Cold Days in Key West!

Why blog about the weather! You can’t do anything about it but move south! Well, if we move further south, we will have to swim! Last night was cold for Key West. It dropped to 63 degrees here at Trumbo Point campground. At the airport, I’m told, it was a mere 56 degrees. The problem with this is the constant wind. The same wind that makes us comfortable when it’s 87 degrees, also makes us feel cold at 63 degrees. This morning at 5 am, I got up and fired up the furnace for the first time. It worked flawlessly. I had it set to 67 degrees and that was just enough to take the chill out of the camper. I got breakfast going and with the water on for coffee and a frying pan going for grilled toast it was toasty!
Offshore the weather was even worse. Twenty to twenty-five knot wind, with three to five foot waves inside the reef. On the Gulf side of the reef, the waves ranged from eight to ten feet. Not a pleasant place to be. The Coast Guard rescued two guys on a sailboat way offshore in 20 foot swells. The two had to jump off the sailboat into the water and swam to the Coast Guardsman tethered to the helicopter. A commercial salvage company is going to recover the sailboat.

Action in the sky

This morning I was outside when I noticed another one of those C130J Super Hercules flying over the water near Fleming Key. A sure sign that they were going to parachute into the water. Four safety boats were spread across a broad area and a Coast Guard rubber rescue craft with several crew members came up the channel from the other direction. Oh yeah, a sure sign for a drop zone off shore. The pattern is nearly always the same. They do several dry run flybys. You’ve got to be patient, if you want a really good photo. After several passes and 45 minutes of waiting, I zoomed in towards the rear of the C130J and spotted five or six objects coming out and straight down into the water. Maybe sandbags or something similar to see how the wind was blowing. Another half-hour and no jumpers out of the plane. Ok, I’ve had it and leave, so did the C130J.
The WiFi Repeater Test

We left the campground and headed for my new antenna/repeater wifi system test. We would do the test first by login into my new personal network (Travelnet1). Than do a site survey and select a WiFi free hotspot such as McDonald, Wendy’s or in this case Publix’s Supermarket. My login went flawlessly. Now comes Helen’s iPad which at 400 feet would not be able to access the hotspot. My repeater was set to WPS which enabled Helen’s iPad to sync in quickly. One more login with my iPhone and now we were ready for the ultimate test. I went on line and went to YouTube and streamed a video. Helen did her thing and put the phone through its paces. Success! We continued for a good half-hour with no drop in speed. I’m happy! We’ll be able to access free WiFi hotspots easily in the truck camper as we head out to the West Coast next summer.
Traveling back to the campground, what do you think I spotted floating down from the sky? Yeah, six parachutes and the plane banking to the left. No camera in the truck! Oh well, maybe next time I’ll be lucky.

That is what we saw and did!

Winter in the Keys!

Storm Clouds over Key West

Amazing how connected we are in this small world! I just finished texting two old friends, Rod and Jerry. Actually, they texted me. We haven’t connected in a long time for reasons of just being busy in our own little worlds. We certainly have had some good times being in the military and also in civilian life! The above, is just the moment’s thoughts, as I sat down to start the next blog. Another good reason for wintering in Key West…The ability to stop and reflect ones ideas!

Seaweed making a slippery mess

The one really good thing about Key West is our commitment not to watch TV. We do have a TV in the camper, but no satellite which makes it easy. I’m able to write my blog, take time to read books, which never happens back home and do so many more healthy activities. Maybe this state is setup for retirees! Don’t get me wrong, when we do need to see what is happening around the world, we just “walk” about a quarter mile to the Fly Navy Lodge building and sit in the lobby and tune in to the news. Where else can you sit in an easy chair and talk to Navy pilots, in their off duty hours about world affairs! They all come here at one time or another for training.

Key West Half Marathon 13.12 miles

This afternoon we did a recon of where we will be standing giving out water to the runners. Now let me explain that this past week, the weather here in the Keys has been raining, with extra strong winds. This has pushed seawater and sea weed over the sea walls. The running surface is covered with three to four inches of sea weed along with hundreds of jelly fish. I’m sure the city will have to deploy their sweepers to clean and pickup this mess! This is also the same bikeway, walkway, that we use, when we do our tour around KW ride every other day.

Marathon Update Jan. 17th

I had set the alarm for 5:30am. We had been told to be on our dedicated water station for 6:30am to setup tables, four of them 200 feet or so apart and wait for the first fast runners in about an hour or so. So much for plans!

Toni's Selfie during the race!

The winds started picking up during the night. The 5th wheel camper which weighs 13,000 lbs., or 6-1/2 tons, was wiggling from the gust. It was predicted that we would get wind and thunder storms during the night and day. At 5am, we both had enough tossing and turning and got up. After morning duties and breakfast, we decided to head to our assigned station and wait. We brought reading materials. As we walked out the door, our neighbor Toni came out and asked if we could give her a ride to the starting line. She is an Army veteran and not retired but AGR.
We got into the truck and Helen’s phone rang. Carol, our water station leader, informed us that the race was to be delayed one hour because of a severe storm coming our way. I started the truck and we decided, all three of us, that we were up and going to our individual points would be better than hanging around the camper. I dropped off Toni at the Half Shell start point and headed to the other side of the Island to our station.
This is where it gets interesting! After a few turns, I was on South Roosevelt Ave. Wow, even before getting there, down at the famous Buoy, the ocean waves were hitting the sea wall and spraying the houses across the street some 75 feet away! Back on S. Roosevelt, the highway had orange cones every 50 feet to keep the runners and cars separated. The cones were flying all over the place. We came across two Porto Potties that had slid across the highway. One had flipped over. The seaweed covered much of the runners’ lane. This was all on the windward side of the Island. Our station was on the leeward side, with little wind. I found a spot to park the truck and settled in, for what I thought a long wait. Jack and Carol, our team leaders showed up soon and we were quickly setting up four stations with water and Gator Aid. The race started about an hour after the scheduled start time.

Here She Comes...Halfway Home!

They run rain or shine. Luckily, the heavy rain fell in that one hour delay. I was shocked to see the first runner coming towards us! No one else was even in site. No water for him! He was on a mission. The halfway turn around point was just a short distance up the road. The runners have their numbers and a special digital tag that registers as they go by different check points. No cheating here!
Jack warned us that it would get very busy when the bulk of runners started to show up. He was so very right! Four thousand runners is a lot of water cups to fill and give out. They didn’t all take water, but most did and surprisingly many stopped for a potty break.
How many gallons does it take for that many runners? Well, I didn’t count, but a U-Haul truck was filled with milk style crates. I’m going to guess around 250 gallons. Thousand of cups and dozens of trash bags!
Our neighbor, Toni, came through and was gracious enough to stop for a selfie with us! Go Toni!! The real nice thing about the Key West “Military” campground is the nice people you get to meet!
Once the 99% of runners came by, we still had a few chores to handle. Remember those thousand of cups? Well, 99% of them were on the ground. My exercise for today was thousands of “squats” for those “bend and reach” to those cups. Surprisingly, it didn’t take that long for the cleanup.

Our Volunteer Team at the
New York Pasta Garden

Jack and Carol said, “You’ve got to come to breakfast”. This was at New York Pasta Garden. Arrangement were previously made and the restaurant was waiting for our team to arrive. Around thirty-six of us were on hand. Drinks were on the house, well we are not big drinkers especially in mid morning, but a Bloody Mary did go well with the breakfast. We spent some time chatting about everything from the race to hurricanes. Jack invited us to go sailing on sailing ship, which for the life of me, I can’t remember the name.
This was a memorable day for our “first official" Half Marathon volunteering day!

That is what we saw and did!

Holidays Behind Us..2016 Head

Friday, Jan. 1st 2016

Usually, New Year’s Day for me is a quiet day sitting at home, maybe watching a parade, a football game or visiting relatives. What we did here, was to go to our Bocce court for a game. This was pre-planned from the week before. Sharon, Georgio’s wife's sister was coming to town. Sharon and Georgio are locals who run the Bocce games for us “rv-ers”. Sharon wanted to have her sister see and play Bocce, so Bocce was scheduled for this day. We had a good turnout and both Helen and I won each a game. Helen, scored the winning point for her game.

Lunch with the Bocce Gang at Salute

The game started at ten and ended around twelve. The time frame makes for two games. Eight of us decided to have lunch at Salute Restaurante. We should have broken the group into fours’ as it took a long time to get a large table. In any event, we had another good time chatting not to mentioned a tasty lunch. Oh, I forgot to mention that Sally had her dog with her and “Angel” was quiet as a mouse. (Black Lab) Angel is being trained as a service dog and is doing very well in learning commands. I’ve mentioned before that there are many dogs at Trumbo Point campground. 99% are super good! We have one guy “Jose” who used to be a military dog trainer specializing in bomb sniffing dogs. He is retired now and has a dog (part German Shepherd and something else) that is amazing to watch, as he walks around the camp on a leash. I’m getting off track on our activities of the day. After lunch, we headed back to the ranch and I spent some time trying to get my new WiFi antenna up and running.

Technology…Great or Not So Great!

The antenna problem! I have a Mac Air laptop with no CD disk drive and Mac OS X version 10.10.5 What this means is I would have to download from the Internet the driver to enable the Mac to use the antenna. I’m still working on it! For the fun of it, I installed the driver on Sally’s laptop (Windows OS) and it works flawlessly. She can stream Net Flicks without any buffering problems. The antenna works up to 1500 feet away (over a quarter mile away from the camp repeater). I know I’ll get it up and running, but I’ll just have to go through the hassle of getting a “Certificate of Authenticity” in order for Apple to let me install the driver. Amen!

Update January 6th

The antenna problem will not go away. My update... Mac software
is so new that the drivers for the antenna haven’t been created and will not be for some to time to come. I sold the antenna and the 32 foot extension. I have found a solution to the dilemma. Another manufacture makes an antenna which will also not work on my Mac, but here is the best solution I could have ever come up with. They sell the same antenna with a repeating router at the end. No drivers are needed and with this set up we’ll be able to get to Wifi with all our devices. This will be a great benefit when on the road with access to free wifi such as McDonald, Dunking Donuts and such. The antenna will reach a mile away providing it is in line of site. We will be able to be parked a good distance from the WiFi location and get on line easily. Here in Key West, we will be in our fifth wheel camper and not have to be sitting outside facing the GoWIFi antenna. Of course, all of this comes at a price, but in the long run we will save on phone data usage. This unit will also work in our truck camper. Pacific Coast Highway, next summer, here we come!

Update on Technology; 15 January 2016!

Patiently waiting for my wonder “Super USB WiFi” antenna and repeater to arrive by Fed X, from California, I’ve busy doing other projects such as selling antennas and installing them on RV’s here in the campground. No, I haven’t started a new business, but just selling my first antenna and also selling another guy’s antenna, who also had the same problem with the new Mac OS X 10.10.5 upgrade software. Well, to make a long story a little shorter, I received the antenna a couple of days ago and set it up. The antenna and repeater works fine except for one little problem. It doesn’t work here at the campground because the Navy “GoWiFi” does allow more than one Mac ID. I needed one for the Mac, one for the antenna and one for the repeater . I called GoWiFi Tech support and they will not budge on giving me more than one Mac ID. So I have a choice of keeping the antenna/router, or returning it to CCrane which will take it back. I did spend over an hour with them on the phone and they were very helpful in determining that everything was working correctly on their end. I will take the unit into town this afternoon and see how it works login in at a McDonalds. If it does work, I might keep it for the truck camper.

Weather Crimping our Style?

Wounded Warrior taking a break for lunch

Two days of clouds and showers…I’ll take that back, it’s been now nearly a week of overcast with rain off and on. Can you believe the temperature has gone down to 64 degrees at night! I know all of you (non) snow birds up north are laughing hysterically! It’s no laughing matter here in Key West when one has to wear long pants and a hoody!
When you are in a camping mode down here, most of your activities are outside based! So what does one do if the weather is inclement? For starters, we down load books from our public library both from Berlin, NH and from the Navy’s online library system. Next, we gather up some of our cabin fever friends and skip over to Truman Annex to the Beach Patio Recreation and fitness center to select and watch a movie in their large comfortable recliners. Our latest movie view was “Steve Jobs” Apple computer story.

Lunch Break

In between the rain showers, we went and cheered the “Wounded Warriors Marathon”and got to talk to some very courageous warriors. One girl, with a leg missing, didn’t look older than 19 years old. It just makes you think of their sacrifice they endured for us.

Each Has a Story

We volunteered for the Key West Half Marathon coming up this Sunday. We will be giving out water at the half way point. To our surprise, we went to a pre-marathon gathering at Viva’s Bar on Duval Street. Drink tickets, meal and a very nice commemorative tee shirt was included. We were told that there will be an after marathon party at some pizza restaurant on Sunday afternoon. The marathon is rain or shine. We’ll be ready either way.
Rapping up this “what are we up to blog” well, I’m here typing in our comfortable camper watching large flocks of birds enjoying the strong breeze, soaring nearly still in a distance. The warm front has brought back warm temperatures (75 degrees) at 10:50 this Friday morning.

That is what we saw and did!