West Central Florida

      Weeki Wachee Springs is 60 years old. It is Old Florida, with the feel of a roadside attraction. The mermaids don't stand out beside the road and wave the motorists in for a show anymore though. Darn it. It's mostly for kids now. I sure would have liked to have seen it when I was a boy of about 12 or so. Wooooeeee. Now I think the college age girls are just cute, in a sexy kind of way. I'd better stop before I get into trouble.

.  A brave bird at Homosassa Springs

Any alligators down there? We took our first bike ride in ages, on a really nice paved Central Florida trail. We learned soon after we arrived here that Florida is no place to ride on the roads, unless you have intimate knowledge of the backroads, know how to speak Cracker and maybe carry a gun. Maybe that's why they seem to be having success building multi use trails. The trails seem to get a lot of use , which will mean support for more. The only thing we don't like is they are flat flat flat. We miss Mount Lemmon, but I doubt we'd make it far, we're so out of shape. Still we did manage 42 miles yesterday, on another flat trail.

 

   

We had a couple of nice short hikes in Potts Preserve, a very nice state wildlife preserve. They make it hard to find for out-of-staters, but I can understand such a populous, touristy state wanting to keep something for the locals. It makes the search all the more rewarding.

Next we head for the Florida Panhandle, where we hope to find fewer people, white sandy beaches, more public lands, and less humidity.

Everglades

We only bussed the Everglades, but it was one of those kisses that linger in memory. It would take at the very least months to develop a relationship the Everglades. Neither swamp nor upland, it is both, but its life blood is a slow moving sheet of water flowing from Florida's highlands (if a couple of hundred feet above sea level can be called highlands). The problem is that we humans, first in ignorance and later with greed, interrupted and redirected the flow of water, and changed, probably forever, the nature of very complex ecosystem. In recent years, at very great expense, an attempt is being made to restore something close to historic flows to the Everglades. Time will tell if it proves out, or not. I'm glad we got a taste of it at least, thanks to our wonderful National Park system.

 

The Florida Keys

Turtle roughing it in the Keys

Key West is for the birds

           

Sunset at the end of America.

I didn't need our bikes tuned, thank goodness. He had this tendency to take long breaks until somebody put some folding money in the bucket. slowest bike mechanic I've ever seen!

This silly six foot tarpon thought my camera was a fish! Almost lost it, and a few fingers too.

The No Name Pub is thought to have over 100,000 $1 bills stuck to the ceiling. We ate lunch instead. 

  Sharing my one-handed technique for getting a fish off the hook. My grandpa taught me when I was about this little guy's age, a few decades ago.

The two sides of the Florida Keys

Recreational Vehicle Industry Association show in Louisville, 2007

 

The Tailgater: It had NO beds, just for party time; around $400,000

Motorcycle with sidecar to attract attention to a display.

Lean Mean Amish Machine, our favorite.

  Happy Birthday Winnebago!

We spent three outrageously busy days learning all we could about the RV industry, meeting all the people we've heard about, and eating the great food in the Press Room. It was relaxing to get back on the road, racing winter south.

Another Country

For lots more photos: http://www.newbohemiansnet.spaces.live.com/

We thought we were staying in America when we canceled the trip to South America. Then, at the Tennessee Welcome Center we met a man who wanted to make sure we saw a certain battlefield in Chattanooga, "...in the Northern War of Aggression." I guess we really are two countries.

Other things heard in the South: "I think we ought to nuke the entire Middle East." "Only people who own property and pay taxes should be allowed to vote." and most amazing, "Barrak Obama will impose Islamic Law if elected president." We'd all be living the law of President Bush's church if that were possible under the Constitution. It isn't.

I am confused. It appears that the South Shall Rise Again is no longer a aphorism, but an accomplished fact. Some of them (lots of them?) have separated from the rest of the country. We await a formal declaration of war. Given the success they had (in what I thought was called the Civil War) at picking their battles, they might want to think twice.

We drove longer and faster than usual to get to the Kennedy Space Center to see the Shuttle launch. Luckily we found a wonderful boondock spot at the edge of a wildlife refuge and had four each glourious sunsets and sunrises, surrounded by friendly RVers, wildlife and local fishers. The mozzies left welts that linger a week later, but they are not bad during the day. It's a good thing we found the boondock, the RV parks are outrageously expensive. (Go to Arizona!) After three cancellations due to some sensors, (they probably work as well as our black-water sensors) we gave up and drove south.

Our first bike ride in Florida we were treated to two young men in a pickup suggesting that it would be common courtesy for us to ride on the sidewalk. We were not blocking traffic and the lanes were wide. I suspect it was our bright clothing that offended him. I wonder if bicyclists here learn to wear camo.

The next day we took mountain bikes, rode sidewalks and grass verges and had a wonderful day, including the best hot dog I've had since West Virginia: steamed bun, chilli and coleslaw. Yum. Most of the people we meet are from somewhere else, here for the winter. There seem to be lots of people living in old cars and trucks, sleeping with the mozzies in the managroves I suspect. The homeless don't always show up at shelters to be counted.

After we left the Space Coast, we drove down A1A along the barrier islands, filled with beautiful large and expensive houses, and some very nice county parks and beaches. Each time we stopped at a beach, we began coughing and or sneezing. We thought it was an unusual reaction to salt air, but later learned it is an alergic reaction to a kind of red tide that is driving people from the coast. We both got stung by a blue jellyfish I was trying to get closeup photos of, when a larger wave washed it around our ankles and toes. Vinegar (we learned in Australia) helped, and the sting lasted only a few hours. Now we know why we had the beaches to ourselves, red tide and stinging jellyfish. Lovely still.

We did wonder how many of those beautiful houses will be gone next hurricane. I somehow don't think those people will be living in FEMA trailers. I just hope we don't end up having to pay to rebuild the beach they should not have built on. The barrier islands should be kept as just that, barrier islands, used as parks and wildlife refuges, to protect the inner coast, not covered by houses that distroy the vegetative matte that holds the sand. Money talks, and money buys politicians, and insurance.

Florida will be interesting, already is; stay tuned. I have a lot to learn.

For more photos: http://www.newbohemiansnet.spaces.live.com/

Consorting with Muslims, Again!

Last night we broke bread with Muslims for the first time since returning from our Silk Road bicycle crossing. Claire's father Dave and stepmother Lynn, took us to a fund raising dinner for the local Muslim association in Carroll County Maryland. The draw was a wonderful Pakistani dinner, hot and savory. They are now having Friday prayers, in a local Christian church which I found both amazing and wonderful.

The church apparently lost a few members and were criticized by a few locals who seem to think all Muslims are terrorists, or terrorist sympathizers. That is ignorant. It's like saying that because the KKK carried crosses when they hung Negroes in the South, that all Christians of the time supported murder.

The food and the faces, the scarves on the women, brought back memories of hearing prayers from minarets as we rode Zippy across Central Asia; and the amazing hospitality they showed to us as Americans, when our government is not very popular in much of the world.

Someday there will be a real mosque in Carroll County, and it will be partly because of the congregation of one Christian church who did what Jesus would do, and other Christian and secular Caucasian Americans who support the cause of inclusion and brotherly love.

It gave me a feeling of hope that I haven't had for awhile.

Maryland Fall Color Photos

Claire climbing an old growth grapevine in Catoctin Mountain Park (where Camp David is hidden); she was looking for the President, but he didn't show.

Go to http://newbohemiansnet.spaces.live.com (see top link at right) for photos of some nice Maryland fall colors, and a look at one of Claire's three favorite brothers!

The Pups Watch Us

Fergus minding Claire one summer past

We are in Maryland at Claire's father's, a border collie farm near Westminster, Maryland.

Dave McCabe and his wife Lynn, fell in love with border collies a few years ago, first with Fergus and then a rescue dog, Paddy. Paddy unfortunately had been on his own for nearly a year, and had health issues that eventually claimed him, but not after he had enjoyed several years of unconditional love and excellent medical care. He was recently replaced with Nala, another rescue dog, but with a much better past. Fergus and Nala are both top dogs, humans are subordinate. They eat hamburger ground turkey mixed with dry dog food, topped with Pupperoni. The dogs, not the humans. The humans have to eat things like prime rib, veggies an salads.

The puppies, as Dave calls them, are watching Claire and I for a week while Dave and Lynn cruise the Rhine. Somebody has to do it; watch us, that is. We try and not be too much trouble. Claire doesn't chew up the furniture and I hardly ever knock over lamps while chasing a ball. We don't ask to be taken outside too often, but we do seem to prefer getting walked when it is raining hard. Some days the puppies want to stay in their outdoor play space (pen) and they send us to Turtle, so Claire can meet her deadlines, and I can write drivel like this.

The pups let us go for a bike ride Sunday, and I used the excuse of going to the post office to ride 32 miles another day. Boy did I get a barking at when I got back; must have worried Fergus.

Fall has come to the East, and gone, directly into winter. Not really, but it seems that way, when temperatures go from 80 to 50, and skies go from blue to rain in a few days.

We found some the best leaf color when we first arrived in Maryland, but the rain and wind have turned them brown and taken half of them off the trees already, and there are still faded green leaves hanging on. This is indeed a strange autumn.