Happy Birthday, John

On January 25th, John celebrated one year of being old enough to collect social security.  He heard from his in-laws and his sisters and received from Mary an external hard drive, a sunshade for the camera lens (we think the last one bounced out of the bed of the pickup back in Hudson), and the book Last Train to Paradise about the building of the railroad to Key West; from Matthew and Christine the dvd 1941 and the book Battle, the Story of the Bulge; and from Benj and Sarah the dvd Blues Brothers and the book Midway! Incredible Victory.  He decided he wanted to do a Duval Street pub crawl so we rented a room at Truman Annex so we could walk home afterward.  Our usual pub crawl companions (all 2 we've done in the last 10 years-both on Mackinac Island), Jackie and Paul, are wintering in Arizona, so we were on our own.  Steve and Kris accompanied us all on the last Mackinac Island crawl, but they're home in Saginaw.  We started at 4:30, had snacks and drinks and listened to singers at different bars and were tucked into bed by 10:30.

The next day Mary had a nice surprise.  She was standing in front of Sloppy Joe's waiting for John to pick her up and along came Terri, a retired library media specialist from Michigan.  It was terrific to see her and they had a nice visit.

We've seen some additional planes here:

The AWACS (air force radar plane):

 A T-6 trainer and an F-8 Bearcat, WW2 planes here for a change of command ceremony.  An F-18 and an F-5 in the background.

 

Saturday, January 28th, we drove up to Marathon and walked the 2 miles on the old 7 mile bridge to Pigeon Key, which was a work camp when the railroad was being built.  This picture of the camp was taken from the new 7 mile bridge:

This is where the bridge was "blown up" in the movie True Lies:

After our walk we drove through some of the marinas to look for other loopers.  We said hello to John and Rita from Brandy as they dinghied past then visited with Julaine and Fred on Boreas and had a double treat as Marc and Michele from Marc's Arc were aboard Brown-Eyed Girl where we visited with them and Ginny and Craig. We had dinner with Mary and Bill from Harbour Reach at the Marathon Marina restaurant then drove back to Boca Chica.  Wednesday we drove to Marathon to a Looper potluck.  We were pleased to see Chris and Kerm from Southern Belle again.