Across the 'Glades

Got up bright and early after the night at the casino and arrived at Shark Valley by 9:30;  There are no sharks, but there are a ZILLION alligators here.

OK - You get the point

The bike trail is 15 miles round trip out through the marsh to an observation tower where you are greeted by a flock of crows who are busily unzipping the bike packs on those who've arrived earlier.  It quickly becomes obvious why a group of crows is called a "murder" of crows.  They are indeed sinister little beasts.

A ranger in the area tells the story of the crows stealing the car keys from a bike pack and dropping them just on the other side of the little canal along which you've just seen the previously mentioned zillion alligators.  (Decisions..decisions?)

Val takes her pack with her for the short walk to the observation deck.  I , on the other hand know I can outwit the little buggers.  I carefully tuck all the zipper tabs inside the compartments as I pull them shut,  (after removing anything I can't live without).  I then wrap a bungee cord around the whole pack for good measure.

I step away from the bike a few feet and it is immediately swarmed by 3 bandits.  I watch them carefully as they watch me derisively.  They poke a bit but I'm convinced of my superiority and wander off to the join Val who is just rolling her eyes.  (At them or me?)

View From The Tower

After the climb to the top of the tower, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (one of the items I figured I couldn't live without), we returned with some apprehension to the bike rack.  With a smug look to Val I proclaimed victory as I proceeded to clean several piles of bird-shit off the securely closed bike pack.

She smiles ever-so-slightly.

Good night from Chokoloskee Island, Everglades City, Florida

Brad & Val

The Tease

Southern Leg

On the last post I left a teaser in anticipation of some really good snarky material resulting from our planned destination for this date.  For logistical reasons, the only logical accommodation for tonight was the parking lot of the Miccosukee Gaming and Resort (casino) located on a Seminole Indian Reservation on the edge of the Everglades.  Targets of opportunity should have been endless. Indians, alligator wrestling, casino denizens and RV'ers all in one place.

However, as has been the case several times in the past, I will have to eat crow (no pun intended).

From the outside, it was a pretty classy looking place.  Not Las Vegas strip caliber, but not the grimey little roadhouse I recalled from a trip through the area many years ago.  They offered free overnight parking for RV's, and half price buffet dinners plus $30 each in free gaming credits to first time visitors. 

After checking in with security, we had a decent buffet dinner (wadda you want 6 bucks apiece).  Then we dumped the complementary $60 in gaming coupons on the slots in less than 15 minutes and went back to the Funmobile.   

I have to say all of the local Seminole staff we met were extremely professional, friendly and helpful.  The only ones left to poke fun at were denizens of slot machine gallery and the cheapskate RV'ers chowing down on the cheap food and free overnight accommodations.

Mirror mirror on the wall.....

Good night from the parking lot of the Miccosukee Casino

Brad & Val

(At least it wasn't a Walmart  -- yet.)

Another Day - Another Beach (swamp, marsh, bird, etc)

First  - Our most sincere condolences to Pat Russel who just lost her husband.  Some solace to be found in the presence of the Ya's to help her through the coming days. 
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Spent the last two days at Jonathan Dickinson State Park just north of Palm Beach and home of the "famed" Loxahatchee, (river of turtles), River.  The park is named after Jonathan Dickinson (duh) who in 1699, along with his family, was shipwrecked on the South Florida coast a couple of miles east of here. 

Now at that time, south Florida was thought literally to be the end of the earth.  The closest settlement was 260 miles to the north.  The local Indians didn't appreciate tourist any more than the current residents.  The party was taken captive but eventually escaped and made their way to Saint Augustine with just the shirts on their backs, (which they later lost to other Indians).

Long-story-short, most eventually made it to Philadelphia, their original intended destination.  Bet they would have liked the Funmobile.

So....  Yesterday was a REALLY windy day so we decided not to canoe the "river of turtles" and instead poked around the park, which in the1940's housed an Army top secret radar training base.  From the top of the old radar tower on Mt Hobe (86 feet) you could see Cuba I think.

DiCaprio is probably sexier than me, but I have Val!

Spent the afternoon at the Hobe Sound Nat'l Wildlife Reserve beach which probably wasn't the best idea since the 30 mph wind comin' straight up the beach was like a sand blaster.  Pretty never-the-less, with about 4 miles of completely undeveloped beach.

You'd think 4 layers of SPF 97 and a cloudy day would be sufficient.

On the second day (today), the overnight rains tapered off and the sun came out. Still pretty windy so we got lazy and took the tour boat up the Loxahatchee instead of a canoe.  Now normally, I'd swim up an alligator infested river before I'd take a Florida "tour boat", but my vision isn't what it used to be.  So having the white-shirted, tan shorted, bling covered 60 year old, ex-Jersey native point out the snake birds  to "yous" had some advantages.  We were treated to 4 gators, 5 ospreys, 2 snake birds, 13 manatees, a great horned owl, and a couple of cute girls in a canoe.  (We'll see if Val is monitoring this blog.)

 I will add that the destination of the tour boat was Trapper Nelson"s River Camp, Jungle Garden and Exotic Animal Zoo.  This was the original 1930's precursor to the current version of a Florida tourist trap.  However it does come with a fascinating story, so if you're bored, try;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapper_Nelson

To ease the abject shame of the above boat tour, we did take a hike out through the Florida pine scrub where I hoped to encounter at least one of the 23 species of snakes in the park.   The sign back at the visitor's center said ONLY six of the 23 will kill you on the spot.  (I didn't even know there WERE 6 poisonous species of snake.)

While we didn't see 23, we did find one in the palm tree directly over our heads as we sat down on a bench to have a drink of water.

Alright.  It wasn't that big or scary, but it's better than another picture of an alligator (and there are many of those to come.).

Goodnight from The River of Turtles

(Oh - and we saw lots of turtles on the boat tour too.)

PS Be on the lookout for the next post.  There will be a special treat.

Canaveral Area

Drove from Talbot Island to Melbourne (just south of Cape Canaveral).  Stopped over in St Augustine for the afternoon just to walk around Old Town.  St Augustine is the oldest surviving colonial town in the US and the home of various famous Spanish Pirates.  The streets are small and the Funmobile is big...

Turns out this is Motorcycle Week in Daytona (a little down the road).  A little difficult to tell the dressed up pirates from the not so dressed up Hell's Angels.  Hard to say who's more vicious looking.

Spent the today at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge which was decidedly more placid.  (OK, I'm breaking the previously mentioned rule about one day per post.  No way am I going to post every night.  That's way too much work.  So I'll just batch the posts.)

Merritt Island is actually the same island that Cape Canaveral is on.  Mostly marsh and swamp (and minefields if you go the wrong way).   Most people would say, "Why would you drive 3,000 miles to walk in a marsh?"  I would reply, "Because there was snow up to our butts when we left Downers."

An also because we got to see a Great Blue Heron catch and devour a 3 foot long snake.  Val REALLY enjoyed that because it was 50 yards away and the snake got ate.

Feral Hogs (Look like plain old pigs to me.) 

I'm SURE the train stops here.

Off in the distance is Space Shuttle "Vehicle Assembly Building", the largest single story building in the world at 526 feet high.  (How would you change the light bulbs?)

Good night from Melbourne

Brad & Val

Little Talbot Island SP - Day 2

First a point of order.  The last post covering several days got confusing because of the way blog posts,  (noun), post, (verb).  So if one views yesterday's post the same time as today's, the sequentiality (not a real word), looks all out of whack.

So  -  New RULE.  Only one day per post.  If nothing happened on a given day, save electrons and don't post anything.

Ok, back to today, (actually several days ago since I'm back-dating this post which isn't technically breaking the aforementioned rule).  Hopefully nobody is even reading this so they won't think I gone completely senile.

Took a ride to the Kingsley Plantation a few miles south of Talbot SP.  It was established in the early 1700's as a cotton plantation during the period when Florida was under Spanish rule.  The interesting part was the juxtaposition of 18th century Spanish slavery vs 19th century American slavery.  At least from the non-slave point of view.  (I guess if you were the slave, then it probably wasn't all that different.)

I originally wrote a narrative paragraph on the issues, but after reading it, I even bored myself.  Worth Googling if you're interested in that period.

Nice hiking around the plantation grounds.  Lots of live oak and Spanish moss.

SWAMP

BEACH

ROAD

TRAIL

MOUNTAIN??
(Ha Ha 56 feet)

Goodnight From Little Talbot Island

Brad & Val

UH - What Day Is It

Well, time does fly when you're having fun.  We're six days down the road from DC and no posts since then. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so pictures it will be.  (With occasional acerbic comments where warranted.)

First, a note on retirement.  Got a call last week from the guy who owned the company I used to work for and who sold it to the present owners for $350 mil cash. (Public information.)  He asked if I wanted to go back to work for his holding company that is managing the investment of that $350 mil to help with their accounting software implementation.  I did the quick math comparing what I would get on an hourly basis with what a divorce attorney would charge  .....  and said no.

Friday the 7th 

A travel day, the first task being to figure out how to get out of Metro DC.  Val driving and me navigating, the worst looking obstacle, the I-395/495/95 interchange, (AKA Medusa below)

Its a wonder we didn't end up in New Hampshire

Actually, it wasn't too bad since we were doing a straight through and after that it was easy.  Just stay on I-95 until the temp got to 60.  (We set the bar pretty low.)

Got to Myrtle beach by about 7 pm and hotel'd it one more night since the Funmobile had not been de-winterized yet, (i.e. no water or sanitary facilities 'cause everything would freeze).

Saturday the 8th

A short hop down the road to Huntington Beach State Park where we stayed on our trip down the coast a few years back.  Temps in the 50's - 60's.  not tropical, but better than home and warm enough for the aforementioned de-winterizing.  After chores we got a walk on the beach and the back-dunes.

Beach Bum

Tree Hugger

Sunday the 9th

 Nice day in the low 70's.  Road bikes to Brookgreen Gardens.  The dream project of a starving artist who married a REALLY rich guy who bought three defunct southern plantations so she could turn them into a humongous sculpture garden.  Very cool place actually.

Plantation House Gone - Trees Still There

LIVE ACTION VIDEO BELOW

Feeding Time At The Aviary

Monday the 10th

Down the road a ways to the Hampton Plantation.  A long history from 1730 to the end of the Civil War as a rice plantation, when it went belly up.  Then to share-croppers until the mid 1930's when a descendant moved back in,  He eventually sold it to the State of SC for a park.  

Wishful Thinking

Soooo... Big

Swamp walk on the Grounds

Things That Live On the Swamp Walk

Tuesday the 11th

Another travel day down the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. Destination Little Talbot Island Florida (near Jacksonville).  The only excitement being a low tire pressure warning that both back tires had 1 psi pressure.  Since we weren't in a ditch, I figured it was a technology failure.  (A regular occurrence around some people we know.)

Wednesday the 12th - Little Talbot Island SP

Road bikes and walked on beach  -  Its Florida, what would you expect?

Too Crowded

Frog In Drinking Fountain  (Dirty Feet)

And Good Night From Little Talbot Island

Brad & Val

HER FINAL ADVENTURE

This post is mostly for the family of Helen A (Mom-Mom) Davidson, who made her final journey to rest beside her husband, Ernest A (Pop-Pop) Davidson in Arlington National Cemetery.

The morning was sunny and cool when we arrived at Arlington at 9:15 am on Thursday 6 March 2014.  Whisking through the main gate on our perpetual pass, (thank you Pop-Pop), we were met by our civilian guide and our Army Chaplain at the administration center. As they walked us through the preliminaries they were extremely warm and kind but with the military precision you would expect.

The Family "Grieving Room".

With Mom-Mom's passing having been almost a year ago, we are all beyond the grieving and more about the remembrances of not only her life, but of this same event we experienced a couple of years ago with Pop-Pop.

From the Admin Center we follow the guide's official vehicle to Pop-Pop's grave site where she will rest.

Past row after row of those who have gone before and who have been recognized for their service to their country.  Not only service members, but their spouses as well, who sacrificed as much, or oftentimes even more.

The service is short, with the Chaplain delivering a personalized eulogy recognizing Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop's long marriage, her contributions to her family, her friends, her husband and her country.  

Although the air is bitingly cold, the over-riding atmosphere is almost one of warmth.  It is calm and the sun is bright and everything is as it should be.

Rest In Peace Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop

Good Night to all From Arlington

Brad & Val

WIMPY

Morning view from the hotel room 

Well, much a-do about nothing.  Snowed all morning but petered out by mid afternoon.  Total snowfall  was about 3" - 4".  

All government offices were closed for the day.  Let's see now  ...  there are about 600,000 direct government employees not counting lobbyists and other parasites, (but including politicians, who some might consider parasites), at an average wage of $78,000 per year.  That comes to  $ 128,219,178.08 productivity loss for a single snow day.

{Maybe if you net that against the amount of money Congress would have wasted had they been in session, we might have come out ahead.}

From the looks of the above picture, everybody else took a day too.  Except for the mailman.  Bless him for performing his appointed rounds delivering bills and junk mail to all those who decided to take the day off.

Hung around the hotel room reading, checking email and surfin' the internet.  Took a local walk in the afternoon, but the 15 degree temps and 15 mph wind kept that pretty short.

Tomorrow  -  Off to the National Museum of the American Indian and the Botanical Gardens.

Good night from Arlington VA

Brad & Val

Wofff!  -  It's Been A Long cold Winter

But now its time to kick off the 2014 Funmobile Season.  As usual, I'm a bit behind in postings.  Due to the 6 feet of snow piled out on the back deck, we decided to pull the beast out early and get the heck out of Dodge.

Of course on Feb 24, the Funmobile wasn't ready to come out of deep hibernation so we had a number of mechanical challenges to overcome, (dead battery and gummy generator carburetor).  But four days later we were ready to bug out.

The plan was to take Mom out to Arlington to be interred next to Dad on Thursday March 6.  With last year's sequester, we couldn't even start the scheduling process until December.  They offered a date in March so I figured that is almost spring and I felt really bad about putting the Arlington honor guard through the ceremony on a 105F August morning like Dad's.  

The original plan was to depart Sunday morning, to arrive in Dover Delaware Monday afternoon and have dinner with a boyhood buddy I hadn't seen in over 50 years.  The a day of genealogy research at the state archives and back to DC on Wednesday morning.  However, watching the weather forecast, it looked a bit dicey for Sunday - Tuesday travel along that route.  So we decide to move departure up to Saturday to try to get ahead of the brewing storm Titan.  

Saturday morning we awoke to MORE %@^&^$# SNOW.  By 11 am we finished all of the last minute "stuff" that always MUST be done before leaving,  (i.e. vacuuming the rugs????), and headed east.

The Funmobile has never seen snow  before.  and more importantly, I'd never driven it in the snow.  Fortunately, we ran out of the snow by the time we got to Indiana and it was clear sailing the rest of the day.  We made it to just east of Cleveland by 7 pm.  And YES I did stop, begrudgingly, at least twice I think.

That (Saturday) night I was intently planning the Sunday plan.  I appeared the snow would stay a bit to the south and if we got an early start, we should be able to stay just ahead of the front. the Delaware side trip was off the table as both Delaware and DC would would be under 8" - 10" of snow by late Monday.  

If we didn't make DC by Sunday night, we might not make it at all.  So it would be straight to DC and hunker down in a hotel until Thursday.  (I'm sure Jim Helt will appreciate the financial pain of a last-minute, 3-day hotel reservation in Arlington.)

So rise and shine at the break of dawn on Sunday morning and .....  MORE %@^&^$# SNOW.  Seems the another snow front snuck in from the north where I wasn't looking.  Against my better judgement, we took off anyway.  I figured worst case was spending a few days off to the side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike until the plows got through.

The first couple of hours were spooky.  Early Sunday morning and the Turnpike is nearly empty with moderate snowfall.  If it got any worse, it could be ugly.  However, as it turned out, we shortly got out in front of the storm again and made DC by about 1 pm.  All my anxiety was for naught.

So... here we are layed in for the duration.  Tomorrow is forecasted at about 8" - 10" throughout the day.  We may take the Metro into DC and take in some sights of it's not too bad.  If not, I figured out how to hook the tablet into the big ole TV and we can stream Netflix until our eyeballs fall out.

So the RV season is off and running and as Jessica stated in an earlier email, Mom-Mom would be pleased to "go down in a storm called Titan".









Lastly - Ate dinner at an Afgan restaurant.  Food was kabobs and Afgan bread served American style (paper plates and plastic utensils).  Tasty, if not authentic.

Good Night from the Nation's Capitol and the home of Frank Underwood.

Brad & Val