Where have I been,you might ask. Well, nowhere, except riding the most gorgeous stretch of weather I've seen in 6 years of doing this. No, the problem was far deeper. I make my living, so to speak, on this blog mocking all things redneck, ultra southern, super fat, clueless, or maybe just "different
So, the problem started over in Fort DeSoto. Our neighbors, Kim and Barb from London Ontario turned out to be the nicest people I've met in a decade. We shared wine, cocktails, dinners,dogs...(they had a standard poodle who shared some of Gordon's traits) observations about our respective countries, trailer talk; you name it. Nothing to mock there.
By the time I arrived over here in Jonathan Dickinson State Park, something odd had occurred. For example, one night I arrived in the bathhouse to find a woman with a full set of Remington electric hair rollers plugged in. Aha! Good fodder!
But, somehow, this woman broke the ice by admiring my natural curls,and rueing her own somewhat lank locks ,which led to a pretty nice discussion about orange juice can rollers used to straighten hair back in the early 70's.... Yeah, I did that.
Got pulled over on the 4 mile campground road for going 40 in a 30. Not another car around. One of those times you see the guy, and don't even think you need to slow down. Got a warning, and an admission that they needed to show the state that they were doing something other than watching the deer. Yeah, whatever, I thought...
Got so bad, I was contemplating an entry entitled "mellow me"...
Ah,but then...
Saw a teenaged girl in said bathhouse curling her eyelashes. That, and other elements of her beauty routine took the full 20 minutes I was in there...(hey,it was shower day). Felt judgmental pricklings...
Wondered why my fishing pole seems to be a magnet for people to decide to swim exactly there. Find myself wishing they WOULD step on it...
What really brought my curmudgeonly self back has been our search for a rental property for next year. Sadly, the River Campground here is closing for a year, which leaves us looking for a rental in Martin County , the only truly dog friendly area in the whole damn state. It was probably a good thing that happened, to motivate us to ...
OH SHUT UP MELLOW ME!!!
Anyway, today we investigated a rental property from some site like Homeaway. They give you some info on the owner, in some attempt to make nicey nice, before they utterly screw you. This owner reported that she spoke English, and Latin!!!
Well! All I have to say is this: atWHay the ellHay do you eanMay you want ixsay undredHay ollarsDay for a dog fee for 1 onthMay????
Yep,I'm back.
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Ahoy Matey's!!!
Made it! Passed the big billboard denying evolution and commenced camping at Fort Clinch last Monday. Chilly but bright. Would like to be on Amelia Island sometime for the Concours de Elegance car show (usually mid March), although I doubt there's much mingling of the campground crowd over there at The Ritz.
Went southwest on Rt.4 towards Tampa on Wed. Realized that in 6 years of doing this, we've generally hugged the perimeter, or crossed in the South. So, pretty good that this was our first drive through of Orlando... I think we've almost recovered from all those trips there with the kids, the last of which was in 2003.
The route allowed us to stop at Blue Spring State Park, which is a winter sanctuary for Manatees. They close the spring and the run to the St. John River to all scuba, swimming and tubing from Nov. -March to accommodate them, so while it was awesome to see 200 Manatees lolling, I would say that if you want to actually swim with them, and be on the water in a tube or kayak,then I would recommend Crystal River, or Rainbow Springs. Super campground though,(and the first one we've encountered in Florida with bear warnings) and a good amount of options nearby in Orange City,Deland, and Debary. Including a BEEF O"BRADY"S, which we passed up in favor of SWAMP HOUSE RIVER FRONT GRILL, with the adjunct HAPPY SNAPPER TIKI BAR. Yep, we've arrived.
Got to our present location last Friday: a Hillsborough County Park, with its own little swimming spring (nothing of the magnitude of it's more northern neighbors). Gorgeous campground. Utterly empty. And not one damn thing to do anywhere nearby.
That was actually not a problem however, since we were actually just parking the trailer and making a beeline to nephew Josh's house in Tampa , 20 miles west, for the weekend. ( Totally sweet bonus: the guy who checked us in was math challenged enough to compute 5 days @ $24/day to equal $90)
Josh had urged us to show up on Friday, citing something called GASPARILLA going on in his neighborhood on Sat. Last time through Tampa we'd attended a crafts fair of the same title, which I assumed he was referring to. Um, crafts fair? No. More like full blown Mardi Gras, with a pirate theme,starting in the morning with a boat parade wherein wall to wall boats with crews in pirate garb crowd the harbor throwing beads to all of us gathered along the seawall, shooting t-shirts out of air cannons and getting pelted with marshmallows and water balloons in return.THOUSANDS of boats.No discernible rules of navigation. Pole dancers on decks "entertaining".Holy smokes!
Beat a retreat to the house to spend the afternoon watching THRONGS of people in various stages of inebriation walking down to Bayshore Drive ( a block away) to attend the land parade. The kids set up a lemonade stand and made a ton o'cash. Fun interactions. Got to see one overdone girl hauled away by paramedics from the (utter stranger's) porch she had deposited herself upon.
Sunday brought kayaking in the bay with Josh, Jen and all 3 kids.Awesome to be back on the water.
And of course, the best Superbowl ever.
Tomorrow we head to Fort DeSoto for 2 weeks, via the towns of Picnic, Balm, and Fort Lonesome. Can't wait.
Have lots of pics, will post as soon as we can figure out how to get them onto this blog.
Went southwest on Rt.4 towards Tampa on Wed. Realized that in 6 years of doing this, we've generally hugged the perimeter, or crossed in the South. So, pretty good that this was our first drive through of Orlando... I think we've almost recovered from all those trips there with the kids, the last of which was in 2003.
The route allowed us to stop at Blue Spring State Park, which is a winter sanctuary for Manatees. They close the spring and the run to the St. John River to all scuba, swimming and tubing from Nov. -March to accommodate them, so while it was awesome to see 200 Manatees lolling, I would say that if you want to actually swim with them, and be on the water in a tube or kayak,then I would recommend Crystal River, or Rainbow Springs. Super campground though,(and the first one we've encountered in Florida with bear warnings) and a good amount of options nearby in Orange City,Deland, and Debary. Including a BEEF O"BRADY"S, which we passed up in favor of SWAMP HOUSE RIVER FRONT GRILL, with the adjunct HAPPY SNAPPER TIKI BAR. Yep, we've arrived.
Got to our present location last Friday: a Hillsborough County Park, with its own little swimming spring (nothing of the magnitude of it's more northern neighbors). Gorgeous campground. Utterly empty. And not one damn thing to do anywhere nearby.
That was actually not a problem however, since we were actually just parking the trailer and making a beeline to nephew Josh's house in Tampa , 20 miles west, for the weekend. ( Totally sweet bonus: the guy who checked us in was math challenged enough to compute 5 days @ $24/day to equal $90)
Josh had urged us to show up on Friday, citing something called GASPARILLA going on in his neighborhood on Sat. Last time through Tampa we'd attended a crafts fair of the same title, which I assumed he was referring to. Um, crafts fair? No. More like full blown Mardi Gras, with a pirate theme,starting in the morning with a boat parade wherein wall to wall boats with crews in pirate garb crowd the harbor throwing beads to all of us gathered along the seawall, shooting t-shirts out of air cannons and getting pelted with marshmallows and water balloons in return.THOUSANDS of boats.No discernible rules of navigation. Pole dancers on decks "entertaining".Holy smokes!
Beat a retreat to the house to spend the afternoon watching THRONGS of people in various stages of inebriation walking down to Bayshore Drive ( a block away) to attend the land parade. The kids set up a lemonade stand and made a ton o'cash. Fun interactions. Got to see one overdone girl hauled away by paramedics from the (utter stranger's) porch she had deposited herself upon.
Sunday brought kayaking in the bay with Josh, Jen and all 3 kids.Awesome to be back on the water.
And of course, the best Superbowl ever.
Tomorrow we head to Fort DeSoto for 2 weeks, via the towns of Picnic, Balm, and Fort Lonesome. Can't wait.
Have lots of pics, will post as soon as we can figure out how to get them onto this blog.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Twerking
No, actually I mean Tweaking...(the kind that means fine-tuning something, not that other kind).
In the earlier days of these odysseys, we had a pretty set routine of well-spaced Red Roofs to hit on our journey. That's been knocked a bit askew for various reasons. Yesterday we left the Wilmington DE Red Roof " PLUS"and aimed for the 2nd option in Richmond Va, being dissatisfied with the dining options at the other location.
We've probably been in over 20 of these places, and this is only the 2nd one which forced a u turn right from the parking lot. So just in case any of you were dreaming of spending some quality time at the Richmond Airport Red Roof...no,just no. Unless of course you were also going to indulge in some of that other type of tweaking.
Thus we spent the night a ways down the road (Emporia VA) at a Country Inn and Suites (By Carlson!) Yeah, better than a Red Roof, but not 2x$ nicer. And THAT, of course led to being too far south for our usual Florence SC stop for tonight (alas Olive Garden...)
So here we are at a Red Roof somewhere near Savannah GA. A converted Motel 6, where the sly sly fellow at the desk asked me directly about the number of dogs, and hit us up w/ a fee for Mason . (2nd time in history). Ruby Tuesday will be our dining emporium this evening.
Clearly,however,we ARE making progress southward
1st sighting of full Camo: check
Sign welcoming Fox Hunters:check
Eagle swooping in front of truck to retrieve fresh road kill:check
Utterly unfathomable accent:check
Hey, I've heard from several of you that comments are being disallowed. Crap, that's the fun of it for me. For those of you on FB, maybe do it there until we figure it out? Er, "tweak it".
In the earlier days of these odysseys, we had a pretty set routine of well-spaced Red Roofs to hit on our journey. That's been knocked a bit askew for various reasons. Yesterday we left the Wilmington DE Red Roof " PLUS"and aimed for the 2nd option in Richmond Va, being dissatisfied with the dining options at the other location.
We've probably been in over 20 of these places, and this is only the 2nd one which forced a u turn right from the parking lot. So just in case any of you were dreaming of spending some quality time at the Richmond Airport Red Roof...no,just no. Unless of course you were also going to indulge in some of that other type of tweaking.
Thus we spent the night a ways down the road (Emporia VA) at a Country Inn and Suites (By Carlson!) Yeah, better than a Red Roof, but not 2x$ nicer. And THAT, of course led to being too far south for our usual Florence SC stop for tonight (alas Olive Garden...)
So here we are at a Red Roof somewhere near Savannah GA. A converted Motel 6, where the sly sly fellow at the desk asked me directly about the number of dogs, and hit us up w/ a fee for Mason . (2nd time in history). Ruby Tuesday will be our dining emporium this evening.
Clearly,however,we ARE making progress southward
1st sighting of full Camo: check
Sign welcoming Fox Hunters:check
Eagle swooping in front of truck to retrieve fresh road kill:check
Utterly unfathomable accent:check
Hey, I've heard from several of you that comments are being disallowed. Crap, that's the fun of it for me. For those of you on FB, maybe do it there until we figure it out? Er, "tweak it".
Friday, January 23, 2015
We're off! Trying (and thus far succeeding ) to squeeze amidst this trio of storms. Delayed start, due do discovering a faulty (leaking) circulator on the furnace at the 11th hour and 59th minute, thus encountering bad traffic through "The Oranges" on the Garden State ...trailer hauling requires some strange routes. But now ensconced in the Red Roof in Wilmington Delaware,where there is an onsite "Chilies". The menu brags "our pickles take six hours to make!" Um, I'm confused. Are you saying you make a quick pickle, or if I order these, it will take 6 hours to get served??
Day 1 drive featured listening to Mike on WFAN through New York, expounding on Deflategate. This was just like one of those old timey carnival rides, where centrifugal force eventually spins you off, no matter how hard you try to hang on. 4 calls, and I was done. Very similar to reading comment sections on ESPN. If you make a rule to quit at the first overtly racist statement, improper use of "there,their, they're" or inappropriate Obama bashing, you'll be hard pressed to make it beyond half a page. Sometimes you'll hit the trifecta on the first entry.
Looked over last years posts on this little Blog, and realized I pretty much dropped the ball early on. Giving it one more shot this year.
Day 1 drive featured listening to Mike on WFAN through New York, expounding on Deflategate. This was just like one of those old timey carnival rides, where centrifugal force eventually spins you off, no matter how hard you try to hang on. 4 calls, and I was done. Very similar to reading comment sections on ESPN. If you make a rule to quit at the first overtly racist statement, improper use of "there,their, they're" or inappropriate Obama bashing, you'll be hard pressed to make it beyond half a page. Sometimes you'll hit the trifecta on the first entry.
Looked over last years posts on this little Blog, and realized I pretty much dropped the ball early on. Giving it one more shot this year.
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