Two Hams on the Road

Thursday, February 18, 2016

We are in Cocoa, Florida (not Cocoa Beach!), east of Orlando and near Cape Kennedy.  We’ll be here for 2 weeks, enjoying nice weather and waiting for a satellite launch.

We spent the weekend in Orlando at a hamfest (amateur radio flea market, although they do have some seminars, etc.).  The drive from Orlando to Cocoa was typical interior Florida – untamed scrubby forests

and usually empty grazing fields.

The coasts of Florida are extremely crowded.  One city bleeds into another without breaks.  But not very far in from the coast you can find fields and undeveloped land.  Looking at the landscape and thinking back 50 years, it’s no wonder Walt Disney picked the middle of Florida for his theme park.

Our current location was chosen for it’s closeness to the Kennedy Space Center, but it’s been a pleasant park.  We don’t have a view, except of other trailers, but we seem to have a wifi booster on a pole right next to our back window.  We’ve had the best Internet service we’ve had in the trailer.  If we can’t have a view, we’ll take good Internet.

We’re taking it easy this week, working on some projects and sorting out stuff in the trailer.  Steve’s done some amateur radio work and I’m rearranging storage so that we can get Maria’s car seat out of the truck and stowed under the bed.

I didn’t get a chance to write about our trip to Key West.  We went on Super Bowl Sunday, hoping that might cut the crowds we’d heard about.  We also started early; we’ve learned that we can beat the crowds in most places by going early.  Key West was no exception.  Parking is limited and can be difficult to find, but we had little problem finding a spot near the Little White House.  We weren’t certain what we should see in our one day, but chose to do this first and we are glad we did.

Stepping out of the truck, we were greeted by chickens!  Apparently, they are a Key West icon.  This fellow seemed anxious to pose. 

President Harry Truman was the first President to use the Little White House, but it’s been used by several Presidents as well as other high-ranking government officials.  After his first 18 months in office, Truman was exhausted.  He had only been vice president for about 83 days before President Franklin Roosevelt died.  The war with Germany ended shortly after that, but the war with Japan was raging.  He made the decision to use the atom bomb to end the war and hopefully save millions of soldiers live. 

His doctor ordered rest and the Navy offered the facilities at Key West. The building that housed the commandant was available, it was secure and the weather was lovely.  Truman continued to visit throughout his presidency. 

The house was used by the Navy and others until 1974, when the Navy closed that part of the base.  A developer bought the unused part of the base and developed a gated residential community, signing the Little White House over to the state of Florida and helping in its restoration.  It’s still available for government use, as needed. 

We couldn’t take pictures inside the house and it was difficult to get a picture of the outside.

Strolling through the gated community around the Little White House was quite pleasant.  Trees shade the streets and the only pedestrian traffic is dog walkers and tourists headed for the Little White House.  The least expensive single family dwelling in the gated community is $1,150,000.  You can get a condo for under $600,000.  Without an ocean view. 

We had a nice lunch at a restaurant with an outside patio.

The weather was fine for me.  Steve wore his jacket, as there was a good breeze.  We watched the world go by.  And the conch train, which pulled tourists around town.

The bar on the second floor in the picture advertised itself as a clothing optional bar.  We did not check it out.

As we walked around town, we found the original Margaritaville Café.  We didn’t check out the café, but did hit the store next door, where Steve found a polo shirt!  White, of course.

After wandering around for a while, we called it a day and headed for home.  Before settling in for the Super Bowl, we went down to the dock to catch the sunset.

It was a nice ending to a good day.

Deb

Deb