Shooting their muskets

Shore emplacements

Sat, 2/14/09

Sugarloaf Key: Woke up to dense fog again this morning. Stood outside for a while under the awning and it sounded like it was raining—but it was moisture dripping off everything. Very strange. Fog cleared off early and we headed to Key West. Mike took me out for Valentine’s Day brunch. We tried a new restaurant—Azur—and what a great find. The food is excellent and they serve breakfast/brunch every day until 2:00. Lunch starts at 11:00 so you can do either. It’s a cute little place and we sat outside and enjoyed this beautiful day. After stuffing ourselves we headed to Fort Zachary Taylor where they’re celebrating Civil War days. We were interested in the naval battle. They had 4 or 5 schooners shooting at the shore emplacements and the shore cannons were shooting back at the schooners. And the schooners were shooting at each other. We’ve never seen anything like it. Great fun. Building began on Ft. Zach in 1845 and it remained on "active duty" status until 1947. Pretty amazing really. After that we parked over at the Eco Center parking lot and walked down to the Key West Speedway and Mike ran 4 races. Then we walked around for a while to kill some time and then headed to the Tropic Cinema. They’re showing the Academy Award winning shorts for a limited time. I really wanted to see them. There were 5 all together. One from Austria, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and France. They were all very good. Walked back to the parking lot through Truman Annex. A beautiful, balmy evening.

Waiting for dinner

After the show

Randy Roberts in his Bette Midler persona

Fri, 2/13/09

Sugarloaf Key: A very strange weather day today. Woke up to heavy fog. Couldn’t even see the other end of the lake. That finally cleared off around 12:00 and the sun came out so I got some shorts on and headed outside to read. Before I could even get out there clouds rolled in. Then more fog started rolling in. Finally cleared off around 3:00 and I went out and sat in the sun reading my book. Went in around 4:00 and showered and changed for our evening at La-Te-Da. We had a 6:30 reservation for dinner and the show started at 9:00. Our favorite drag queen—Randy Roberts. Dinner and the show were both fantastic. After the show we hung out in the lounge and everybody was up dancing. So I joined them. Left there and walked back to where we parked in pretty dense fog. Drove through dense fog all the way to Sugarloaf where it finally cleared off. Very unusual.