Our First Month…Snow to Sun!!

Yes, this week will mark our one month departure from zero degree weather to more favorable temperature down in the Keys of Florida. I can’t believe how fast the month has flown by! Our schedule seems to be busier than ever. That’s a good thing. I’m trying to get back on my routine of biking around the ten mile perimeter of Key West every other day.

Sunset on our evening bike ride

This morning, we did our ten miles and tonight we went to town on the bikes again, this time to buy batteries for my bike’s head and tail lights. It is incredibly wonderful to bike in the evening. We find many new little streets to explore. We are doing this relatively early evening, just after sun down. The breeze is light and the temperature is near perfect for the ride. Key West is a unique town with many small blocks of residential housing. Many of the streets are nearly passable by only one car at a time. This is where we enjoy riding and seeing what the different residences have for landscaping. All have trees of different species, that I would never be able to identify.

Another stop for an evening photo

The real-estate is tight, as there isn’t enough for all of the people on the island. This naturally brings the cost up to unbelievable amounts. This exploration is what we enjoy immensely in riding our bikes on the byways of Key West. 
Another thing we enjoy is finding nighttime locations to photograph. Key West is well lit and many of the mansions have landscape lighting that accentuates the mansions and especially the landscaping. I experiment with different camera settings to try and get the image I'm looking for. My Nikon D-7000 is capable of taking photos in nearly total darkness. I can make

Many of the street are perfect for an evening stroll

a totally dark scene turnout just about into broad daylight. So the trick is to try and reproduce the scene as my eye sees it, dark, with evening lighting accenting the mansions and landscape.
Now, a recent comment on Facebook about the lack of trees here at the Coast Guard RV campground has me thinking of all of the majestic trees we’ve seen here in Key West. I’m going to have a new tree photo each week on Facebook. Some of these trees are Nationally recognized. We’ve seen giant red wood trees that are 15 feet across at the base, but there are trees here that are 30 feet across. The difference is that the trees in California are hundred or so high, where here they are maybe seventy-five high.

Truman Annex next to the Truman White House

The first week of February was marked by steady wind and a few rain showers. This interfered with our Bocce schedule. You can’t play Bocce if the sand is damp. The sand sticks to the balls and it just doesn’t work! That meant that we tried something different. We volunteered at St Mary Star of the Sea soup kitchen. Yup, my first job was to make peanut butter/jelly sandwiches. I used 12 sandwich breads and one large bowl of peanut butter and plenty of jelly. The sandwiches are not part of the one four o’clock meal they serve. The sandwiches are for the next day’s breakfast. We actually worked from 11am to 12:30pm.

Our neighbors Jerry & Maxine are leaving
Key West for their home in Georgia

We left and did some shopping for our selves after that. We volunteered to come back at 3:30pm to help serve the four o’clock meal. I sort of had a pre-conceived notion that they were all homeless, drunks or on drugs, but this was not the case. A lot of people just run out of money each month. Nearly all were so thankful for the meal. We are going back later this afternoon to help serve another 4pm meal. Ninety three meals were served to these people in need.

And finally a photo of the full moon taken a few nights ago from our campsite at Trumbo point

I am ending this blog for today Sunday Feb. 8, 2015

That is what we did and saw!

Technorati Tags: Baby Boomers,Nature,Retired Military,Travel Adventure,Truck Camping,Health Workout,Culture

Ship Wrecked in Key West!!

 

Feb 9 and 10, 2014

Most of my blogs are upbeat and so is this one, in a humorous way. Everything can’t go perfectly all the time and so I tell my tail of a breakdown in paradise. Last week, I off loaded the camper for the duration of our stay here at Trumbo Point. All was well, until I had the truck parked in the sun for a day or so, in extreme heat. When I got in it, I noticed that my air pressure gauge, on one side, read zero. Normally, each rear air bag should read 20 to 40 lbs. Hence, I started to look for an air leak. The soapy water bottle and my trusty high powered LED flashlight were my tools of choice. Most of the fittings are under the dash with only one at the rear of the truck, at each air bag. This dilemma lasted a couple of days. I was thinking of different solutions to fix the problem. Several trial and errors later…after several trips to Advance Auto Parts, Napa Auto Parts, Home Depot and Ace Hardware store, I finally isolated the problem, but unable to find the exact leaking point. I now figured a solution on a temporary fix. You can’t run the truck without at least five pounds of air, or damage to the airbag would result. The solution was to isolate the damaged section and add a manual air fill near the rear tire. I have a bicycle air pump and was able to pump air up to 25 psi (pounds per square inch). This is more than enough, when I load the camper. This 25 psi will double to 50 psi. So, this problem has been put to bed. Other problems we encountered were: a windshield wiper blade that separated, the camper battery was not charging properly (I had it checked and everything was ok). I think it was a lose connection in the power cable into the camper. All is well now. The solar panel keeps the battery up very well. I use the generator sparingly to recharge all of electrical battery devices.

While we are on maintenance issues, I must say how wonderful it is to wakeup in the morning and just go outside and chammy (chamois) down the morning dew off the truck. The dew makes the truck shine after a good wipe down. This, by itself, is enough satisfaction for being here!

Now, let me talk about exercise. One of our goals for being here this winter was to live a better life style, both in diet and exercise. My high end pedometer says that we are walking in the neighborhood of five miles a day. (10,000 plus steps). We’ve been using our bikes as primary means of transportation. Yesterday, we rode around the Island and put 16 miles on the bike odometer. Helen’s been preparing healthy food and I’ve been cutting down on in between snacks. In the long run, it has to pay off. We also have been biking over to the Navy side of Key West at Truman Annex. Here, we often visit the recreation center. The remarkable thing there is the availability to select hundreds of movies to watch on a large screen. The seats are large stuffed, leather recliners, much like in your home. So far, we saw “Last Vegas” and “Captain Phillips” …The Somali pirate story of a container ship being held hostage. The Last Vegas movie was very funny. It starred: Michael Douglas, Robert DeNiro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline. We don’t go to the movies very much back home, so it is sort of a treat and a change of pace to do so here. Oh, this activity, on base, is totally free. Going through the movie selection book, we noticed that some movies are so new that they can’t be shown until the release date, just like previews of coming attractions.

Other features, of the Navy side, are a well equipped gym, covered picnic areas and a quarter mile of beach also with covered picnic tables. We often spend  time here reading books, stopping often to watch sailboats and jet skis going by in the glistening water. Sunglasses are a must even with overhead cover.

Of course, one has to remember that all of these amenities are not here only for our enjoyment, but for the men and woman who are stationed here. Key West definitely has a big military presence! Many agencies are here from Customs, Border Patrol, Drug Enforcement and Home Land Security. Everyone knows that we are only 90 miles from Cuba, but also, all of Central America is not that many sailing days away. Many illegal operations are ongoing, just offshore, and these organizations keep them at bay.  

That is what we saw and did! 

Truck Camper Modifications….Generator & Bikes

Generator Frame Mount in the Works

When one travels with a truck camper or anything else one keeps his eyes open for ways to make life easier. This philosophy is what I’ve been doing this past year as we traveled from Alaska to Florida. This is not to say that life was not easy. We had a comfortable ride and living quarters. The need to improve things comes from my military training. It’s called position improvement.
Well, enough on philosophy! Here’s what I’ve been up too. On the road everything ran as it should and we were able to have electricity for the day and night demands. The problem encountered was when we stayed put for a couple of weeks in Key West at a Coast Guard RV campground.

The bug cover should help!

They had everything except electrical hookups. Our 50 watt solar panel wouldn't keep up with our heavy demand at night. With two laptops running, camera batteries, cell phones charging and camper lights it was a little much for the one camper battery and solar panel. Our generous neighbor (Lauren) graciously aloud us to plug into his Honda Eu2000i generator at night. This would be my "must have unit" addition for the camper. I spent a couple of weeks thinking…would I store this 46 pound generator on the roof? Would it fit on a bracket somewhere in the outside rear of the camper. I was thinking that would add additional weight which I didn’t need aft of the rear axle. I noticed that all of the other campers had there generators secured on the ground to there RV in one way or another. No, the way for us to go was  to mount the beast in the front of the truck.

Trial fit with mountain bikes

I already had fabricated a removable front hitch receiver which mounted on the existing Fisher Snow Plow mount. This receiver hitch mount is secured with two padlocks and two 1-1/4x8 inch harden nuts and bolts. The hitch was created for our two mountain bikes. I  wasn't impressed with bike racks in the rear of the camper. Back there the bikes get full of dust, dirt and they are always in the way when entering the camper. I have no problem wiping off an occasional dead bug. Back to the generator bracket. I had to design the location so it wouldn't interfere with the headlights and the bikes. I came up with a solution! It is strong, sits above the bumper and clears the bikes. The generator is secured to the truck frame and can stay in place at night. I just need to walk the camper electrical cable around to the front of the truck, plug in, set the choke pull the cord once and turn on the lights.

Well there is always a little more to the story! Remember position improvement. The existing bike rack worked flawlessly all the way to Alaska and back, but as I watched it on bumpy roads the bikes would yaw and roll gently fore and aft. (maybe I don’t have the proper naval wording) I discovered this movement was caused by an Aluminum H beam I used in the original fabrication to save weight (actually it was because I had the beam in the shop). This was the excuse to redo the bike rack and eliminate the roll. I would also move the bikes forward three to four inches further away from the truck. This made me think of possible additional stress on the hitch receiver. Ah! if the bike tube extended further back into the plow super structure it would double the strength and further prevent up and down movement.

I finally rebuilt the whole thing using thicker angle iron. Luckily I had all of the materials laying around the shop. Of course there is my time, but when your semi-retired you are suppose to do the things you want to do right?I’ve had the pieces on and off the truck a dozen times. Everything fits perfectly. One of the last things to accomplish is to spray paint the works with Hammer Rite paint to protect the project.
That is what I did!