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[Ron]

Week 8: Ending January 5, 2003

Monday:
Resting in Margaritaville. Ron continues work on the PCs.

Tuesday:
We travel to Key West for a final visit. First to the Southernmost point of the US for pictures. People are actually civil, waiting in line to take pictures. Then to Mile 0 at the end of U.S Route One (we didn’t have our camera with us on the first visit).
Lunch at B’s on Bertha Street has been long awaited and is worth the wait. Home-style Cuban-American cooking tastes great. Ron orders the palomilla steak (even better than the one served at Dennis Pharmacy Luncheonette). Joan ordered the Chicken Imperial. There was more than enough for Joan and Jake to share the next day! (More under our dining reviews, when we get to it. We also need to review Louie’s Backyard.)
Joan wants to visit the The Little White House. We fork over $20 to the state of Florida (who now owns the property). The 45 minute tour is very informative. Susan, our tour guide, is obviously a Truman fan. But it is not worth the entrance fee. Perhaps half the amount would be fair.
Key West was jammin’ now in preparation for the evening’s celebration.. Many shops had ice cold beers for sale in front of their windows. A cookie shop actually had the makings of rum & Coke on their windowsill!
We check out the end of Duval Street away from Mallory Square and find some hidden gems of art galleries. An especially unique shop called Pandemonium featured sculpture and other works of art fashioned from metal equipment parts. Joan finally chose a miniature original watercolor. It’s 5 x 7 size is about the limit of what will fit on our limited wall space of the Happie Camper.
We decide to depart before dusk starts. Our New Year’s Eve celebrations back home have tended to be a little less raucous than what Duval Street was offering. Jake is happy to have his parents home to celebrate with him.

Wednesday:
HAPPY NEW YEAR! We bid Sunburst RV Resort a fond farewell and hit the road by 9:15am. No New Year’s Day Brunch Buffet this year. But we make note that the Tiki Hut Restaurant is offering such a feast – perhaps next year! We are on our way to Florida City and Southern Comfort RV Resort (highly recommended by our new Sheepie friends Teri & Tom and Frommer’s Guide to RVing Across America.) The Everglades are next!

Thursday:
Breakfast at The Farmers’ Market Restaurant in Florida City in the Produce Market: good stuff. Back to Miami to return GPS software and look for some new web design (none available at a price we want to pay.) Ron buys and downloads an upgrade version of his website tool “NetObjects Fusion”. We are fortunate in that NetObjects merely requires the serial number of the previous version (which we have!) in order to be able to install this upgrade. The upgrade and final file transfers to the laptop are successful, and the next time any of our websites are updated (the websites, not the forums), the laptop will be the publisher. Cool.

The only thing missing from the laptop is a copy of Adobe Photoshop. This is a $609 program, and we don’t want to pay that much. We own a copy of Microsoft PhotoDraw, and have installed it on the Laptop, but Ron hasn’t used it in a year, so he’s a little rusty, and isn’t inclined to learn it again.

Friday:
We finally answer the call of the wild and visit the Everglades National Park. Time, weather and a little inhibition prevents us from taking an airboat ride through the ‘glades. We guide ourselves via the HappieDinghy. The wildlife is impressive. Although we do not find any pink flamingoes (one of the park rangers inform us that they are NOT indigenous to south Florida), we do see a multitude of white heron, ibis, egrets, anhinga. and strange, unknown birds. And, we saw ALLIGATORS! Seven of them! Ron tried to kiss one on the nose.

Check it out…. HERE!

Saturday:
So long for now to Florida! We are heading North to Myrtle Beach, SC, to visit our Sheepie friends, Bud, Sharon & Sampson. (Actually they live just over the border in NC.)

Sunday:
After a restless night’s stay at a truck stop, we continue our journey northward. Ron makes good time to Myrtle Beach and we decide to stay at the KOA there. It was the first KOA we ever stayed at, during our first ever ,motorhome trip about four years ago in a rented Class A Intruder. (Ask Ron to tell you the story behind the Intruder on a military base in North Carolina someday!) Ron pushed hard to get to M.B. before dusk and we was tired.. We postpone our meeting with our Sheepie friends Bud, Sharon & Sampson until the next day.