Key West Farmers’ Market

Thursday on the dock at the Truman Annex with about 40 vendors with the usual assortment from veggies to clothing styles, cards, food, jewelry, candies,crafts, baked goods, seafood, ice cream, cbd, etc

Good morning!

Morning view from my bed in the Airstream…

Crab cakes

A reminder of our summer crabbing experience in mid winter! A gluten free baked crab cake sitting on a sheet of crispy prosciutto, over a baked mashed potato cake lying on a bed of mandolin sliced steamed broccoli stems fenced in with grilled sesame asparagus….

Oyster grilling

One of my favorite on the road delights are roasted oysters. We usually buy a couple of dozen in the shell, put them on the propane grill in two separate batches, wait for them to open, and prise off the top half of the shell. Separately we prepare a butter, shallot, parsley, prosciutto and vermouth or white wine dressing which we spoon on to the roasting oysters. A couple of minutes later we have a delicious oyster appetizer!

Flatbread

Credit to Pat Lahey and the NYTimes for his Sullivan Street Bakery no-knead bread recipe. I have been making this bread at home for years and thought I would try an on-the-road version except I would make flatbread instead of a loaf. So I adapted quantities to King Arthur white unbleached flour 150 grams, water 105 grams, salt 3 grams and a new to me sourdough yeast I came across recently 1/2 teaspoon. Mixed in a storage box and left it for 36 hours somewhere between 70 and 80 degrees. It rose well and looked healthy. Added some extra flour after 24 hours to inhibit stickiness. Rolled it out using a wine bottle and put it on the grill and beyond belief it blew up to the size of a small football! Filled it with scrambled eggs a la Gordon Ramsey and enjoyed brunch!

Manatee

This huge seven foot Manatee came gliding by during dinner at the Geiger Key Fish Camp restaurant- moving ever so slowly. It's a threatened species with some 6,000 still alive. Doesn't handle collisions with small boats and outboard engines very well…

Seaside Cafe at the Mansion

Our friends from Tappahannock, Em & Kathy, flew down for a few days of winter relaxation. They are staying in the Reach Hotel and we get together for a few activities every day. Boating, sight seeing, dining, visiting the markets and driving around kW in their golf cart! Lobster pizza!

Paul & Brenda

Long time Airstream travelers - I think we go back as far as the 2016 South West Adventure caravan - Paul and Brenda winter at the Jolly Roger near Marathon. We have our annual catch up lunch at Geiger Key! We did the FallingWater Caravan with them to the Frank Lloyd Wright houses in western PA last May…. time for Key Lime pie!

Friendly Pelican

Our daily two mile walk takes us back and forth along the abandoned beach road at the end of the Boca Chica NAS air base. Yesterday was a quiet evening with only a couple of other walkers so the pelicans were braver than usual and this magnificent representative of the species sat on the wall as we walked five feet away! Maybe he was digesting his fish supper after a feeding frenzy we watched him indulge in a few minutes earlier…

Getting settled in

Arrived at the very end of Route 1, mile post 11 - as far south as you can go in the Continental US and set up our winter camp at Geiger Key Marina. String up the red chili lights in the tiki hut and unpack our two grills, set up the blue laser starfield and comfy chairs so we can watch sunrise, sunset and everything in between. Our first treat after a long long day on the road was fish and chips at the fish camp restaurant, we had grilled Hogfish and Red Snapper waterside while watching real fish cavorting in the boat channel right by our table. The warm Caribbean tropical air with its slightly higher humidity is a contrast which always creates pleasant and long lasting memories.

Back home

Today I checked my webcams at home to watch snow falling… maybe two inches… and more to come towards the end of the week. Talked to friends at home and commiserated the bad weather! Thank goodness I was not on I-95 stuck for 15 hours! Now I know why I head to Geiger Key in January!

Trouble on the road!

Saturday Jan 1 …. Got a tire low pressure warning from my trailer tire monitoring system on Florida turnpike near Miami. I stopped and reinflated to 65 lbs and 5 miles down the road it was back to 35 lbs so pulled into a deserted mall to change tire. The unfortunate part of the story was I could not find my wheel lug socket so I unhitched and found an auto-zone 5 miles away in Homestead. When I go there there was a line 8 deep of locals waiting to get in the store - they were only allowing one person at a time in! Not only Covid but computer system were mostly down! Nearly an hour later I got my socket, back to the rig, tire off, spare remounted and off we went! Traffic was unbelievably bad 3 hour bumper to bumper all the way to Marathon mid way down the Keys (crime scene, beach rubber necking and an accident) so we only just made the Geiger Key site in time! Most of the highway is two lanes only!

Yesterday in GKM I found my socket in my spares bin! Ouch! Next my RAM truck batteries almost went flat overnight! Back to Key West Autozone for a charger! No queue thank goodness! Trying to figure out what is sucking my system dry!

Now to replace one of the fridge fans with bad bearings - I have a dual fan config so one is running and managing fine! Wifi antenna I lost the antenna stick so ordered a new one and install. Propane tank leak - again we have two tanks so one is shut down and I have a replacement connector pipe to fit. I've had this problem for two weeks just needed to get somewhere where Amazon can deliver reliably! My short wave transmitter antenna came disconnected and dragged down the road for who knows how many miles so new cable to replace it! Today get tire leak diagnosis and repaired!

Tuna tonight!

Used some sesame seed bagel mix to coat my ahi-tuna and seared it on the griddle. The beauty of the half grill / half griddle is grilling asparagus at the same time….

Eaton Street in Key West

Enjoying someone else's cooking is part of traveling well and making the most of local resources. One of our favorite weekly lunch spots is Eaton Street Seafood located in a converted gas station in Key West. Anything in the seafood market is available as a lunch time meal! We love their lobster rolls on toasted rolls. Picked up some tuna and red snapper to go!

Happy anew Year!

Jupiter, Florida….

Softshells

Christmas Eve dinner… tastes of the Chesapeake! Soft shell crabs and crab cakes from our pots!

Christmas Lights

We have three chains of red hot chili pepper lights that we hang whenever we are located at a site for awhile. In the center is the wood grill and a flash light that I use to cook at night! Safe to say we cook outside on average every other night since it keeps smells and sizzles out of the Airstream. Anyway good always tastes better when grilled outside! One thing I will miss is my recent acquisition wood pellet grill at home and the just completed brick grilling pit on our patio. Something to look forward to on our return to Virginia!

Jekyll Island Lights

Many trees in the historic district have been covered or wrapped in white Christmas lights to great effect. I want to go home and do this to our locust tree that overhangs the Drive!

Spanish Moss

A word of caution - don't camp under Spanish Moss in the spring when it pollenates! It's a beautiful and attractive canopy to woodland camping but it can be quite disruptive to your throat and lungs! Also beware of chiggers aka red bugs who live in the moss. Hard to believe that Spanish moss was used to stuff mattresses in the old days! Photo taken on a walk around the clubhouse on Jekyll Island - clubhouse was built in 1888 to accommodate America's wealthiest families including the Rockefellers, Morgans and Vanderbilts as a winter resort club on a private island.

Jekyll Island Driftwood Beach

Driftwood Beach on the north east end of Jekyll Island has an amazing collection of otherworldly dead sun-bleached trees, remains of a forest that was once above sea level… This part of the island has eroded away and redeposited the sand at the south end of the island.

Jekyll Island

Clear northerly air free of humidity makes for great photo opportunities! Catching the last rays of sunset looking across the East River and a local fishing boat….

Oyster time

Barrier Island oysters on the half shell for appetizer two successive evenings… just a beautiful taste of the ocean. Made a finely chopped shallot and white balsamic vinegar mignonette which we alternated with a squeeze of lemon! Degustation assisted by a dry Prosecco!

Charleston SC

Our first stop was visiting newly weds Harrison and Christine along with Aussie Doodle Ophelia and camping our Airstream on their front lawn! Harrison is on varying Navy watches as he trains to be nuclear power engineer on aircraft carriers.

Start a new trip!

Starting our next trek from home in Virginia and planning to be on the road for nearly six months…. our last meal at home is Wagyu beef over mesquite so we are starting the journey with very high culinary expectations!

Last day on the beach

We decided to head back to Virginia by the beginning of March since it was likely we were going not to be eligible for vaccination in Florida. The day before departure was a beautiful sunny day for February and we decided to take a long walk through the preserve and down onto the beach and along the beach, walking across the soft squeaky sand...

Owl take over!

This great horned owl has taken over possession of this bald eagle nest at Topsail Preserve SP and is being monitored by volunteer rangers who will give every person on the trail the full tale! Although half the size of the bald eagle, the great horned owls are very aggressive and are known as "the tigers of the air"....

Day at the Beach

Lots of long walks to the Beach at Topsail Preserve State Park in the Florida Panhandle. Mid 60's and a one mile hike to the boardwalk then half an hour up and down the hard sand left by the retreating tide....

Bison Burgers

One of the simplest and tastiest grilled dinners that we have in our Airstream freezer is lean ground bison. Mix up with chopped shallots and paprika, we make them large for burger or small for meat balls. Getting the Yakatori grill fired up with charcoal and a layer of mesquite needs planning ahead and a clear weather forecast.

Airstreams everywhere

Surrounded by Airstreams at Topsail. It's a very popular campground destination that hosts the annual CanOpener rally in early January. Lots of really well appointed sites with hookups and space between units.....

Australian Open

First big event in the tennis calendar- Australian Open from Melbourne. DishTV in the foreground found the satellite without any problem! Cell phone directional booster on a flagpole delivered AT&T broadband at over 100 Mbps which is a record!

The future beckons...

My order for my Spacex Starlink satellite access is in the queue. Thank you Elon Musk!!

Gourmet camper

David showing off his gourmet camping skills for our Valentine's Day dinner. Asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and grilled lobster with hollandaise sauce.... over a thin bed of roasted masked potatoes!

Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine's Day birthday to Margaret!

Birthday and Valentine!

Lucky Margaret gets to celebrate her birthday on Valentine's Day so extra bonus cards and well wishers from far and wide! Two orders of red roses from our curbside pickup at Publix we here combined in three water bottles and suitably draped for decorum.

Heron

Beautiful and very bold heron on the beach at Dr Julian Buce St George Island State Park - the heron stood watchfully ten feet from several fishermen and every time they reeled in their lines, the heron moved forward expectantly! Obviously well versed in the small fish throwaway by local fishermen. Saves a lot of effort flying up and down the beach looking for lunch in the surf!

Mini frogs

Our electrical outlet is the home for a dozen or more little frogs at St George Island State Park. Opening and closing the cover has to be done carefully in case one gets trapped by the hinges. This froglet is trying to switch on the 50 amp supply!

Small emergency!

Made a flying stop in Tallahassee to get Margaret's finger fixed after a nasty accident with the oven stainless cover nearly slicing off her ring finger. I did the best I could with our medical kit and unfortunately too much time had passed for stitches to be done. All fixed and no housework for a month!

Stephen Foster

A beautifully laid out state park in upper central Florida close to the junction of I-75 and I-10 makes for a convenient layover on the long trip from Naples to Destin. Stephen Foster wrote "Way down upon the Suwannee River... " and this park memorializes his musical heritage. Unfortunately all the buildings and events were closed due to Covid.... this is the carillon tower that plays Stephen Foster melodies!

Webcam view

Some days you can be very happy not to be at home but instead camping in the warmer Floridian sun! This is the view from our Tappahannock Virginia webcam pointing out to the deck and river.... brrrr!

Alligators

Alligator stop is half way from the Keys to Naples so we always stop here to relax with lunch in the Airstream parked at the Big Cypress Oasis Visitor Center car park and then walk over to check out the alligators in the nearby canal. These are big big alligators!

Stone crab claws

These are jumbo size and very expensive and... delicious. Made up some mayo and mustard sauce and had a special dinner treat. After all that's what the Keys are famous for!

Kim & Kate

Just dropped in to say hi to Kim and Kate at Bahia Honda SP - the white truck and the Airstream to the left on the beach. The wind just turned NW and was coming straight at them for the rest of the day and night sending spray over their campsite. Great to catch up after our Cajun Caravan two years ago!