Road trip

(Yesterday morning... )

*ring*
m: You ready to go?
Me: Ready to go where?
m: Gonna come pick you up, so you can take a ride up to ******, set up (such and such), grab the car, go up to Orlando, get the rest of your stuff...
Me: Uhhh.. gimme an hour.

Hey, I go with the flow.

Hrmm. In my rush, I remembered the camera.. and forgot the film (ie - memory card for same camera).

Little did I know I would be gone all day and night. (I just got back.)

So, without a camera here are snippets to the best of my recollection...

- Florida barrier islands and the Intracoastal waterway.

Stunningly beautiful. Dunno if Id wanna be hanging about there when hurricanes come a-calling tho.
Living on the beach is over-rated in my opinion (and not just because I cant afford it.)
Oh yeah, and itsa trek and a half.

- Manatees up close.

Big. Gentle. Smelly. BIG. As in 10 feet and one-ton and more big. Will roll over on their back for you if you treat them right. I scratched one and got a fistfulla algae for my trouble. Horrible scars on these gentle giants from boat propellers.

How do you get them to come up close? Get a hose and spray fresh water. They will spend all day sucking fresh water. In fact, if you want to find manatees - look at any source of fresh water, including air-conditioning/heat exchanger output pipes that you'll find all over Florida.

JT told me after that they also go nuts if you throw lettuce into the water for 'em.

They were cute. :-)

In a big, lumbering, non-aggressive water-creature kinda way.

Even their farting under-water was cute..

In a big, lumbering, non-aggressive water-creature pull-my-finger kinda way.


- Orange groves

This was the first time I have really seen multi-acres Orange Groves in Florida. I was very very tempted to pull over and pick a few.
Make my own Florida Orange Juice.

That wouldve been bad. ;-)

- Bugs on the windshield.
Ahh yes.

The toll-booth collecter on the Florida turnpike looked at the front of the car...
"Everybody Ive seen coming out of Orlando today have all these BUGS all over their cars."
"Uh yeah.. there were just swarms of them. Exploding all over the windshield."

Id forgotten about that part of driving in warm weather. Ugh.

And its not even 'Love Bug' season yet. *shudder* (Southerners know what I mean).

Another reason not to ride around on motorcycles. Bugs in Teeth.

By the way, the toll-booth folk wear hawaiian .. ok.. florida shirts.

No, really.

I wish I had pictures.