Abbey's Road

My first day out of Paisley I was hoping to make it to St. George Island, but it wasn’t meant to be. When I called from about an hour away they only had 2 campsites left. So I stopped at a state park I stayed in last year on the Ochlockonee River. Hearing from a couple of people that nearby Apalachicola is famous for it’s oysters I decided that sounded better than cooking. The drive was a bit longer than expected, but since I have a car now it’s a lot easier, and cheaper, than it used to be. I guess I was expecting Apalachicola to be a little bigger than it is. I was thinking it was going to take me a while to choose from one of several seafood restaurants serving up the finest oysters. Well, let’s just say I spent more time driving around thinking “where is everything” than I did deciding which place to go. I had a 50-50 shot so I went with Boss Oysters’ and it did not disappoint. I know raw oysters are supposed to be some kind of delicacy but I prefer mine cooked. So I was a bit surprised when I ordered a half-dozen flame-broiled oysters, with some topping I can’t remember now, that the oysters were still raw. Only the topping gets cooked. Oh well, they slid down nice and smooth regardless.

The coast along the panhandle is kind of funny. It seems to me that it is either nearly deserted, or is booming like crazy with huge high-rise condo complexes. In hindsight, I should’ve left the coast after passing through the nearly-deserted sections, but I made the mistake of following the coastal route all the way to Pensacola. Now I know why I didn’t want to tow a car the first two years. On the open highway, it’s no problem, but when you’re in a crowded city and not knowing which way you’re going to have to turn next, it is a real pain. You can’t just shoot across two lanes of traffic at the last second. Not to mention that I was paranoid that I was going to turn down a dead end street and would have to unhook the car in order to turn around. It didn’t help that I arrived in Pensacola at rush hour, but I finally made it through to the other side. My destination that night was Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, AL. Normally, this wouldn’t warrant much of a mention, but this was the first time in my life that I had stayed the night in Alabama – my 48th state! 3 ahead of my brother, Michael, I might add. I got a little nervous when I saw this sign in the campground while walking Abbey in the morning, but we made it out unscathed. On the way out of town I stopped at a fish market and bought some of the freshest fish and shrimp I have ever had. If you had blindfolded me I don’t know if I would’ve been able to tell there was fish in the bag. When I pulled it out of the bag that night to put it on the grill I couldn’t smell a thing. If nothing else I’ll remember Alabama for the Red Snapper.

Lake Charles, LA, on the other hand, probably won’t stick in my memory too long. The state park I stopped at wasn’t bad at all, but the area around there isn’t the most memorable. It was at least a quiet, safe place to stay and we were off early the next morning headed for Austin.

Posted by Ed at 1:46 PM | Permalink

After leaving the Keys I set up camp for a few nights at a county park in Pembroke Pines. Some family friends of ours, the Weisenbergers, now live there along with two of their daughters, Jean (David), and Peggy (Evancho). I haven’t seen any of them in a number of years, and they gave me grief for not stopping by last year so I made it a point to see them this year. I actually went out to dinner with them two nights, though not everyone could make it both nights. During the day, besides walking Abbey, I went to the library to work of all things. Intravation, the name of my brother’s company, was putting out a new release and Michael thought it would be a good idea for me to do the testing so I could learn the software. I have to say that first week I had a real hard time getting motivated to work more than an hour or two at a time. It’s been a while! But I managed to get my act together and get the testing done in time, though I had to work one weekend to do it. Needless to say, I had to take several days off after all that work in order to recuperate.

Luckily, I had a great spot to recuperate. One of Mary Beth’s cousins, Veronica, and her husband, Harold, bought a house on a lake in Paisley, about an hour north of Orlando, last year and spent a good part of the time since fixing and cleaning it up. It’s hard to believe this place is in Florida. Veronica likes to call it Stillpoint. I like to think of it as an oasis in the desert of Florida. It is so peaceful and quiet. The wildlife is amazing. You never know when sandhill cranes or red-tailed hawks will land in the yard. Deer walk around like they own the place, but then again, so did Abbey. The yard is fenced in so I could let her roam and she usually found a way to get into trouble. There’s a little inlet of the lake which juts into the yard, and unfortunately it was a bit muddy. Of course Abbey found that right away and I think I had to hose her down a dozen times in the first 3 days. She finally stopped going in so much. It was either because cooler weather moved in, or she figured out that if she went in the mud she would get hosed down, which she dreaded more and more each time it happened. They had a place for me to park the RV out front so Abbey and I had our own little place there where we wouldn’t bother anybody. However, I’m not one to turn down a dinner invitation and occasionally Abbey and I joined Veronica and Harold on one of their early morning walks so we got to spend plenty of time with them. Veronica, Abbey and I even managed to get in a 7 mile hike the first Sunday. I was surprised Abbey had enough energy. She was ahead of us the whole way.

Veronica’s father, Mary Beth’s Uncle Louis, lives in his trailer on the property. I didn’t get to see him as much this year, though, because Aunt Anni had some health issues while I was there. We still made it out to dinner a number of times. Abbey remembered his trailer and barked like crazy when she saw it. I opened the door and she ran in. She only wasted a minute or two wondering where he was before she started “cleaning” the floor. Uncle Louis’ knees aren’t holding up too well these days so he gets around the property on an old golf cart. He uses it to feed their lone chicken, Matilda, and the crazy fish in the lake. I went one day and the fish started jumping out of the water as soon as we got close to the dock. Talk about Pavlov’s dog.

Veronica’s brother, Andy (you may remember him from my trip to San Diego last July), showed up for a few days though he spent most of the time with Aunt Anni. He tends to fly in and out at a moment’s notice since his work tends to keep him traveling about 90% of the time. Another cousin, Pat, came down the second weekend I was there. I had never met Pat, nor had Mary Beth, so it was interesting to get to know her a little. With everyone coming and going, it didn’t exactly live up to its name, but it was still hard to leave in the end. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome, though, and I was ready to start heading west. After all, when I went into Mt. Dora the traffic reminded me I was still in Florida.

On my way “up north” from the Keys I also managed to stop at my Aunt Jean’s in Sebring. She lost her husband, David, last year so it was nice to spend some time with her and take her out to dinner. I stayed the night and the next morning my cousin Kim came down. I hadn’t seen her in over 20 years, and I had only seen her twice in my life, so it was nice to catch up. She and her husband live in a fifth-wheel (another type of RV), so we at least had that in common.

Posted by Ed at 1:38 PM | Permalink

For a while now I’ve wanted to visit the Florida Keys, but last year I didn’t want to have to deal with the traffic, the people and the high prices. In the winter months the RV parks get ridiculously high prices and it is still hard to get reservations. So when I heard that there is a Habitat for Humanity in the Lower Keys and you can stay right at their place, I signed up. It wasn’t like the other builds I was on where a group of RVers all came in and left at the same time on a scheduled build. Here everyone comes and goes on their own schedule and you work on whatever needs to be done each day. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to get any permits lined up for new construction for the winter season so we were left to do repairs and rehab stuff. I got stuck working on the same project the whole time. Some houses that Habitat built 3 years ago weren’t done right and they had water damage and wood rot. The hard part was that we had to take out parts of 3 beams that were in a tough place to get at. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say it was pretty frustrating the first few days as we kept running into one thing after another that made the job even harder. As one guy said, it was like cutting down a redwood with a pocket knife. After about 3 ½ days it finally felt like we were making progress.

I don’t know if it was because we were all on our own schedule, or because some of the group were staying elsewhere, but the camaraderie of this group wasn’t like the other Habitat builds I’ve done. Most of the time I went off on my own on our days off or after work was done for the day. We were staying on Big Pine Key, which is about 30 miles from Key West so I didn’t get down there too often. From what everyone says, the Keys aren’t “what they used to be”, but then again most places aren’t these days. Even though they have gotten much more built up and much more commercial, compared to many places I still don’t think they are that bad. Except for maybe Duval St. in Key West. The shops, restaurants and bars stretch for dozens of blocks. It’s kind of like a tamer version of Bourbon St., though not nearly as seedy. I didn’t get to go out at all in Key West, though I did take Abbey to the dog park there twice and I went on a tour of the Hemingway house. The tour was actually very interesting, but the most interesting story was about the cats. Hemingway loved cats and all of his cats were polydactyl meaning they have more than 5 toes on their front feet and some have more than 4 toes on their back. Actually, they all carried the gene but not all had the extra toes. Since Hemingway died, the house has been owned by a family friend and it is managed by a historical society who runs the tours. They also have taken care of the cats, all descendants of Papa’s originals, since they started the tours. There are currently about 50 of them on the premises, which is walled in but not fenced. These cats have the life so why would they ever run away. Plus, they run off any strays who try to horn in on their good fortune. The most amusing story, though, is that a neighbor complained to the USDA that the cats were being used for profit like circus animals. In its infinite wisdom, the USDA sent someone down to Key West for 3 weeks to stay in a hotel next door to spy on them and try to videotape the cats being “abused” and taken advantage of. No abuse was found but they are undaunted in their quest to have the cats put in cages or moved off the premises. Yes, this is our tax dollars at work.

Another interesting place I went was close to where we were working. It’s called the No Name Pub and is on, of course, No Name Key. The parking lot seems continually full but the wait is worth it. Inside the walls and ceiling are covered with dollar bills which people have signed, drawn on, or written witty sayings on, and tried to find a sliver of space to staple them up. Supposedly, someone recently counted them and there is over $100K. Amazingly, I don’t think too many are ripped off. The second time I went in there I took a spot at the bar and had my beer before I had warmed up the seat. I turned around to see Andrea and Kent waving me over to their table. They are 2 U. of Delaware business school profs who came down for 10 days to volunteer with Habitat before school started back in session. They don’t have an RV so they actually paid quite a bit of money to stay down there. They were one of the more fun couples to work with. The other one was a couple who retired from Proctor & Gamble in their early 50’s. They now live on a houseboat on a lake in Kentucky for 7 months of the year, volunteer for Habitat in the winter for 3 months or so and travel the rest. See, I’m not the only one who does this kind of thing!

I was scheduled to leave on Super Bowl Sunday but people convinced me that driving out of the Keys on a normal Sunday is awful, but it would be even worse since the Super Bowl was in Miami. Staying ‘til Monday meant that I could go to one of their biggest annual fundraisers, Terry Cassidy’s Pickin’ Party. It’s a pig roastin’, deep-fried turkey and folk music extravaganza with musician’s playing everything from a mandolin to the washboard. They were even going to have wood-fired pizza this year and I was going to help with the pizza. Only problem was that it poured like hell all day so the party was moved into the home center. It wasn’t quite the same, and the turnout was a lot less, but most of the musicians still came and the food was all cooked so someone had to eat it. We skipped the pizza so I served food until my back couldn’t take it any more. Terry Cassidy, it turns out, is a local musician who started this 18 years ago cause none of his friends were hired to work on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s turned into one of Habitat’s biggest fundraisers in the Keys, but unfortunately it didn’t work out too well this year, the first rainout in 18 years. The featured band was the Piper Road Spring Band from Whitewater, Wisconsin. Any of you Wisconsin guys heard of them? Even if you don’t like bluegrass, they are fun to see live. I got to see them the night before at a backyard BBQ dinner at a local restaurant. That was an interesting crowd. One thing I noticed was that many of the people in the Keys like to drink a lot. It’s no wonder things don’t get done in a hurry down there. Another thing you notice in the Keys is a lot of guys with pony tails. I felt right at home when I went several days without shaving.

On Monday I hooked up and we pulled out to head back to the mainland. I think Abbey was happy to leave cause the weather was hot and humid much of the time we were there. She doesn’t do well in that kind of weather. It also cooled off in general right when we went “north” – all the way to Pembroke Pines.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures early on in my stay, and I didn’t feel like doing any more driving than I had to so I don’t have any pictures of Key West or of the water or anything. I only have one of the Pickin’ Party musicians. The guy in the baseball hat is Terry Cassidy in case you were wondering.

Posted by Ed at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)