A small town with a big basketball problem...

So, it might have been mentioned.....I live in Lawrence, Kansas.  Home of the Jayhawks. It might also have influenced the title of the blog.

ROCK CHALK BAYBEE.

I graduated from KU, and I work for KU.  Don't get much more Crimson and Blue than that.

So, KU has made it to the Final Four. And let me be the first to admit---I didn't think it was going to happen. Holy CRAP--did you see our first few games?

But we won--and the town went bat crap crazy.  So, the rest will just be a photo essay.

Massachusetts Street (aka Mass Street)

If you click to enlarge--you might see kids either having fun or being held hostage...I couldn't tell.

My ESS Wildcat Sailor Girl is barfing in her mouth right now.

One of my favorite restaurants, showing a bit of ingenuity.....although not strictly legal.
However--gotta take advantage of the situation.  I think they made a KILLING.

Slightly nervous with these folks.  But I got a thing with heights.

RIP Joe College--you had awesome shirts.

Can't believe people decided to drive Mass.

Local barbershop -- FYI..if you weren't following...we beat North Carolina.. AGAIN!

It's a Jayhawk thing...you wouldn't understand.

FYI--I truly believe in freedom of speech..so I let open comments prevail. HOWEVER!!  Get too nasty and you'll get 'this comment has been removed by the blog moderator'.  

Actually sailing...

So, we finally kept it together enough to take our boat out on Sunday.  It was a little too choppy to do any enjoyable swimming/snorkeling off the boat, so we decided to take her out past the reef and do some true blue water sailing for experience.

I'm not sure how far we got out into the Florida Straits--probably a couple miles or more past the outer reef.  Enough that the bottom dropped out and we were in some BEE-YOU-TEE-FULL sapphire blue water.  It's a color blue that you just cannot imagine until you've been in it.

In the cruise ship days--I used to go out on deck and just look at that water.  To experience it in my own sailboat---priceless.

And, as Tim had learned from his previous outing with the boys in blue water.  It's not as bad as inside the reef as far as wave action.

And--I can be proof of that--the motion sickness Geiger Counter that I am--400 feet of water?  Okay.  15 feet of water---bouncy bouncy bouncy.

I didn't bother to take pics of the water, it wouldn't do it justice.

Lower Keys Day trip by car/foot

At which the end of this--we thought, uh, why didn't we bring the folding bikes with us?

So, our plans for St. Patrick's day sail were circumvented by a bad case of lots and lots of alcohol the night before.  Blame the lovely crew at America 2.0 and blame Jack Flats for showing the KU game.

So, what's the best way to cure a hangover?  Go hiking about the Keys in 80 degree temps and 80% humidity.  Boo Ya!

Oh, and strap it in--this is a long post.

So, first order of business was food (of course....) and our KU compatriots from Jack Flats the night before (from Lenexa-whoo hoo) told us to go to The Wharf in Summerland Key.  We are always up for a good recommendation, so we thought we'd give it a go.

We were not steered wrong.  Simple menu, good eats and a fish market to boot.  Now what be wrong with this equation.

Nice lunch time view.

NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM

So, what next.  Tim decided that this was the time to find the home port for Fat Albert.  Now Fat Albert is the local name for a Aerostat balloon that does anything from spy on Cuba, to broadcast Radio Marti to track drug runners to weather--it all depends on who you ask and how much alcohol was consumed at the time.

However, if you want to get some halfway reliable info, click here.

If you want a story that is quintessential Keys storytelling, click here.  And just in case you don't feel compelled to click through, this story involves Fat Albert, a thunderstorm, a fishing boat, Cuba and fighter jets out of Key West Naval Air Station.    

Yeah, that's what I thought, I'll wait.  Go ahead, enjoy the story.

Hey, you back now? 

So, after not going along with my husband's attempt to once again pimp me out so he can get something out of it, we found a nice boat ramp that we could view Fat Albert's home base from.

Fat Albert--has kept me company on many a trip down the Keys.

Fat Albert with the Air Force station behind my spouse.
Oh, and that water, yeah, not bad at all.

So, next stop.  Pigeon Key, just past Marathon (when you are going down the Keys). Pigeon Key is a old work camp from the Flagler Railroad days.  And since it is the 100 year anniversary of Flagler's folly, we thought we'd give her a go.  The boat ferry out there didn't work our schedule, so we decided to do the two mile walk out on the old bridge.  Now, let me explain something to you. They used to have a 'train' take people out to Pigeon Key, but lack of funding and something called 'compromised bridge integrity' shot that down. 

So why not take a two mile walk on a 100 year old bridge 50 feet above the ocean?  Oh, yeah, that be two miles EACH way.  

Thankfully, the wind was a-blowing and kept me from having complete heat stroke.  And it wound out being a fantastically cool walk across the bridge.  There's a campaign to save the bridge, a lot of folks use it for jogging and such.

Pigeon Key was nice, but as with a lot of historical sites that have no funding--it needed some help--maintenance-wise and historically.  Most of the buildings are used as dorms for student groups and college interns.  Not a bad gig--where the hell was I when they were handing these assignments out!

On our walk back, is when I wished that I had my big kid camera and a polarized lens, because with our vantage point from the bridge, we saw the BIG KID sea life.  Several reef sharks, Southern Rays and big beautiful leopard rays.  And not just a passing glance.  They were abundant.  I'm thinking there must have been some sort of feeding opportunity there.  

The biggest reef shark was probably 10 feet long--he/she looked huge from the bridge.  At one point, there were eight leopard rays in formation swimming below us.  So beautiful and so graceful.  The water was so clear that with our polarized sunglasses it was like watching in an aquarium.

Needless to say, our walk back took forever.  

The old bridge--probably just 1/4 mile into our walk.
The new 7 mile bridge is to the left.

Pigeon Key--The yellow house dates from early 1900s and is now used as a dorm.

My attempt to take a picture of our ocean friends without polarized glasses.
There's a dark spot in the lower left corner--that was a leopard ray.

I'm on a boat---

Not my boat, but a DAMN COOL boat.

I've been bugging my spouse to go out on a sunset sail on the new America 2.0.  She's modeled after the original America.  (oh-kay kiddies--why the America...I'll pause for 5 seconds while you Wikipedia it)

Okay, your 5 seconds are up.

So, she's pretty. VERY PRETTY. And new eco-friendly design. (however, whatever you read about electric propulsion motors on her--ain't happened yet, they are working diesel until the next yard haul)

All that doesn't matter. She's fast, and she's smooth. For a sea sick girl as I, I was enthralled.  In love.

And the poor gal next to me was hurling over the rail.  I felt so bad for her.  Neither she or her boyfriend had ever been on a sailboat before.  So let's try a replica of the original America's Cup boat to try our sea legs out on.  Poor thing, I really felt for her.

At one point we were flying along at 10-12 knots, did I say how smooth she was?  She was smoooooooth.

Soon she'll be heading up to NYC for her summer season, if you get a chance, give her a go.

Pretty even in port

Loved the crew, reefing's for weenies.

Have no idea what the spouse was doing to distract the captain
Probably don't want to know

Ft. Lauderdale to Key West by car

Having the boat in Key West is a lot of fun, however, the cost of airfare isn't.

Many times we'll fly into Ft. Lauderdale and drive down. It takes about 4 hours if you just plow on through, however, we decided to take advantage of a 4pm arrival, daylight savings time and.... well, the Keys.

We first decided to stop off at Lorelei's for sunset celebration (MM 82), it was a bit crowded and for some reason the menu wasn't grabbing us for this particular moment.

However, the entire area around Lorelei's is fun.

However, MOVING ON, so, next place we have wanted to try is the original Lazy Days on ocean side, about 5 more miles down.  I've mentioned Lazy Days South in a blog about the great winter sailing trip earlier.

Fab-u-lous.  Food is very, very good.  It also was busy, so we snagged to seats at the bar.  Besides the great wine, fabulous food, complimentary banana bread (OMG-it's worth the trip in itself). My favorite quote of the evening came from a flustered mother of two early teen girls---"I don't CARE! We are sitting at the bar and eating. Find something you want, I'm having a mojito."  And I saw what my life would have been like if I had children.

And then, I saw this:

This would be the Florida version of the Jack-a-lope my friends.

So, forwards and onwards  About 20 miles from our destination, we decided to make ONE LAST STOP. Strictly for research, ya know?  And we stopped at Boondocks in Ramrod Key. We didn't try the food but had a drink and realized we were enjoying our favorite live child exploitation band (as opposed to dead child?  can't figure out the syntax on this), The Doerfels.  Okay, I joke on the child bit, I think at least 4 of them are old enough to vote and pay taxes. However, they have a crapload of talent and are fun to watch, so maybe I'm just jealous.

FYI--I broke my old boat camera, so I got a new one.  Completely awesome camera, except, it's WAY smarter than me, so half my pictures wound up stupid. So I won't be posting those.

Back on the boat again!

So, back in Kansas, we've always had this St. Patrick's day boating ritual. (Okay, it's only 5 years running, but what the hell)

So, hey, we've got a break in work travel and stuff, let's head down to HemiD.  Absolute weird quirk in the weather--it was the same temp in Kansas as it was in Key West.  However....the scenery is a bit better down there.

However, on the flight to Ft. Laud, we start realizing.....Key West, weekend, St. Patrick's Day, Spring Break, March Madness.

Oh........crap.

It really wasn't that bad, St. Pat's was only one day and it was complete amateur drink-a-thon day and quite amusing.  Luckily, we had....a) the boat to hide on  and b) a bar to hide in later.  Spring break was one week truly off for us, so we just had a few people to be frightened of there.  March Madness was there, but since I live in Jayhawk country it seemed very....mellow.  However, we did find a good sports bar (read: decent wine) and had fun.

All it all it was pretty okay.