So Long and Thanks For All The Fish . . .
Some of you will get this, but most of you probably won’t.
A couple of days ago, I blog-posted about my porpoise training days down in Florida during the the summer of 1967.
And I talked about how Lori, the smaller one on the left,
once caught a fish in her pen and gave it to me as a gift, I guess because I had given her so many fish.
Well, apparently it wasn’t just Lori. It seems that dolphins at the Barnacles Café and Dolphin Feeding, an attraction in Australia, are missing all the tourists, who aren’t coming to see them, and feed them, so they’re bringing them gifts to try and lure them back.
Dolphins who frequent Australia’s Tin Can Bay, a popular tourist spot, have taken to bringing “gifts” ashore, apparently missing the visitors who would normally be lined up to feed them before the coronavirus pandemic.
The pod of humpback dolphins has brought sponges, barnacle-covered bottles and fragments of coral to Queensland’s Barnacles Cafe & Dolphin Feeding in recent weeks, a volunteer told Australia’s 7News.
“Nothing surprises me with dolphins and their behavior anymore,” Barry McGovern, a dolphin expert and PhD student at University of Queensland, told the outlet. “They do everything – they use tools, they have culture, they have something similar to names in signature whistles.”
Now, before anyone corrects me, yes I know Lori and Thor were dolphins, NOW. But back then, they were porpoises.
This was a dolphin, and actually still is.
It’s a fish. A Dolphin Fish, to be precise.
But somewhere along the line it became a Mahi-Mahi.
I wish they’d just make up their minds and stop changing the names of things.
Since a number of readers have commented on how much they like my reposting of places we’ve visited in the past, I thought I repost this compilation of a week we spent in Key West, FL 11 years ago this month.
Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
May 15, 2009
We pulled out of the RV park in Homestead, FL and headed down to Key West about 11:30 am.
This is later than we had thought to leave, but we were waiting for the mail to come at the park office.
Our daughter Brandi had send us a Priority Mail letter on Monday containing a replacement debit card. One of the two we normally use has lost its magnetic strip and will no longer scan.
It should have been here Wednesday or Thursday, at the latest. But it still hasn’t shown up. Since we’ll be passing back thru Homestead on our way back north, the RV park is going to hold it for us, assuming it ever shows up.
We’ll see.
We arrived here in Key West about 2:3opm and have a waterfront site here at Geiger Key RV Park. We’re about 10 miles from Key West proper.
Here’s a couple of pics of what we see from our site. Nice!!!
We actually about 5 ft from the water’s edge.
After we had gotten things set up, we headed into Key West to grab a late lunch/early supper.
We decided to try Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville Cafe in downtown Key West. We’d eaten at his sister’s place in Gulf Shores, AL called Lulu’s at Homeport, so we had to try Jimmy’s too.
We were surprised how small the place really is.
Jan had the Caribbean Club Chicken Sandwich and I had the Caribbean Chicken Salad. We both really liked what we had.
Hopefully we’ll have a chance to go back.
Tomorrow some friends of ours are coming down with their RV from West Palm Beach and will join us for a few days. We really look forward to seeing Charlee again. It’s been a long time.
May 16, 2009
Our friends showed up about 4:30pm after driving down from West Palm Beach with 5th wheel trailer. They’re parked about 3 spaces down from us here at the RV park.
As soon as they got settled in, we headed the 10 miles down the road to Key West and sunset on the historic Mallory Square.
From where we were on the pier we couldn’t see the sun set directly, but it was beautiful, none the less.
After watching the sunset we walked across the street to the world-famous Hogsbreath Saloon. The food was really good and the drinks were great.
Jan had Chicken Tenders and Jalapeno Poppers appetizers, and I had the Grilled Chicken Sandwich. But the drinks were a whole ‘nuther story.
Jan had the GoomBaySmash, which is pineapple juice and coconut milk mixed with Bacardi Coco Rum. It wasn’t long until she feeling very, very good.
And I think my Hogarita was made with rocket fuel. The few times I order a mixed drink I normally complain about the fact that there seems to be little or no alcohol in it.
A couple of weeks Jan and I were eating a Cuban restaurant in Downtown Disney, a commercial shopping/restaurant area that’s not actually part of the Disney theme parks. Since I had never had one, I decided to order a Mojito, a drink made with rum, sugar, lime juice, soda, and mint leaves.
And I would swear that this drink had absolutely NO alcohol in it whatsoever. I mean it was sugar/lime/mint favored, but I might as well have been drinking ice tea, and it would have been a lot cheaper, too.
However I think my Hogarita had my drink’s alcohol in it and two or three other people’s drinks. I certainly got my money’s worth.
And I’ll just say that I’m glad I wasn’t driving us home.
May 17, 2009
After eating a great breakfast at the Geiger Key Marina Smokehouse Restaurant here at the RV park, we headed back down to Key West with our friends to spend some more time exploring.
The first thing we noticed was that there was a new addition to the scenery. Since we left last night, a Disney Cruise ship had docked right on the square.
After finding a place to park, we wandered some of the many gift shops before taking a tour of Key West on the Old Time Trolley. It’s a 90 minute ride going past all of the major sites in Key West. Our tour guide, Tim, was excellent and really kept us laughing.
We also came across what seems to be the original ‘Sponge Bob’, although his pants weren’t square.
After wandering thru more gift shops, we ate a late lunch at Alonzo’s Oyster Bar, right on the water at the Key West Marina. Once again the food was good and the scenery was great!
Right across the dock from us, a fishing boat had come in and was cleaning some of their catch, throwing the waste overboard.
This attracted a lot of gulls, and some very large tarpon, all of them fighting over the feast.
Some of the tarpon seemed to be at least 6ft in length.
But now it was time for us to head back to the RV park since our friends planned on heading back up to West Palm Beach, about 220 miles north.
We had a great time visiting together and will see them again in a few days when we stop over in West Palm on our way up north.
May 18, 2009
After bidding our friends goodbye yesterday afternoon, we had a somewhat quieter day today.
We headed back down to Key West to try out a little Mexican place on Duval St. that we had heard about called Old Town Mexican Cafe.
This was probably the best Mexican food we’ve had since we left Houston. We’re going to try to go back before we leave.
On the way back to our RV we mailed some postcards and stopped by a Winn-Dixie for some Valencia oranges and fresh strawberries to have for supper.
Tomorrow I think we’ll drive back the Keys toward Homestead and do some sightseeing.
May 19, 2009
Jan and I decided to explore back up the Keys today. We went all the way up to Key Largo and then back down to Key West. There were several places that we drove by on the way down that we wanted to take a closer look at.
Strangely enough, most of them seemed to be gift shops.
Lunch was at a small but very good Chinese buffet restaurant in Marathon called Panda Cafe. Really good!
We drove in and out of several rainstorms both up and down the Keys. But it did produce some very pretty pictures. And the ‘Glades and Keys can certainly use the rain.
One thing we got see on our trip today was ‘Fat Albert’ floating over Cudjoe Key.
‘Fat Albert’ is a 175 foot long helium-filled blimp floating at 10,000 ft. It is tethered to a pickup truck at the small blimp base on Cudjoe Key.
It is used mainly by NORAD, and the radar it carries monitors suspected drug smuggling flights, fast boats smuggling Cubans, weather, any low flying plane and other potentially harmful activity.
It is also sometimes used to broadcast ‘TV Marti’, which consists of anti-Castro TV programs beamed toward Cuba.
After we got back we headed down into Key West for another dinner at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. Just as good as last time.
And of course, a few more gift shops had to be visited.
Tomorrow will be our last full day in the Keys before we head north to West Palm Beach on Thursday. We’ve really enjoyed all the sights we’ve seen here in Southern Florida and the Keys.
Here’s a few pics…
We also saw this interesting lizard while we were at Coral Castle.
This one was about a foot long and I had never seen one like it.
A quick Google told me that it is a Red-headed Agama, native to Africa. It seems that some agamas being kept as pets had escaped and there are now a number of colonies thriving here in South Florida.
When they are in courting mode, the males are even more colorful.
We’ve also seen a number of interesting signs.
Looks like this guy has his business plan mapped out.
Yes there are crocodiles in the Keys. The really scary part about this sign is that there is a 6 ft fence on both sides of the highway for the entire 6 miles. I’m not sure I want to think about crocodiles that can jump 6 ft fences.
And finally, like I needed another reason to eat more Key Lime Pie!
May 20, 2009
Today is our last full day here in Key West.
After lunch at the Eat N Grinn deli, we headed over to Mallory Square to catch the Conch Train Tour.
We had already taken the Old Town Trolley tour on Sunday when our friends were here, but we wanted to take the train since although there is some overlap, the Conch Train concentrates more on the historic Old Town part of Key West.
One of the places we visited was the Southermost Point of the United States, and the southern end of U.S 1
What I didn’t realize until several years later was that 4 months to the day, we were 2,369 miles north in Fort Kent, Maine at the northern end of U.S. 1.
And a few minutes later we were crossing the St. John River into New Brunswick, Canada, on our way east through Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto, before coming back into the U.S. near Buffalo, NY.
Another place we drove by was the old shrimp boat docks.
Twice in the early ’60s I was on one of my father’s shrimp boats when we docked here at Key West for supplies. There wasn’t a heck of a lot in Key West then, except for the docks and the Naval Base, which closed down in the ’70’s.
After wondering thru some more gift shops, we headed down to the Old Town Mexican Cafe for our last Key West meal. We ate here Monday and really liked it so we thought we would try it again. Still great!
After dinner we headed back to our rig at Geiger RV Park. We’ve been parked right on the water with a great view.
When we got back, Jan was putting clothes in the washer to run a load. Right before she locked the door she noticed the clothes were ‘moving’.
A few seconds later, Mister popped out. He’s bad about crawling into places, and this time, he almost got washed and dryed.
Tomorrow we head north to West Palm Beach to meet up with our friends again. It’s about 234 miles, but will take us 6-7 hours due to the slow speed limits getting off the Keys.
May 21, 2009
Well, it turns out that today was not our last day in Key West.
I wasn’t feeling well this morning so we decided to put off leaving for another day. Just stayed around the coach all day and then walked over to the RV park restaurant for supper. This place is an outside bar/restaurant with the tables right on the water.
The food was great and the view was fantastic!
Jan had the Turkey & Dressing and I had the Cuban Roast Pork dinner. Both excellent!
While we were sitting at our table a guy brought by a small batfish he had caught.
This is one ugly fish.
Since we have a long trip tomorrow to West Palm Beach, we’ll try to get an early stop, probably around 8pm.
Thought For The Day:
The longer this goes on, the harder it will be to return to a society where pants and bras are required!
k
