Month: November 2006

I Left My Pants in Stuart, Florida

I know someone who will never get a flu shot again. Tuesday before last Donna got a flu shot at work. Everyone told her it was a good idea because even though she is long finished with chemo and radiation, her immune system is probably in a weakened state. Nice theory, lousy execution.

The two days following the shot she felt pretty crappy and once that kind of cleared up she developed a cough. The cough is still hanging around 9 days later. Even with taking cough medicine the cough has been keeping her from getting a good night’s sleep. Without a good night’s sleep Donna has been feeling a little out of it. Not feeling up to spending 12 hours riding in the car on Saturday to get home, after lunch today we decided to head back to the hotel, pack our bags and get a few hours head start.

Our northward momentum petered out just south of Ocala, FL. When we unpacked the luggage tonight we realized that I was a couple pants shy a load (and a sweatshirt and some loungewear.) Ooops, Donna had packed the suitcases back in Stuart by emptying only the two top drawers of the dresser in our hotel room, not realizing that I had put some stuff in the bottom one too.

I called the hotel and explained the predicament to the clerk and she said she would leave a note for housekeeping to bring the clothes to the front desk. I then called my brother-in-law and begged him to go over to Stuart tomorrow and retrieve the baggage. I expressed the importance of getting these items back because one of them is my favorite Levi 501 jeans. These are the ones so are so broken in they are getting holes in places that make them almost unsuitable for public wearing, but the still have a long life ahead of them as “knock about the house” wear.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
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Great Uncle-in-Law?

Where's the Bird?Happy Thanksgiving. This morning we went to a little local park to watch Kyle & Lee play in the sand and use the vacant half-pipe of the skate park as a slide. Brian married Donna. Donna has a sister Sandy. Sandy married Paul. Paul has an older brother Charles. Charles has a son named Tom. Tom is the father of Kyle & Lee. Does that make me Kyle & Lee’s great uncle-in-law?

In the great American tradition of eat ’til you drop on this day, I had breakfast of cereal and Danish at the hotel and then when we got to Sandy’s house I had a second breakfast of fruit and egg casserole. The parade was watched while nibbling on chocolate candies. Now the football game is on and the vegetables with ranch dip have made an appearance. The turkey is scheduled for a 3:30 date with serving platter.

Enjoy.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 479

(Untitled)

CleanThe trip from New Smyrna Beach to Palm City was rougher than we expected. To make some time and arrive early enough to go to the airport with sister Sandy to pick up brother Steve, we just went ahead and got on I-95. It went pretty well for a while, but then the traffic density picked up as the morning wore on, so we decided to get over and finish the last 30 miles on US1. Big mistake, traffic was worse. It ended up taking us 3-1/2 hours to go the last 130 miles of our trip.

We are here now and the second order of business (after lunch) was to wash some clothes. Sandy and Paul have a nice super capacity front loading washer that we could stuff all of the last three days worth of dirty laundry in in one load. And when the cycle is done you know your clothes are clean because the machine tells you so by illuminating this handy little light.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 475

50,000 Pieces of Wood

Johnny LawSomewhere just north of St Augustine the Emperor glided past the 50k mark. I guess I was wrong the other day when I said there would be miles left to travel on the warranty when we ran out of time. Just the opposite, the 3 year/50k warranty has expired with three days left.

We drove out of Georgia on I-95, but 36 miles was all we could take. Just after stopping and getting some free OJ at the welcome center, we got off the ugly Interstate and picked up A1A. We then drove the whole way down to New Smyrna Beach following the coastal road. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes tacky, sometimes crowded and sometimes nearly empty, taking the slow road, if you have the time, is the way to go. It helped that it is off-season which kept the crowds way down. The big trouble for us was that the weather was way off-season. Average high this time of year along the middle Florida coast is is 75, but today is wasn’t even 55. Combined with the 10-20 MPH mean that the top was up all day and any ventures out to look at the beach and waves was very brief.

Even though I was running right at the speed limit, Johnny Law shadowed me for a couple miles when we drove through Daytona Beach.

Before dinner tonight we took a walk around a mile and a half circular boardwalk that is at the north end of New Smyrna Beach’s coast. It was a quick walk over about 50,000 pieces of treated wood. The sun had finally popped out from under the clouds, but it was too late to raise the temperature any as it traversed the last 10 degrees of it’s arc before disappearing beneath the horizon.

Food for today consisted of the “deluxe” continental breakfast at the Village Inn, bah. Lunch at another Barbara Jean’s (which turns out to be a mini chain of about 6 restaurants), very good, but finished off any possible crab cake cravings for a month or so. Dinner was at Vincente’s in New Smyrna Beach, a small Italian place whose baked ziti was just the right amount to split and very satisfying.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 471

Pachyderms on Parade

Pachyderms on ParadeAfter a cold start the day warmed up nicely and the top stayed down from Savannah until we got to St. Simon’s Island.

We stopped in Savannah to look at the Roundhouse Railroad Museum. Very interesting place, but definitely a work in progress. Seeing as it only cost $4.25 per to get in we agreed that even though a lot of stuff is unfinished and you can’t get in any of the display railroad cars it still offered more bang for your buck than yesterday’s aquarium.

Lunch was a killer Greek salad and two slices of pizza at The Upper Crust in Richmond Hill, GA. Boy once you get 15 miles south of Savannah it is pretty much trailers and marsh along US17.

Saint Simon’s Island is kind of a quaint Hilton Head without all the golf course/plantation housing areas. It has a charm all it’s own and in what seems it’s best efforts are failing to hold on to it. There are creeping pockets of national chains of hotels and fast food with a lot of 3 story beach view blocking million dollar homes. We are staying at the Village Inn & Pub and it is nice and at this time of year quite empty, there are 5 cars in the parking area, counting the Emperor. With a recommendation to it from a co-worker and the desk clerk here, dinner was a small place called Barbara Jean’s. Good call. Food & service was excellent.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 471

We’re Sorry Rudy & Patti

Charleston AquariumAlternate title: We Drove All The Way Here For That?

We have the week off and the plan is to go see Donna’s sister and family in Palm City, FL for Thanksgiving. Originally we were going to leave on Saturday and take the real slow way down, but then friends from the MMC decided to hold their wedding reception on Sunday (they got hitched in Vegas a couple weeks ago), so we postponed leaving until Monday morning to take the just plain slow way down.

Well, we did OK on Saturday, but by this morning the call of the road was too great. At 7:30AM we got out of bed, by 8:45 we were packed and on our way. Sorry Rudy & Patti, we’ll give you our wedding gifts next week at the MMC Holiday Party, hopefully you’ll be able to end up with them after the swaperoo gift exchange.

Breakfast at the New Moon and then US78 East, destination Charleston and it’s aquarium which opened in 2000 and we have yet to visit. I had checked the SC Aquarium’s web page for times and ticket prices, but neglected to get directions. How hard can it be? Bound to be signs directing visitors to it when coming into town, right? Wrong. After driving around town in frustration we decided to head out of town on I-26 and see if we could find a sign for it or a visitor’s center. Nope. After about 10 miles we got off at an exit and turned back around towards Charleston. Guess what? There are signs directing you to the aquarium if you come into the city on the Interstate.

Of the half dozen or so major aquariums Donna and I have visited this one ranks at the bottom. It was nice and all, but the big tank wasn’t that interesting and all the side exhibits didn’t really flow right. Everything seemed small, except for the gift shop, and some of the best things about the aquarium were the outside overlooks facing the new Cooper River bridge and the USS Yorktown at Patriot’s Point.

After our aquarium visit we walked the 6-8 blocks down to Market St and the main touristy section of town for a late lunch. The first place we came to was the Noisy Oyster and in we went. The food was good and it might b worth another visit if we ever get back this way just to see if they can get the food uniformly hot.

Our drive out of town was similar to the drive in as we made several wrong turns before finding our was back to I-26. I could have sworn Donna said she wanted to see the Citadel…

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 469

Nice Day

Morgan's CutEven though it was only around 40 degrees when we started out this morning, it was perfect weather for a little hike in Hitchcock Woods. Just cool enough to give that fall feeling, but not so cold that you were uncomfortable. We walked on a few familiar trails, along with a few little traveled.

We then did our Christmas shopping for our “adopted” child, followed by lunch at Subway before retiring to the couch for the rest of the day.

Cars wasn’t too bad, we did manage to watch the whole thing through.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 466