Living Our Dream

St. Petersburg, FL

After our short stay in Bonita Springs, we moved about 100 miles north to the Escapees co-op park called The Florida SKP Resort in Wauchula, FL, west of Sebring in the south central part of Florida. Actually, the Resort is located in Zolfo Springs, but the mailing address is Wauchula.

The Escapees RV Club has numerous camping facilities across the country. Some are campgrounds only, and some are co-ops. Co-ops are described on the  Escapees Website. Descriptions of the other types of parks are available by clicking on the appropriate name in the sidebar on the site. 

The photo below shows our site at the SKP Resort.

 

The Florida SKP Resort is a co-op rather than a campground, meaning co-op members buy a share of the co-op and pay an annual maintenance fee in order to be able to use a site. If you decide you no longer want to be a member of the co-op, you get your buy-in fee back plus the cost of any approved improvements you have made to the site. There is a long waiting list to buy into the co-op, so there is little danger of not being able to recover your costs.

Some co-op members choose to put park models on their sites and some use their sites for their RVs. Those who use their sites for RVs can choose to put their sites into the rental pool during times when they are not using their sites themselves. Those of us Escapees members who are not co-op members can then use the rental sites.

There are a limited number of rental sites and the number drops when more co-op members arrive for the winter (January and February are the busiest months). We intentionally went before the seasonal rush, and there were quite a few open sites.

Site sizes at the Resort are very generous and the landscaping is nicely done. There are a lot of palm trees along the campground roads and most of the individual sites have also had shrubs and flowers added. The Resort has full hookups, free Wi-Fi, paved roads, and most rental sites have paved pads and patios.

While we were staying at the Resort, we went to St. Petersburg, which is about an hour to the west, to visit Sunken Gardens. Sunken Gardens is another one of those places Paul visited with his family when he was a kid.

Sunken Gardens is over 100 years old. It was started in 1903 by plumber and avid gardener George Turner, Sr. The gardens are built in a 10 to 15 foot deep sink hole, hence the name "sunken." George planted quite a few citrus trees, papayas, and other exotic plants around his home. In the '20s he opened a nursery and began selling fruits, vegetables, and plants. His nursery customers paid a nickel to tour the gardens. In 1935, George fenced the garden and began a charging 25-cent admission fee. In the '50s through the '70s, Sunken Gardens became a popular tourist attraction.

To get to Sunken Gardens, we had to drive over Sunshine Skyway, which crosses Tampa Bay. At 5.5 miles long, the bridge is the world's longest bridge with a cable-stayed main span. The main span of the bridge is shown in the photo below.

The yellow suspension cables and their shadows create interesting patterns.

 

The original two-lane bridge that was part of the Sunshine Skyway was opened in 1954. This was the bridge Paul and his family crossed when they were here in the late '50s. A second bridge that ran parallel to the first was added in 1969 to make the road four lanes wide. The span that was added in 1969 was destroyed in 1980 when a freighter struck a bridge pier. The bridge, a Greyhound bus, and several cars fell 150 feet into the bay. The replacement twin spans that exist today were opened in 1987.

When we arrived at Sunken Gardens, Paul was surprised at how much the area had grown up from what he remembered from when he was a kid. Although it's not right downtown, the garden is in the city. The photo below shows a portion of the well-landscaped parking lot looking toward the entrance building.

The next photo shows the small waterfall and colorful foliage that greeted us as we entered the garden.

Sunken Gardens covers about four acres; but with the way the paths wind around, it feels like it is much larger. The mature, dense foliage does a good job of hiding other paths that may only be a few yards away from the path you are on. For the next photo, the shade from the mature trees was so dense we had to use a flash so you could see our faces. You can also see how thick the growth is behind us.

Throughout the gardens, there are many beautiful, exotic flowers blooming like the one below.

Another flowering shrub that caught our eye was this double hibiscus.

There were also several cages of exotic birds including a couple of different types of parrots and a laughing kookaburra. The laughing kookaburra is a bird from the kingfisher family whose call sounds similar to human laughter. The call of the kookaburra is familiar to most of us because it has found its way into many so many soundtracks that it has come to typify a jungle sound. The kookaburra wasn't calling when we were there, but one of the parrots was. It really did add to the jungle atmosphere.

There was a larger cage with several brightly-colored macaws, which are a type of parrot from Mexico, Central, and South America. Two of the macaws were preening each other. It looked like the one on the left was saying, "Down a bit, a little lower...now over to the left...that's it...ahhhh."

 

Sunken Gardens also has several Chilean flamingos. Most of them were resting with their heads tucked behind their wings, but the one in the photo below was preening itself. We had never seen a bird kneeling this way.

Although poinsettias make most of us think of Christmas and cold weather, they are actually indigenous to Mexico and are tropical in nature. Sunken Gardens had these beautiful poinsettias displayed in the shape of a Christmas tree.

As we finished our tour of Sunken Gardens, we couldn't pass up a tourist photo.

From Sunken Gardens, we drove back across Sunshine Skyway to return to the motor home. During the rest of our stay, we made a Wal-Mart stop or two, did some laundry, and did a little motor home maintenance.

From here, we go to Blueberry Hill RV Resort. Blueberry Hill is in Bushnell, FL, and it is the same place we stayed for several months last winter.

Sanibel Island, FL

We left the Florida Keys, drove north on U.S. 1, then cut west across the tip of Florida on the Tamiami (pronounced tammy-amee) Trail. The road connects Tampa and Miami, and the name is a combination of the names of the two cities.

We traveled the part of the trail from just west of Miami to near Naples, FL. This part of the Tamiami Trail runs along the northern border of Everglades National Park and through the Big Cypress National Preserve. While clipping along at 60 mph and with brush, weeds, and grass partially blocking our view, Margery was still able to catch glimpses of somewhere between 75 and 100 alligators sunning themselves along the banks of the waters beside the road. Paul was able to see quite a few alligators himself, even while driving. Although most of the 'gators were small (2 to 4 feet long), there were one or two that were more like 8 feet.

We pulled into Imperial Bonita Estates RV Resort in Bonita Springs, FL, in the early afternoon. Imperial Bonita has a section for RVs and park models and another section for manufactured housing. The RV section is primarily used for seasonal rentals, but they have a good many sites in the RV section they use for transients like us. The RV sites have full hookups with 50 amp, paved roads, gravel pads, and concrete patios. The photo below shows our site at Imperial Boniva.

 

There is a real mix in the RV section. There was a newer park model on our right and an older, stationary trailer to the left. However, most of the stationary RVs and park models are neatly kept. Most of the more-permanent, manufactured housing in the other section of the park was very nicely landscaped, even though some of the units there were older, too.

The main reason we stopped in Bonita Springs was that it is less than an hour from Sanibel Island. Sanibel Island is located off the west coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico near Ft. Meyers. The island is about 12 miles long and 4 miles wide.

The beaches of Sanibel are world-famous for shelling. The reason the island is so good for shell collectors is due to its geographical location. The Gulf is quite shallow in this area and there are a lot of shells. The island also lies east to west so it acts as a scoop as winds, tides, currents, and storms push shells up from the shallow waters onto the beaches. The photo below is a view of the beach at the eastern end of Sanibel.

 

The beach below Margery's feet was littered with millions of shells.

Most shells are broken, but there are a few nice ones that are still intact. Shell hunters who are there at the right time (usually right after a storm) can sometimes find a shell that is fairly rare.

They have a name for the way shell hunters walk on the beach. It's called the "Sanibel Stoop," and Margery is demonstrating it in the photo below. It's hard on the back, but serious hunters will walk all the way down the beach bent over like that.

Sanibel Island also has a lighthouse on the eastern end of the island right near the beach shown above. The lighthouse tower was constructed from iron in the north, shipped to Florida, and erected on a foundation of iron pilings in 1884. There are also two lightkeepers houses on the site.

We drove the entire length of Sanibel and stopped at another beach a little farther west and took the self portrait shown below.

The western end of the island is said to have larger shells while the eastern end gets the smaller, more delicate shells. The main reason for this is probably because the western end of the island sticks farther out into the Gulf of Mexico and gets a little more wind and stronger currents.

We also drove to the end of Captiva Island, which curves northward from the western end of Sanibel. Captiva has some nice resorts and some VERY large, expensive-looking houses.

We only planned to stay in Bonita Springs a few days, then we will be moving about 100 miles north the Escapees co-op park called the Florida SKP Resort in Wauchula, FL.

Christmas Greetings From the Zellers

Florida Keys Part III: Key West Sunset Celebration

After taking the trolley tour of Key West, visiting Truman's Little White House, and walking around Old Town, we ran out of time and energy. We went back to the motor home for some dinner and a good night's rest. Then we drove back down to Key West again the next afternoon. We walked around a little more, looked in some shops, and did some more photography to follow-up our sightseeing the previous day.

As we said before, we both really like the exotic plants found farther south in Florida, and there was no shortage of tropical plants in Key West. The photo below is bougainvillia, which is fairly common in Florida; but this one was beautifully displayed against a white picket fence.



The next photo is an even more exotic-looking flower that we saw while walking around Key West.



And what would a trip to the Keys be without having some Key lime pie. Key limes, which are smaller, have thorns, and have thinner (more fragile) rinds than commercially-grown limes, are naturalized throughout the Keys. Key limes are also yellow in color and are more tart and more aromatic than commercially-grown limes. Commercially-grown limes are known as Persian or Tahiti limes.

Key lime pie is traditionally made from canned, sweetened, condensed milk. Canned milk was used because fresh milk would not have been readily available in the Keys before modern refrigeration.

In addition to eating Key lime pie with a fork in the traditional way, it is also served frozen on a stick, dipped in dark chocolate. The tart pie combined with the comparatively-sweet, dark-chocolate coating is outstanding.



The reason we went to Key West later in the afternoon the second day was to be there for the Sunset Celebration in Mallory Square. Every evening, people gather in the square to watch the sunset. There are also street entertainers, food vendors, and people selling things such as jewelry, souvenirs, art, and photography.

As we entered the square, we saw a fairly large crowd gathered around a fellow who looked like he was getting ready to put on a show. He was joking back and forth with the crowd, and his comments were very amusing. We stopped to watch. He was soon balancing on a ladder and had a volunteer from the audience toss knives up to him to juggle. It took a little faith on the part of the juggler, but the volunteer was pretty good. There was lots of humorous banter.

Then, while his assistant and more volunteers held his 10-foot unicycle, the entertainer transferred from the ladder.

After more humor, the entertainer juggled flaming batons while balancing on the unicycle.

 

Then the fellow finished up by flipping his hat from his head to his foot and back again. It doesn't sound that difficult, but when you watch it in person you can see the coordination and dexterity necessary to do this trick without falling.

As we walked around Mallory Square, the crowd continued to grow. The photo below gives you an idea of how many people there were, and this was only a fraction of the square.

There were several clowns making balloon animals and the two guys in the next photo were playing drums.

 

This next fellow was a one-man band. He sang, played harmonica, strummed the guitar, and played drums and cymbals by means of strings attached to his feet.

 

We soon realized the sun was getting pretty low and all the spots by the seawall were filling up, so we decided we better go find a place to watch the sunset before it was too late. We ended up going to the far end of the square where we not only found a spot by the railing, we also found a guy playing a steel drum. Paul loves steel drum music, so that was a great spot for us.

 

There are a number of old schooners docked in the old section of the harbor. Several of them were out for a sunset cruise.

 

The next photo shows another schooner shortly before the sun dipped below the horizon.

What a great way to end our trip to the Florida Keys - watching sailboats sail into the sunset with steel drum music playing in the background! It doesn't get much better than that.

As we left Mallory Square, we were in a fun mood and we couldn't resist taking the next photo of Margery. She said this is about the only way anyone will ever see her in public with a bare midriff.

It was a bit of a long drive back to the motor home in the dark, but with the sun setting at around 5:37 PM in Key West, it wasn't all that late. Since we can't go any farther south, we would be heading back north (but not too far north) the next morning.

Florida Keys Part II: Sightseeing in Key West

After touring Crane Point on Key Vaca near Marathon, FL, we got up bright and early next morning and headed south on U.S. 1 to Key West in the car. Although there is camping in and near Key West, it is very expensive and most of Key West has very narrow streets that would be difficult to negotiate with a large vehicle like an RV.

As many of our regular readers know by now, we like to take guided tours of new areas. We found two for Key West - the Conch Train (pronounced konk - an edible, marine mollusk) and the Old Town Trolley Tours of Key West. The Conch Train looked like fun, but the Old Town Trolley was the same company that did the tour we took of St. Augustine last year. We liked that tour; and besides, the trolley made more stops. We could hop off at any stop to sightsee and just get on the next trolley that went by, so we decided on the Old Town Trolley.

Another advantage to a guided tour was we could park at the visitor center for free and ride the trolley into town. Most parking in town is in pay lots or metered street parking - another good reason not to take an RV to Key West.

One of the first stops on the trolley tour was the Southernmost Point. This is the southernmost point in the Continental United States accessible to civilians. There is a concrete marker in the shape of a buoy there, and we had to stop for the obligatory southernmost photo.

In this area are the Southernmost Guest House, the Southernmost Hotel, and the Southernmost House. There is actually a house farther to the south than the Southernmost House. It was built later and is called the Southernmost Southernmost House, but it's not as picturesque as the original Southernmost House, which is shown in the photo below.

The Southernmost House is a guest house and museum. It was built in 1896 as a private residence at a cost of $250,000 (equivalent to $6 million today). It underwent a $3 million restoration in 1996.

Just to illustrate how far south Key West is, it is closer to Havana than it is to Miami. It less than 100 miles to Cuba, but it is about 130 miles to Miami "as the crow flies."

Being close to Cuba means Key West has had a lot of Cuban influence. In 1890, Key West had a population of 18,000, half of which were said to be of Cuban origin. The battleship USS Maine sailed from Key West on its way to Havana where it blew up sparking the Spanish-American War. There was a huge influx of Cuban refugees during the Mariel Boatlift when Castro allowed people to leave Cuba for a short time back in the 1980s.

Back during the Mariel Boatlift, there were so many refugees that the Border Patrol set up checkpoints along US Highway 1. These checkpoints inconvenienced the locals and deterred tourism. As a tongue-in-cheek protest, the city of Key West seceded from the Union and declared itself a micro-nation called the Conch Republic. Although not a serious secession, the protest did help tourism (and T-shirt sales) when the roadblocks were finally discontinued.

Another sign of Cuban influence are all the chickens roaming the streets. Back in the early days, the Cubans liked to watch and bet on cock fights, and they brought their chickens with them to Key West. When cock fighting was outlawed by the United States, the Cubans simply turned their chickens loose. Although there have been thoughts of rounding them up, it was decided to let the chickens continue to roam free. Since they roam free and must fend for themselves, they eat a lot of bugs.

 

The next trolley stop where we got off was the main stop down by Mallory Square at the western end of the island. We walked around the square and the docks. There was a yacht tied up that was as large as some we saw at the marina near Palm Beach.

We could also see a large cruise ship that was in port.

We strolled around some of the shops that were in the area of Mallory Square. Then we walked up Whitehead Street to Harry Truman's Little White House.

Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, during his fourth term (this was before term limits). Truman, who had been vice president for only 83 days, became president. After overseeing the end of WWII, Truman was exhausted, and his doctors wanted him to rest. Someone suggested the use of the base commandant's residence at the Key West Naval Station since the house was vacant at the time. There was no long-distance telephone service in the Keys, so Truman would not be interrupted unnecessarily. In fact, telephone lines were run from the house to a Navy ship docked nearby so they could communicate with Washington when they needed to by means of the ship's radio.

The house was originally built in 1890 as a two-family duplex for the base commandant and the paymaster. In 1911, the house was converted to a single-family dwelling because the new commandant had a very large family and needed more space. During Truman's term in office, which ran from 1945 to 1952, he liked it so much that he spent a total of 175 days in the Little White House in Key West.

Although the Little White House is no longer owned by the U.S. Government (it is owned by the Little White House Foundation), it is sometimes still used by former presidents. In fact, President Carter visited in June of this year. Therefore, photography of the inside is not permitted for security reasons. The house looks the same way it did when Truman stayed there. Approximately 90% of the original furnishings (down to the stapler on Truman's desk) are still there. We were surprised, although we shouldn't have been, to find the furniture looked just like Margery's parents' furniture down to the breakfront. The photo below shows the outside of the house.

 

The ocean used to come up almost to where the palm trees are in front of the house. In 1909, the harbor was dredged to accommodate larger ships and the material from the dredging was used to fill in the area in front of the house so it is now at least 500 feet from the water. Barracks (now condominiums) were built between the house and the ocean. The Navy has done a lot of dredging around Key West over the years. As much as 30% of the existing land area of Key West is fill from dredging.

Although we didn't get off the trolley, the tour also goes past the house where writer Earnest Hemmingway lived from 1931 to 1939.

Hemmingway spent a lot of time at Sloppy Joe's Bar, which is still in business. It used to have a different name, and it used to be a few doors down the street; but in 1937, the landlord raised the rent from $3 a week to $4. Joe Russell, the owner of the bar, refused to pay the increase and rented a place a few doors away on the corner of Greene and Duval Streets. The old bar never officially closed for the move. The customers just picked up their drinks and bar stools and carried them up the street to the new location. The photo below shows Sloppy Joe's Bar.

Right across from the Hemmingway House is the Key West Lighthouse. Hemmingway said it was a good thing it was so close to his house because it often helped him find his way home from Sloppy Joe's at night. The photo below shows Key West Light.

 

The first lighthouse, which was 65 feet tall, was completed in 1825. It was close to the beach and was destroyed by a hurricane in 1846. A new, 66-foot lighthouse was built on higher ground and was completed in1849. After surrounding trees began to obscure the light, the height of the tower was increased by 20 feet in 1894.

We learned about Truman and Hemmingway, and found out Key West has long been a magnet for celebrities. Other famous residents of Key West include Jimmy Buffet (singer), Mel Fisher (treasure hunter), Calvin Klein (fashion designer), Boog Powell (baseball player), Tennessee Williams (playwright), John James Audobon (naturalist), and Kelly McGillis (actress - Top Gun and Witness).

There was too much to see and do in Key West for a one-day visit. After taking the trolley tour and doing some sightseeing, we called it a day and headed back to the motor home. We would return the next day to see the sunset. We will tell you about our second day in Key West in our next post.