Marge is getting quit artistic with her photography as shown below. Sunshine Key has a mile marker post with distances from various cities around the country although I think some of the distances were put up there to make you feel closer than you are. But it is kind of neat and with the huge Flag that is flown here the picture turned out kind of nice.

In case you haven't noticed the pictures are posting now. I have to think it was the connection we had in the Keys as once we moved (today) things seem to be working fine.

We left the keys today with a tinge at regret as it seems clear we may not be back next year. Policies and cost increases have certainly gotten out of hand and while we may visit for a short time, we have decided to go elsewhere next year. At this point in time we are still planning on Florida but have made reservations near Fort Myers at Up River RV Resort which we have stayed at before. We even left our coach there a year ago Christmas when we flew home. The resort has access to the Caloosahatchee River with a boat ramp and the Gulf is just a short distance (16 miles) for Salt Water Fishing. We're already looking forward to it although we will miss the keys.

Tonight we are at the Ortona Locks on the Caloosahatchee River just outside of LaBelle Florida. We have a place in Labelle that we store the boat for the season and we will prep it and wrap it tomorrow then drop it off. We really like this campgroun...its a Corps of Engineer campground right on the river as you can see from our past posts....small spacious and really quiet. Lots of wildlife...manatees, otters all kinds of birds including the bald eagle in a tree accross the way.

I close out this post with a few classic pictures of sunsets etc. We will try and make up for our lack of post and pictures on our trip home now that that the system seems to be working.

We've been here now almost three months and neither of us knows where the time goes. Obviously the blog has been sort of forgotten at times as it has been a bit of pain to try to get anything to post properly. Google documents works very well for posting but unless the connection is good it never posts completely. Editing after the fact is so frustrating that I have given up to some extent so I apologize for the lack of posts this year while in the keys.

Lots of things have happened this year..
....Ben, our son came for as short visit
....Marge's cousin, Sandy was in Key West and visited with us briefly
....our friends the Ritchies have come down and stayed for the month of March although David has discovered he really does not care for fishing all that much. He does like eating those fish that we have caught though. Deanna on her first trip enjoyed herself thoroughly was the best student in learning to fish in salt water. She caught some nice fish too! Mark her son and his friend Jesse came down and also enjoyed a day fishing and they checked out Key West on St Patricks Day
....Dave Jag and his family were down and his son and his wife also were quite the fisherman catching enough for dinner and I think enjoying being on the water too!

....The Thompsons were here for their longest time ever
....A really strange happening was the Eagle Ray that jumped into a passing boat and unfortunately killed a woman from the blow. We have seen rays jumping often but never close to a boat. We even saw a 6ft shark come out of the water, which we had never seen before.
....we continue to eat and imbibe and enjoy with the many folks we have met over the years here at Sunshine key. Fishing and boating has been great and lots of fun.

All of us have had difficulty with the changing rules and costs and along with that the management of Sunshine Keys attitude. Basically, the costs being less than half in most other places has had a great deal to do with our decision not to return next year for the usual 3 months we spend here. We aren't sure, but we may still come down for a short time but management seems to have done its best to drive its loyal customer base away We have made reservations near Fort Myers for next year and a lot of the group is going elsewhere for some of the same reasons we are.

We plan on leaving tomorrow and will drop off the boat for storage... then we hope to head West to Natchez, Ms. From there we hope to work our way north along the Natchez Trace and get home mid April.

I tried one more time to post a few pictures but signal strength or ? has once again prevented the posting of pictures. Once we move it may be different.

Posting using Google's Documents

Well, by changing internet access and trying something new that really seems easy to use, things are beginning to work. Google documents will allow me to post text and pictures by just typing and placing the pictures, which makes it very much easier than previously. Anyway here goes with pictures again. Will try just one the first time.

Bat Tower at Sugarloaf Key

Pictures Finally!

Tried once again using Picasso and it seems to have worked this time. Rather than try to insert pictures into the old post, I have inserted the three concerning the bat house on Sugarloaf Key below. The first is of the tower by itself

The louvered access for the bats.

A view from the bottom looking up at all the "cubicles"?

Hopefully this will all post properly.

Picture Problems

Still having problems posting pictures. Have tried a couple of different methods but nothing has worked to this point. Internet connection has been one source of the problem sometimes but we're stuck with this connection until we move.

Bat House

Many years ago, when development started in the lower keys the mosquito population was a terrible problem and someone got the idea that maybe they could be controlled with bats imported from central Florida. (A single bat can eat as many as 1000 mosquito's a day.) At any rate, in 1929 a gentleman by the name of Perky decided to build this tower to entice bats to survive and multiply and resolve at least some of the problems with the mosquito population.
Perky Bat Tower

This tower is about 40 or 50 feet tall and quite intricate with roosts for the bats behind louvers that allow them to come and go with the roosts inside protected by the shake shingles on the exterior of the tower.
Entrance Louvers

This last view is from the bottom of the tower which shows the strange spacing of the interior boards that allows roosting areas through out the structure. The problem was that either the bats all died or moved on to better climates and the structure is still obviously standing to this day. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hows that for an interesting tidbit about the Florida Keys?