Paradise

We’ve been in Key West a month now, arriving on Wed, Feb 25^th. We dry-camped (no utilities) for 2 ½ weeks before we moved to a full hookup site in “Hollywood” for two weeks. Although we didn’t get a front row site facing the water, we still have a pretty good view of the Gulf of Mexico.  

 

We drove to Marathon a few weekends ago to go to their 40^th annual sea food festival. The festival also included a boat show and an art show. The local sea food was very good.

 

Last week there were many college spring break visitors to Key West and this week there are many families on spring break. Our friend Wendy came from Colorado last week for a week-long visit. We enjoyed a few local water activities (renting jet skis and a dolphin sighting / snorkeling trip). She also went parasailing last Sunday. We passed on the opportunity.

 

We celebrated Wendy's birthday last Thurs, March 17^th, with stops in a few bars to enjoy the local live music.

Last Mon, Mar 21^st, we saw in the news that Kenny Chesney was going to perform a 5PM free show at Sloppy Joe’s on Duval Street. We walked over a little after 5PM and saw that Duval Street was blocked off to only pedestrian traffic and there was a huge crowd outside because the inside was totally packed. It turned out that people had been in-line since Sunday night to get inside the bar for the show.

Our outside view of Kenny Chesney

What we couldn't see inside
 

We also liked showing Wendy the sights around Key West, including the Key West Butterfly house, Harry Truman’s Little White House, Earnest Hemmingway’s home, the U.S. Highway 1 mile 0 marker, the marker for the Southernmost point in the continental USA, and a few glorious sunsets.

 

 

 

 

Wendy departed Key West yesterday but her flight from Miami to Denver was canceled because of the blizzard in Colorado. We heard that she did make it home today, flying via Dallas.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Key West

We left Margate on Wed, February 25^th and drove to Key West. The drive went smoothly, but we did run into some highway construction stop and go traffic near Marathon, about half-way down the keys on U.S. Highway 1.  

 

We arrived at Naval Air Station Key West, Sigsbee Annex, on Dredger Key about 2:30PM. There were campsites available in the overflow area and we had our pick of several $14/night no hookup campsites and got our name on the list for a full hookup site. We estimate it’ll be about 3 weeks or so before we move to a FHU site. The campground rotates RVs out of the FHU sites after a 2-week stay, back to the dry camping overflow sites, so there are rotations almost every day.

 

 

We’ve been really busy everyday since arriving in Key West. Our Onan generator was due for service so we took our motorhome to the NASKW auto hobby shop on Boca Chica Key on Thursday. It took me about an hour to change the generator oil and filter, which has to be done every 150-hours of use.

Friday we enjoyed lunch at Hogfish Bar & Grill on Stock Island. We went early, about 11:30AM, but the place quickly filled up with locals by noon. After lunch we both got our hair cut. Later we drove downtown and picked up our favorite key lime pie from Kermit’s Key Lime Shoppe. We got back to our RV and I checked on our six house batteries and cleaned all the battery terminals and cable connectors with a wire brush.

On Saturday we went by a Publix grocery store to get a pound of Florida pink shrimp for dinner. The guys at the Publix seafood counter will season and steam the shrimp for you, so they’re ready to eat. Later we did our daily 2.5 mile walk and spotted some resident iguanas.

 

We relaxed on Sunday morning and early afternoon, but left around 3PM and drove out to Geiger Key Fish Camp & Marina where we enjoy going for their Sunday afternoon BBQ. We first heard about the place about three years ago from a camper we met in Texas and we’ve been there several times over the last two years. One time we saw a manatee swimming near the restaurant dock.

 

Monday morning we got early because we both had 8:30AM dental appointments. Afterwards we went to the Key West post office to pick up our mail, which we had sent to us from our mail forwarding service in Sioux Falls, SD.   

Our first week in Key West has flown by but we’re getting settled in and it’ll be home for the next two months. We buy the local Key West newspaper every few days to get the cruise ship schedule. Sometimes there are one, two or three ships in port on a given day. When there are no ships in port, we take advantage of going down to old town, Duval Street, and Mallory Square when there are very few tourists. 

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Daytona 500

We left Aztec RV Resort on Tuesday, Feb 16^th, and drove about 230 miles to Daytona Beach. We arrived at Daytona International Speedway around 2PM, got checked in, drove through the tunnel below Turn 1, and headed to our campsite in Horseshoe Campground where we would “boondock” (no utility hookups) for six nights.

There were many RVs already camped in the infield when we arrived and many more arrived each day. Mike & Marcia joined us on Wednesday with their motorhome. Their nephew Patrick and niece Tanya joined them for the week. We all sat on top of their motorhome for the races and had a good view of the track between turns 1 and 2 and then down the back straightaway.

 

We watched two Can-Am Duel 150-mile races on Thursday where Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the first race and Kyle Busch won the second. Friday night we watched the NASCAR truck races which were really exciting. On Saturday afternoon we watched the NASCAR Xfinity series (formerly Busch series) race where Chase Elliot won. The infield campgrounds were party central on Friday and Saturday nights, including wheel barrow races which were fun to watch.

The Daytona 500, “The Great American Race”, was on Sunday afternoon. It was completely sold out, with over 100,000 fans in the grandstand and thousands more watching from the infield Fan Zone and the infield campgrounds. The Air Force Thunderbirds performed a flyover before the race and the Goodyear blimp provided aerial coverage for Fox Sports. The race was exciting and only had a few caution flags. The unbelievable finish was the closest in Daytona history with the winner, Denny Hamlin, only winning by 0.010 seconds over the second place car. We can now check the Daytona 500 off our bucket list and it was well worth the experience.

We left Daytona on Monday morning and drove back to Margate to Aztec RV Resort for a two-night stay. We leave tomorrow (Wednesday) for Key West and have our fingers crossed that we’ll get in the Naval Air Station Key West campground. The campground indicated in mid-January that they were full.   

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Miami International Boat Show

We drove from Aztec RV Resort about 40 miles south to Miami on Friday to go to the Miami International Boat Show. The drive took almost an hour because of traffic, even at 9:30AM. We parked at Marlin’s Park (baseball stadium) for $5 and then rode a shuttle bus to the boat show.

The boat show was huge, with sailboats at Bayside (near the Port of Miami), and powerboats at the main site, Miami Marine Stadium Park & Basin, near Virginia Key. We only went to the main site where there were over 1,200 of powerboats displayed inside and outside moored at docks.

 

We enjoyed seeing the actual car and boat used in the TV series Miami Vice, on display commemorating the 30^th anniversary of the show.

 

Here are some photos of inside one of the large tents where up to 36-foot long boats were displayed. Our 12-year old Chaparral seemed really old compared to all the new models.

 

 

The “Pilar” is a replica of Earnest Hemingway’s famous boat. It is normally displayed at a museum in Cuba and this was the first time it has been displayed in the U.S. We were told that Hemingway’s boat the “Pilar” influenced several of his books.

 

We learned that Cigarette is actually a manufacturer's name for their “cigarette” boats. I was truly fascinated with this 50-foot long "go fast" boat, with two 1550 horsepower engines, that could go 130mph and only cost a mere $1.2 million.

 

Many of the boats were center-console used for off-shore sport fishing. Almost all of these boats have two outboard engines (in case you had an engine problem you can get home with the other). Over the past several years, the boat manufacturers and dealers have been adding more outboards to the boats.

 

 

We both thoroughly enjoyed the boat show and although we can now check it off our bucket list, we wouldn’t mind going back again.

Steve & Julie Cornelius