I Wonder as I Wander…

Our cruise ended on Saturday morning—we had figured that we would get to the car rental place by noon, but since it was so easy to walk off the ship, jump in a cab and we asked him to take us to the Avis car rental rather than the airport, so we were picking up our car around 9 am. The cabbie told us that tourism was way down because of the economy. He said he was driving 7 days a week for 10-12 hours each day just to earn enough money to pay his bills and feed his family.

We hopped in our car and headed south. Since we had plenty of time, we decided to stop at Everglades National Park. We heard about how the everglades and the lake has decreased in size by half since the 50’s, and with the urban sprawl going on—they are afraid it will continue to shrink. This creates lots of problems with the vegetation and animals—some of which are only native to that area.

It was nice that we were there in December, many places talked about the hoards of mosquitoes that are around in the summer. I love visiting National Parks—there is so much interesting information about what makes the area special. We stopped and hiked along a board walk and could look over the everglades. When we were leaving, we noticed something along the road. Bob said “I think it’s an alligator”. Sure enough here was an alligator right next to the road—it started to turn around to go back into the ditch and we noticed a baby right next to it—really little and cute. One of the park rangers told us that alligators are very maternal—they actually keep their young with them for a year. Sometimes like loons, they will have them ride on their backs. We took a couple photos, but all you could see was the alligator butt and a very little nose and eyes peeking out of the grass.

When we got on the Keys Highway—we were surprised because we thought it was an interstate all the way, but it was a two lane road that went though lots of little towns—so it was slow going, especially since traffic was bumper to bumper! This is a wonderful road, with lots of bridges across the water that connect the little islands. Many years ago, a developer built a railroad track all the way to the Keys—now it’s in pretty bad disrepair—many sections are missing, but some different agencies are fixing up some sections for walking, biking and fishing. It sounds like there is a movement to complete the whole thing for a walking and biking path—that would be wonderful, because it’s about a 90 mile stretch and many of the Keys have a relaxed life style that bicycles fit very well into. Several places had a lot of people fishing from the bridge.

We arrive in Key West and checked into our hotel—there was a car port under the hotel that also had scooters and bicycles available for rent. As we checked in, the desk clerk gave us a map of the area and showed us where Mallory Square was where there is a nightly sunset celebration and arts festival and everyone goes there to watch the sun set. Since it was getting to be about that time, we headed down there. It was only a couple miles from our hotel, but took us a while to get there, since we ended up going around a few blocks. Since this is an island—you can head for the water in all directions. We just kept looking for the setting sun.

All kinds of things were happening in this area—craft booths, food stands, and lots of street performers. But the highlight was the setting sun. It cast a huge blaze across the water and lots of boats were floating around it. This was one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen in a long time. Hundreds of people were sitting and standing along the edge of the pier. There was a pelican that was getting lots of treats and getting his picture taken. We bought some conch fritters—much like cheese curds, but with conch—again kind of chewy—not a whole lot of taste.

That night we went to a Cuban open air restaurant. It was hard to believe that it was December 20 and we were eating outside—although we did break down and put on a jacket and Bob bought a Sweatshirt. The food was really good—we split a jerked pork entrée. As the waiter said it was spicy flavorful, not spicy hot. They also had really good bread there.

We only had one full day in Key West, so we wanted to make the most of it. We checked out a lot of the fliers for things to do and there were so many options, it was hard to decide. We ended up doing a whole day tour to Dry Tortugas and Fort Jefferson National Park. It’s about 70 miles southwest from Key West and used to be a fort. We left at 7:30 am and had breakfast on the tour boat. Since this is a National Park, there was a naturalist on board who talked about the Dry Tortugas and fort. It was really interesting.

After we arrived at the Fort, the naturalist gave us a tour of the fort and explained some of the amazing things about it. A moat completely surrounds the fort—some of it goes out into the water. The moat was build to keep attackers out, since they would have to swim the moat and the guns they had were black power, which would get wet and not be of any use. The moat has really helped protect the fort from hurricanes and water surges. Some parts of the moat were all in the water. In fact, one of the engineering problems of the fort is that part of it was built over water. This made it shift at different rates when it settled--so it developed some cracks.

The fort is huge—when we walked inside, we were amaze a how large it was. She said Yankee Stadium could fit inside of it. Inside the fort was a place where the soldiers could heat up cannon balls until they were red-hot, run them across the fort and shoot them at the wooden ships. Needless to say, a hit in the right place could either set the black powder off or catch the wooden ship on fire.

The fort was build of two walls of bricks that are about 20 feet apart—and there are arches everywhere which makes it very strong. They filled between the walls with sand and coral and then put in a water system where the rainwater would filter through the sand into a collection system and be stored in huge tanks under the floor of the fort. This was very important, because there is no water available. The soldiers would write home about drinking their ‘squiggles’ which was the mosquito larvae, but that probably saved some of their lives because it was protein. But the tanks where the water was collected became a problem as well, because some of them rusted out and caused a huge empty space. The park service is restoring much of the fort, so they have filled in all the tanks. They now have a desalination process for their drinking water.

The soldiers had a hard life because it was hot, isolated, not much water, sometimes food was scarce, and they wore wool uniforms. They also dumped their sewage into the moat on one side, so it smelled pretty bad and disease was rampant.

Fort Jefferson served for a time as a remote prison facility. One of its most famous inmates was none other than Dr. Samuel Mudd, who set the leg of John Wilkes Booth following the assassination of President Lincoln. Mudd was incarcerated on the Dry Tortugas for only four years, from 1865 to 1869. According to the guide, Dr. Mudd didn’t realize it was John Wilkes Booth when he treated him and after he was at Dry Tortugas, he began treating the soldiers who were suffering from yellow fever. He was pardoned after four years of his prison term.

We had lunch on the boat—everyone who visits Dry Tortugas has to bring all their own food and water, because there is nothing available on the island. The Park Service does have a small campground for tenting that had quite a few people camping. The campers will ride to and from Key West on the tour boat. Also, sometimes on the boat will be Cubans who have left Cuba for the US. A small boat that was pretty rickety with a very small old looking motor was on display and they said it had 20 people aboard including children. The government policy is if the refugees have dry feet on US soil they will be granted asylum, if the coast guard catches them while they are still in the water (wet feet) they will be sent back. Since there isn’t as many coast guard patrolling around Dry Tortugas, many Cubans head there—and it’s only 50 miles from Cuba.

After lunch we went snorkeling!!! WOW—this was the best time ever. For one thing, it was a beautiful day of 80+ degrees, with warm, calm, and crystal clear water. We had a lot more time—about 3 full hours. The coral reefs and fish were absolutely stunning and just when I would think “Oh, that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”, I would see something else and think “Oh, THAT’S the most beautiful thing I’ve every seen!” The only problem with snorkeling is it’s hard to talk or point out things to the other person without getting a mouth full of salt water (which makes me gag)!

The Dry Tortugas are also where the giant sea turtles lay their eggs. In the spring, people come to watch the baby turtles hatch and scurry to the water. Between the months of March and September, some 100,000 sooty terns will come to nest on the islands of the Dry Tortugas. They are joined by brown noddies, roseate terns, double-crested cormorants and brown pelicans. Our guide was a birder and set up her telescope on the beach so people could watch some of the birds.

Then it was time to get back on the boat and head back to Key West, we sat and visited with a couple who were from Scotland—they were very interesting. That evening we saw the sun setting just as we were docking. We went back to our hotel and got out of our swim suites and into the shower to wash away the salt. I would never have believed that I would spend so many full days in my swim suite. I was glad that I had bought a little skirt thingy to wear over the top—so I looked more dressed. We noticed that we were both a little burned—not as bad as you would have thought from spending the entire day in the sun.

We found a neat seafood restaurant that was a big area where they opened up all the tent-like walls and had a great supper. As we were walking along the street, we found a neat shop that was all Key Lime products, so we bought somethings that can be used as stocking stuffers. We've seen this shop on the Food Network's show 'Unwrapped'.

The next day, we headed back toward Miami, but for a late lunch we stopped at a restaurant called Pirate’s Cove. I had crab legs—they were very good, but so hard that it was extremely difficult to crack them. I really had to work for my food!

Kara and Paul picked us up from the airport and we stayed overnight at Ross and Richard’s—they had already left for Seattle. The next day (Dec. 23) we headed for home, stopping at Virginia for some Christmas presents and groceries. When we got there we had a foot of snow, but mom (bless her heart) had someone come out and plow us out, so we just had to shovel a little, put up a tree, wrapped some presents, and were ready for Christmas!!