St Augustine

A brief stopover on the way back. They have a pedestrian mall in the middle of the old historic district. These are a few shots of the fort and the harbor that abut the pedestrian area.

Fixer Upper

Marked down, now just 1 gazillion, was 2 gazillion. There are lots of these houses down here where the construction has been abandoned/suspended . This 4 garage beauty has an ocean view to die for. I imagine it must wind up costing a mint to get a builder to take on someone else's half finished job.

Abandon ship!

Here we are abandoning ship for a visit to a small key surrounded by a convienent sand bar that allows wading in to see how the locals spend their weekends. The small cluster of enclosed pontoon boats is the Big Pine version of a tent city. Apparently a good way to avoid the local property taxes (and the IRS if rumors are true).

Big Pine Key Boating

We had a day on the water complete with snorkeling, fishing and visits to small keys including the world famous Little Palm Key. PT109 was filmed here, president Truman spent many weeks here and it is an extremely exclusive resort with prices that start at $1200 per night. No, that doesn't include any food. The top shots are of the FEC's old bridge. Apparently he imported concrete from Belgium to use in the base of the bridge piers. In the closeup you can see a grey color just over the black barnacle band. That is the Belgian variety. Very hard. Attempts at removing piers have largely failed. The bridges were of the ballasted variety and you can see how the pier was hollow to accept the stone. Weep holes at the bottom of the arch allowed water to drain out of the ballast.

Patti's big day

We had a great time for Patti's Birthday. She finally turned something something. She's been waiting her entire life for this day:) We went out to the strolled around the campground and went to the park and wound up a the Sunset Grille for Lobster dinner. Flager's seven mile bridge is shown behind the new span. The restaurant looks out at this view. Wonderful at sunset. His railroad celebrated its 100th birthday here this week. As you can see Patti had a ball.

A beautiful day in paradise

A quiet day at the Jolly Roger Campground. The pelicans abound, feeding from the fish cleaning station. A quiet day capped by a gorgeous sunset.