Social Life in the Keys

Veterans Day November 11, 2016

We’ve been in Key West for approximately a month and a few days. It is a magical place to meet people. It’s like migrating birds that come from all over the country on a migration. The birds migrate further south into Central and South America. We humans, are tethered to the earth for the most part and wind up here at the end of the road on US 1 mile marker zero! The neat thing is that most of us didn’t know each other before this migration south. The nesting place, for us is Trumbo Point. We all park our campers here, close to one another, set up our little home away from home compounds and then start to notice our neighbors. A friendly, hi, hello, how are you doing and next thing, we have new friends! We all have different stories, different places of origins but the common bond is that we all, or at least half of the spouses, served in the military. This is what makes us nearly family.
When I was in the Army their seemed to always be a rivalry between all branches of service. That doesn’t exist here! We are all “US Retired Military”. It doesn’t matter if we were privates or generals, we are retired military! Key West stands out as a military town that dates back well before the Civil War. The local economy does depend on tourist, but it also depends heavily on military and their dependents. A perfect example of this was November 11th, Veterans Day. It is without hesitation that I say that this was the finest military parade that I’ve seen! I was really impressed with the number of military personnel in the parade. We, here at Trumbo Point Campground, even had a float in the parade!
The parade naturally march down Duval Street. Key West has a beautiful monument park. On Veterans Day our fallen comrades were remembered at Bayview Park. The parade didn’t come close to Bayview, but flowers adored the memorial. After the parade we rode our bikes on the back streets to Bayview. A tour bus had just dropped tourist. Many of these were veterans who looked at the inspiring plaques with engraved scenes from all of the wars. I asked one vet, looking at the Vietnam plaque, “Where were you stationed?” He replied, “up north” another here in Bien Huh. We remembered many things from our active military careers.

Daily Routine

We have pretty much settled into daily routine now.

• Early risers around 6:15am (Later than the 5:15am back home in NH)
• Shower
• Breakfast around 7:30am
• Exercise (Helen walks with one or two girls…3 to 4-1/2 miles) I ride my bike on Fleming Key 12 miles…gold for this year is 1,000 miles…840 left to go.
• Coffee break around 9:30 am
• Depending on which day of the week it’s Bocce Mondays and Fridays 10am to 12noon Tuesday and Thursday our Tai Chi classes at 11:30 am
• Most everyday we bike to these classes and games. From the classes and/or game we bike another couple of miles to check our mailbox down on Whitehead Street.
• Afternoon are reserved for groceries or anything that needs to be done.
• Normally we eat at home in the evening, except for Friday nights when we make it a point to go out to a restaurant and reflect on the pass week.

Volunteering

If there is one thing that you can do as much as you want in Key West is volunteering! Every single day there is another type of activity, parade, marathon. You name it and Key West has it! All this leads to the need for volunteers.
Last week our latest volunteerism was the Key West Film Festival. Another free tee shirt to add to our collection. It is interesting and fun to do these events, we see and meet lots of people, both participants and spectators.

That is what we saw and did!

ROTC Cadets!

Trumbo Point ...Our Float!

KW was a Sub Base in "Years Pass"

Looking Sharp US Navy