finish in first, in the senior circuit race, the night belonged to this guy, Jimmy Johnson. He earned enough points in this race to cinch the season championship.

We enjoyed our weekend, and saw a lot of interesting things. One more thing to check off our bucket list.