But I digress. Or pre-gress.
Loaded up at in Hobe Sound on Saturday. Despite the TrailManor Video of a Sandy Duncan look-alike blithely closing up the unit with a mere palm's pressure, this is still a 3 hour or so procedure: load truck bed w/chairs,coolers grill etc. Clean shower for linen storage,unmake bed,disassemble fishing poles etc.etc. Then strap Kayak onto truck...you get the idea.
So,we were well pleased to be pulling off of 95 by 12:15,for the 120 mile or so journey across the Florida Cracker Trail to St. Pete.
"You wouldn't want to break down HERE" I said.
"Bite" said Mark. As in my tongue.
Well,no. We were not blesssed to break down THERE,within arm's reach of civilization. Rather,we waited till we'd slid on by Starvation Slough,Soggy Bottom,Troublesome Creek, the place that sold "show pigs" and Reality Ranch before the event occurred.
BLOWOUT!!!
Turns out getting a flat tire on a fold out camper entails opening the trailer,undoing the kayak,emptying the truck bed. All this fun was had in Florida prairie land. As in dust. 95 degrees,with a steady 40 mile an hour breeze which immediately changed both of our ethnic persuasions.
Thinking ahead,I had bought Mark a new Sears Craftsman Compressor for XMas.
Yes,we tested it in Wellfleet.
No,it didn't work (to inflate the spare) in Basinger Florida.
Thinking ahead, Mark had bought himself a new lug wrench for the trip. Turns out, the space saving design doesn't deliver enough torque for weaklings as ourselves.
Seems also that AAA, no matter how "Super Plus" a membership you are paying for doesn't cover trailers. I sigh to think that the "Good Sam" club is in my future.
holy s..t Bat Man. what a mess. certainly am glad to hear your vacation continues to be exciting. where'd ya camp that night?
ReplyDeleteMade it to Fort DeSoto,after a little backtracking to top off the spare. Fixed the waste pipe with "rescue tape". Mark hooked up the brakes again...electrical is a strong suit. And the toilet is a little rock and roll-y,but works fine.
ReplyDeleteWell! That there is one shredded tire! See--I hate to bring this up--but if you had continued the time-honored tradition of giving Mark tires for Hanuka this would never have happened. We send ripples through reality when we wander off course. Speaking of wandering, quite an adventure en el kayak, non? I'm afraid you may have been closer to trouble than you know, and maybe in this case the garage full of Hanuka tires would not have prevented that pneumatic calamity.
ReplyDeleteThe guy in white. Quite a mystery, as you floated closer, alarm rising in your veins like Pillsbury biscuits in a hot TV oven. I've taken an informal pole: Gabe and the guys out in CA think he was a zombie, in which case you should have gone Zombie-death ninja on the dude, striking him thricely on the forehead with your left-hand kayak paddle end, while reciting the scientific names of the B-complex vitamins. Don't worry, I don't think he was a zombie. Others believe you made a rare encounter with a vampire. Needing to ward off the vampire-scorching rays of the relentless daytime sun, he, or she, donned the white get-up and was paddling off to find fresh delicious blood. Here again, I feel certain the mark is missed. No, little missy, I think that you encountered an earth-walking, dead but not quite, can't keep'em in the ground, get me outa here, ghost.
Boo!
Yep. Extensive research in my Time/Life Book of Florida Phantoms has rendered a near match. Actually a tie: You had a brief, dangerous chat with either Florian Mousetrousers, a third-tier Dutch explorer looking for people who were looking for the Fountain of Youth. His ill-fated expedition log-book starts with "...searching for the Fountain of Youth? This I gotta see." He led a hardy band of criminals into the Everglades and never came out. OR, a guy named Chad.
Chad was a line-cook at the original Shoney's and met his grisly demise one gloomy October night. After winning a bet that involved drinking his weight in Budweiser, he keeled over into the briskly bubbling Southern Fried Catfish section of the fry-o-lator. But why appear to you at all, which-ever one it was? We may never know which, by the way. The white face cover is absolutely necessary for Chad--even the other ghosts can't look; and Florian, according to legend, actually wore one of those things as mosquito protection. Selling their shirts to the Indians for booze was probably inconsistent with that sensible precaution, however. Either way, it was an omen.
As early as the late Renaissance, ghosts have been known to use kayaks to paddle the waterways of Florida, thinking only of life's lost pleasures and where the really, really good spare ribs are being barbequed. They stand just down-wind and make sarcastic comments about sauces they deem inferior, and float along the canals and mangrove creeks giving spurious directions to unsuspecting out-landers, telling them things like: "Either way, it's and island," and such. Be not fooled by this polterghiestic dissembling. Paddle! Paddle like you've got an expiring Groupon in your pocket and a fifteen-minute foot massage is on the line!
Next time, (well, next time don't go anywhere near a freakazoid like that,) but next time you encounter a ghost, use the sign of the calf (thumbs touching your temples, index fingers raised over the head like horns, and recite the incantation of the aboriginal shaman:
There's just one Schlitz, (yeah yeah,)
Nothing else comes near,
When you're out of Schlitz...
You're out of be-e-e-e-e-eer!
They fear the cheerful resolute acceptance of fate in these simple, ghost-repulsing lyrics. Sing them at the top of your voice! Then smack him with the kayak paddle, what the heck.
--
Luce,
ReplyDeleteLarry sent me the link to your blog.
You're a darn good writer for a violinist! This stuff is fun to read. Keep blowing tires out and keeping us in stitches, eh?
I've been thinking about you guys. Barb and I went to the Boston RV show for the second year in a row. Getting serious. Almost put a down-payment on one but changed our minds. I'd send photos but it doesn't seem like I can attach them here.
How many sites don't allow pets...ruff-ly speaking? I've seen disguises for dogs that makes them look like museum designers. You might give that a shot.
Well, I'm jealous, for one. Keep the good-time reports coming.
Nick Paffett