December 2, 2006 at 10:17 am · Filed under Uncategorized
We are departing for Ft De Soto today, where we’ll meet a few other Airstreamers before we start heading further south. Eleanor is rushing to get a load of laundry done while we pack up. Yesterday we did the car maintenance, which was limited to an oil change and a wash.
I’ve been reading more travel books. It’s becoming a compulsion. A few weeks back I re-read the lively story by Anthony Bourdain called “A Cook’s Tour.” Bourdain is a hilarious writer with the gritty realistic viewpoint of someone who has spent his career in the modern equivalent of a 16th century ship’s belowdecks: a restaurant kitchen. In the kitchen, it’s a strict authoritarian system, where if the chef says “Fall on your sword,” you fall on your sword and then get up and make a perfect grilled seafood medley.
His book is about his travels around the world on behalf of the Food Network, for a TV show he hosted. It’s not politically correct (his rants about vegetarianism are particular brutal), it’s not G-rated, and it’s not predictable. If you can deal with those things, it is a lot of fun to read.
My current book is “Blue Highways,” by William Least Heat Moon, which is considered a classic by many travel readers. The book feels aimless at first, as the author takes off in his “basic plumber’s van” in the aftermath of his marriage, and seeks out the smallest and most oddly-named towns he can find. Then you realize it’s meant to be aimless — reflecting the author’s voyage and purpose. Along the way, he meets a cast of characters who are too diverse and honest to be anything but real. It’s Kerouc, mellowed out and slowed down, in the late 1970s.
You might have guessed that I’ve been reading travel books to inspire myself to write up our story in a book format. I took a crack at it last August, but threw out 80+ pages of draft in October because it wasn’t what I was hoping for. With an appreciation of the various styles of people like Capt Joshua Slocum and William Least Heat Moon, and the stories of Magellan and Wally Byam, I hope to eventually strike upon the style that will work for our extended trip.
We are neither Magellan nor Byam, not sailing the world like Slocum, or interviewing locals like Least Heat Moon. We are not in search of the perfect meal like Bourdain — nor any form of perfection. When I can adequately answer the question of why we are out here, I think then I’ll be ready to write the book.
December 1, 2006 at 10:29 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Our Tampa visit is winding down. Today we are finalizing a few last things and starting to pack up. One of the last projects to get done is the installation of our new shelves.
Click for larger
They are a huge bonus for our storage. Right now you can see the laser printer sitting in the upper slide-out tray. Most of the time that tray will hold a bin for recycling, and the lower shelf will hold another bin for laundry.
The laser printer will go in when we are in a campground that doesn’t offer recycling (all too often, I’m afraid), and when we are parked for long periods. (The laser printer travels in the back of the Armada.) Below the shelves we have room for shoes, and on the left are a series of hooks that hold headlamps and rally badges. This really improves our space utilization.
On the top of the counter you can see a series of terra cotta object sculpted and painted by Emma: an “boy with a hat”, a basket, an “experiment pod”, and a hamburger. By the way, she lost a tooth last night … her third one.
This will be our last night in Bay Bayou!
November 30, 2006 at 9:13 am · Filed under Places to go
We had a nearly full house under Bert & Janie’s awning yesterday morning. The weather’s nice enough that people all over the park are socializing outside more, and the swimming pool is becoming our regular afternoon destination.
Rich C drops in on Bert & Janie, and Emma checks it out
Last night we went to Tarpon Springs, just northeast of our location, and to the Sponge Docks area of town. In 1905 the Greek sailors began to arrive in Tarpon Springs and collect sponges from the sea bottom. They still do today, and Dodecanese Blvd is now a tourist area filled with everything related to natural sponges that you can imagine.
We were here last April, when things are busier. Last night it was pretty quiet in town, and the shops closed up at 7:30. But that didn’t matter — we were there to meet a bunch of people at Hella’s for dinner: Bert, Janie, Barry, Susan, Brett, and Lori. A reservation for nine is no problem in Tarpon Springs on a weeknight in November.
The food was great: pan-fried calamari, spanakopita (spinach pie), moussaka, gyros, lemon-egg soup, and saganaki (a flaming cheese appetizer). Then we all walked over to the adjacent bakery, picked out a pile of desserts, and sat back down at the table for another half hour. There will be awesome leftovers today.
Eleanor is trying to find the perfect microwave to go on our new countertop. So far this project has consumed three days, in which she has browsed online sites and visited local stores. Every detail has been scrutinized: weight, dimensions, wattage, color, features. I think more analysis went into this than went into the last car we bought. Of course the perfect microwave is a special order since nobody seems to stock it, but even if it has to be ordered, the good news is that we will have a microwave in the trailer, in a week or two.
November 29, 2006 at 10:32 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Our days have been consumed with work lately — the curse of the working traveler — so we’ve been spending a lot of time inside instead of out having adventures. This isn’t so bad right now, because the temperatures and humidity have been slowly building all week and today it may be more comfortable inside with the A/C on.
Yesterday Eleanor found a chrome shelving unit that looks like it will suit our needs under the new countertop we installed at Barry’s. We did some initial test-fitting last night and will finalize it later this week, after we borrow a hacksaw to shorten the legs. I’ll post photos of the finished project.
Brett showed up last night to help with that, and also to finish up some wiring for the new LCD TV. We’ve now snaked the wires through the wall so that the TV installation looks nice and clean, and everything is ready for installation of an inverter in the overhead bin later. Once I find a good “pure sine wave” 300-watt inverter I’ll wire it up, and this will allow us to watch the big TV when boondocking. (I want to get a pure sine wave inverter so I can also use it to power the laser printer once in a while.)
In addition to having an Official Magazine (which I am proud to say is Airstream Life), and an Official Bicycle (Birdy Bikes), I bet you didn’t know that Airstream has an Official Coffee.
I found this out a few months ago when we spotted Silver Joe’s Coffee giving out free samples at the International Rally last July in Salem OR. So we bought some to give it a try. (You gotta have all the Airstream “stuff”, right?)
Silver Joe’s gets the Emma Seal of Approval
November 28, 2006 at 8:07 am · Filed under Uncategorized
In St Petersburg there’s a bit of old Florida called “Ted Peter’s Smoked Fish”. For forty years they’ve been smoking fish over red oak there, and serving the fish up with platters of German potato salad, coleslaw, thick slices of onion & tomato, mustard sauce and a dill pickle. It’s a pungent taste treat that’s a real relief from the “same old” restaurants.
We went there last night with Brett. Eleanor and I split a smoked mahi mahi dinner plate and Brett got the smoked mullet. The portions are very big … Eleanor and I had leftovers from our shared dinner, but that didn’t stop us from ordering the excellent Key Lime Pie to split with Emma.
By the way, if you go to a Florida restaurant and the Key Lime Pie is green, or looks like meringue, or has the consistency of cheesecake, it’s not right. The good stuff is tart, yellowish, and will absolutely amaze your tongue with its taste. Ted Peters has some of the best we’ve ever had. Since we are headed to the Keys next week, we’ll have to see if we can top it. In fact, I could see turning this trip into a mission to sample the country’s best Key Lime Pie …
We found Ted Peters last year courtesy of “One Tank Trips” by Bill Murphy. If you come to Florida and want to find fun things to do, check Bill’s book.
It looks like another beautiful day in Tampa. The temperatures have risen and we are getting nice weather in the upper 70s and low 80s now. I wish I didn’t have to spend so much time working at my computer, but at least with the windows open on the Airstream, and a gentle breeze blowing through, it makes for a nice day in the office.
November 27, 2006 at 8:36 am · Filed under Uncategorized
The sun rose behind a gray-scudded sky on Sunday morning, but by the time Brett arrived to pick us up at 9 a.m., it was gorgeous and sunny and heading toward the high 70s. We loaded up the snorkel gear and drove about 45 minutes south to one of my favorite places in this area: Ft De Soto Park.
Ft De Soto is a large county park located on an island just south of St Petersburg. There’s a fine campground there, every site located near the water and shaded by palm trees, which we have visited in our 1968 Caravel and the 1977 Argosy known as Vintage Thunder. Nearby is an old mortar emplacement known as Fort De Soto. The park also features two fishing piers, miles of beach, and some nice bicycling trails.
One thing we’ve never done before is take the ferry from the park to nearby Egmont Key, so that was our plan for today. I’d heard the snorkeling is nice, especially over the Fort Dade ruins, which have been reclaimed by the sea.
The ferry is $15 per adult, $7.50 per child, and runs once or twice per day depending on season. This time of year the departure was 11 a.m. and the return was 2:30 p.m. It scoots out only about a mile and then around to the gulf side of Egmont Key to be beached.
The island is virtually deserted now, except for a small collection of wood-framed houses on the bay side, where ship pilots live, waiting for giant tankers to come into Tampa Bay — and a large number of tortoises. The island has no public services at all, not even water, so we brought a full bag of picnic stuff and drinks.
The picnic was a success, but the snorkeling was a bust. From the boat and the shore it was obvious that the water was far too murky to see anything. To make the possibility of snorkeling even less remote, it turns out that the submerged Ft Dade ruins are off a permanently closed section of shoreline, part of a bird sanctuary. You need a boat to get to them, but there was no point on this day. Our ferry captain suggested that visibility was made poorer by a “beach re-nourishment” project (sand pumping) occurring on Egmont Key’s north side. He suggested trying again in spring.
Fort Dade was once a town of about 500 people, complete with fire station, hospital, power plant, numerous houses, and much more. It’s a ghost town now, only foundations and brick streets remaining. Walking the ruins of the town, the last vestiges of the fort, and the beach consumed most of the few hours we had on the island.
November 26, 2006 at 8:20 am · Filed under Uncategorized
We relocated the Airstream yesterday to a different site at Bay Bayou, and then I met up with Brett for some jetskiing on Tarpon Lake. The plan was to test the jet ski that he recently bought and fixed up, before taking it out on Sunday near Ft De Soto Park.
Unloading the jet skis at the boat ramp
This was the first day we’ve been jetskiing together since our adventure on Lake Mead last May.
Things went perfectly … for a while. There we were, zooming along the lake’s surface at speeds up to 46 MPH. The sky was blue, the air was warm, the lake was mostly calm …
And then, about five miles from the boat ramp, Brett’s ski made an expensive noise, and sputtered to a halt.
Fortunately, we were prepared for this possibility. We tied a rope on and slowly towed the dead ski all the way back to the boat ramp. Better to find out about the ski’s defects on a quiet fresh water lake, than out in the Gulf of Mexico.
While we were gone, Emma and Eleanor found a new wetsuit for Emma. That’s for today’s new plan. Instead of jetskiing off Ft De Soto, we’re going snorkeling off Egmont Key, which is near Ft De Soto. We met up with Bert & Janie in the evening when we came over to borrow their microwave to reheat our Thanksgiving leftovers, and they are considering joining us too.
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