So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.OK, in a nutshell, here's my blog for our week in Northern Florida:
Monday - Rain
Tuesday - Rain
Wednesday - Rain
Thursday - Rain
Friday - Sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows every ... aw, just kidding. It rained.
Saturday - Rain
OK, that's it for this week. See you next week ...
What's that, dear? What do you mean "That's no blog?" Well, I guess I could embellish it a bit. I may even have to make some things up to make it interesting, and you know how I hate to do that. (Insert "chuckling" here.) OK, here goes.
Yes, during our time in Panama City (we actually camped in the nothing little burg of "Freeport," although I wanted to be in Panama City), we were the recipients of more rain in our first 24 hours there than this part of Florida had gotten in the first four MONTHS of 2014; it was even more rain than they got during the infamous "Hurricane Ivan." So, while we were definitely wet, at least there was no hurricane. So we had that going for us.
I've decided that the Panama City (Freeport) gods certainly have something against me. For gods knows whatever reason, they do not want me to partake of their oh-so white, sandy beaches. My main reason for stopping in this area was that during my college spring break of 1971, buddies Alps, Homer, and Wick and I had made our way to Tallahassee, Florida, where by some miracle, we met and became friends with a Florida State University student named Brian Bengston. It just so happened that Brian was the son of the head football coach of the storied, many-times-world-champion Green Bay Packers. Brian took us on a day trip to a place he said we had to see: yes, the aforementioned Panama City (not Freeport). And just as it happened to Diedre and me some 43 years later, it rained on us poor overwrought college students. It was the only day of the 10 we were in Florida that year that it rained. What luck. Of course, this year, we had four times the rain and four times the disappointment that we had back in '71.
There's a Mark Twain quote posted on our RV refrigerator that represents how we want to live during our "senior" years:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
Explore. Dream. Discover."
"Alan" was the nice young man who our AAA Wannabe Road Side Service sent out to help, since Diedre obviously knows nothing about changing a tire, and I can't risk my typing hands getting injured doing such menial manual labor. While changing the tire in the time it would have taken me to find the jack, Alan asked me what I did. Naturally, I made up that story you so love about being a writer, and sure enough, he bought it. I asked him if he was interested in cowboys.
"YEE-HAH!" he exclaimed with a strong Alabama accent (Is there any other kind?) So I proceeded to tell him about the biography I wrote of Peter Brown's life. I MAY have mentioned it a time or two or twenty last year. To my surprise, this mid-20's something young man had actually heard of Peter and his TV show, "Laredo," even though he (Alan) had not yet been born when it aired. Go figure.
I immediately handed him one of the books. And the cost was only $20, but he was a nice kid. I really think it's the best $20 I ever spent.
BA-DUM-BUM!
The next day, Diedre showed who wears the pants in this family by jumping in the car and driving the hour it takes to go to the Honda dealer in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, whilst I cleverly stayed behind and sorted the animals by two's. In addition to showing who wears the pants, she also showed who has the brains in this twosome (as if there was ever any doubt) as she enjoyed one of the most beautiful drives either of us had ever taken on the way to auto-repair-central. Of course, she didn't let on about her joyous drive, instead basking in the kudos she got for bravely volunteering to go out on the treacherous roads to get our spare repaired at the Honda dealer whilst I remained back at AB1 slaving over this furshlugginer blog.
Moving on.
You know, whenever I get down into the real south, the rural south, near the water, I always have that feeling, what with the droopy trees and the hanging Spanish Moss everywhere and the slow pace of life, well, I'm just pretty sure I'm going to be running into people whose first words to me will almost certainly be: "YOU LOST, CITY BOY?!" (Cue the "Dueling Banjos"music).
Tuesday DK went rain-grocery shopping; I'd do it, but I'm so dumb about food that the last time the wife dared send me out for vittles, instead of a shopping list, she cut out pictures of the actual food for me. Still didn't work.
With food comes exercise. We're both trying to stay in shape this year, although we each have different styles. Whereas I'm just compulsive enough that I have to walk three miles absolutely every day (today was the 830th consecutive day I've walked that prescribed distance), Diedre subscribes more to the "Goldilocks Workout Regimen," i.e. she walks three miles a day IF it's not TOO hot, or IF it's not TOO cold. Yes, you guessed it, it has to be ... JUST RIGHT! Of course, on those days she usually walks 5-7 miles. That's scary.
That night we had the biggest scare in our RV since Diedre spotted me wearing my "Snoopy" boxer shorts. The rain, as it had all day, kept coming that night, only now harder. I went to bed about 11 while DK did that computer-voodoo thing she do so well. About 12:30 a.m., her phone sounded its emergency warning: tornadoes had been sighted. And there we were, in a big tin box, with no real place to go. The camp bath house would have been marginally safer, but it was a good three blocks away, and we had the cats to consider. Casey's only about 9 pounds, so he wouldn't have been a problem, but the other two? Charlie (18 pounds) and Little Samantha (14 pounds) would have been too heavy for me to put them all in the cat carrier and lug them to the bath house. So we decided we'll all go together if we go. The warning was on for just 20 more minutes, so there we huddled, managing to get just one local channel on TV telling us what was going on. First 15 minutes left ... then 10 ... 5 ... AND it was over. We will definitely have to rethink our escape procedures for the future.
Wednesday was a day of recovery from the previous evening's onslaught. We both sat there and re-evaluated our priorities. Diedre re-pledged herself to family and friends while I made a major life choice and declared my intent to eventually climb Mount Noot-Newy.
Speaking of life pledges, my brother Mark, after 43 years with the same stock brokerage company, called it a career at age 66. Wow! 43 years doing the same thing over and over ... that's crazy ... a lot like managing the Chicago Cubs.
Not sure what the roads would be like after the Noah's Ark Storm from last night, we called our campground in St. Augustine and changed our reservation there, cutting it one day. Then the five of us spent the day on the couch huddled under Diedre's massive homemade quilt and watched reruns of "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C."
I was excited to finally get to see St. Augustine. Its history is just incredible. St. Augustine was the first European settlement in the U.S., established even before both the Jamestown settlement and the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock. It was recently ranked number six on the top ten list for "Best Historic Cities" in the country by "USA Today Travel." Amazingly enough, we will hit five more of those cities this trip (Savannah, GA, #4; Charleston, SC, #5; Boston, #7; Santa Fe, NM, #8; and Philadelphia, #9), and have already been to number 10 (New Orleans) last month. We're only missing numbers 1 (Montgomery, AL), #2 (Annapolis, MD), and #3 (Williamsburg, VA, although both DK and I have been there in other incarnations).
As is our usual style when first blowing into a town, Diedre searched out the best pizza place they had to offer. And this was a GOOD one! Pizza Time was rated #7 out of the 476 restaurants listed in St. Augustine (actual number, not a fig-newton of my imagination), and this was not just out of all pizza restaurants, but ALL restaurants, even those with non-plastic silverware. Owner Domenico is legendary for his pizza and his attention to customers. He's gone from making "za's" in Sicily to Brooklyn and then finally on to St. Augustine. The man is a genius.
Friday, May 2, our Amazon Jungle-like weather continued. Miss Diedre was content to stay home (stay RV?) and do the most difficult "Anti-Diet Yoga" which requires the combatant to freeze in the "Dying Cockroach Pose" while eating chocolate bon-bons. It's actually a yoga I could get into.
The HOF was a huge campus consisting of not only the Hall of Fame and Museum, but also a golf course, condos up the wazoo, and a re-creation of the Players course 17th hole island green around which were situated many golf-oriented retail establishments. There was even a bar-restaurant owned by Bill Murray (of "Caddyshack" film immortality) and his five brothers called, appropriately enough, "Caddyshack." I loved their motto: "Eat, Drink, and Be Murray."
I'm a baseball guy, although I do know quite a bit about the other real sports (not fake sports like pro wrestling and soccer). But here, I did learn some interesting things about golf. To whit (To what?):
-Young Tom Morris was already winning money as a professional golfer at age 13. Starting at age 18, he won four consecutive British Open championships from 1868-1871. He was the tourney's youngest participant ever at age 14 and the youngest winner ever of the open at age 17. Amazingly enough, his dad, "Old" Tom Morris, was the oldest Open winner at age 46 and the oldest participant at age 74. Young Tom was credited with the first hole-in-one ever at the Open in 1869. Unfortunately, Young Tom died of a ruptured aneurysm at the far too young age of 24 ... on Christmas day, 1875. Sad story.
-They had a copy of Annika Sorenstam's scorecard from a tournament on March 16, 2001, when she shot a record breaking 59. It was amazing enough that she started the front nine with four birdies in a row, but it was on the back side when she really caught fire. Starting on number 10, she got eight birdies in a row ... I said EIGHT! She then choked big-time with a horseshit par on the 18th hole, giving her a 28 on the backside to complete her 59 ... and this was NOT a match on a miniature golf course.
-Henry Picard won the 1938 Masters and the 1939 PGA. He was from Hershey, Pennsylvania, where he was the Hershey Club pro in 1934. So, Milton Hershey of the Hershey Chocolate Company decided it would be good for his chocolate empire if he matched Henry's golf salary dollar for dollar. He felt Henry was a walking representative for Hershey. Henry even handed out chocolate bars wherever he went. Now there's a golfer in whose gallery I could march. His nicknames varied between "The Hershey Hurricane," "The Chocolate Soldier," and "the Bon Bon Kid."
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It was still drizzling on Saturday, May 3, so in order to break out of our rain-induced cabin fever, we made our way over to the local massive flea market. On the short walk, we spied this sign which gives you an idea of the security and quality of some of the fine RV parks in which we stay. And of course, the first sign we saw when entering the flea market estate said it all: ZOMBIES EAT BRAINS ... FORTUNATELY, YOU'RE SAFE!We made it back to home-sweet-RV just in time to see my choice for winning horse racing's Triple Crown, California Chrome, romp to an easy victory in the Kentucky Derby. I'm going to go out on a limb here and bravely predict CC will win the Preakness ... yes, there, I've said it, and not just because I'm writing this THREE days after the Preakness. I'm just that good.
That night we watched a tape of "The Big Bang Theory" TV show. It was quite a night for me as my "Big Three" were all involved with this show:
1- It's currently our favorite show;
2-The subject that night was "Star Wars," my all-time favorite movie;
3-One of my all-time favorite comedians, Bob Newhart, was guest starring.
I'd call that "The Triple Crown of Comedy."
Sunday, May 4, was a day that will live in the opposite of infamy ... I guess that would just be "famy," because ... HUZZAH!! HUZZAH!! ... the sun finally came out. Let there be dancing in the streets! Drinking in the saloons! And necking in the parlors!
Since we had lost a day in St. Augustine because of losing a day in Panama City (Freeport), we then decided to add a day to St. Augustine, figuring one less day in Miami was not that big of a deal. And we ended up being right.
We did our preferred walking tour. When we did this several years ago in Key West, Florida, we found all things "southernmost." We did the same thing today, only this time finding all "oldest in the country" things.
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OK, with that smart-ass comment, I better get a move on and take us to down Miami. See you there.
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