7-28-09 Tuesday (When Blogospheres Collide)

There’s a few things on my mind that I need to address and are all pretty much unrelated. The first one is a Happy Birthday to Jim. He will be another year older on Wednesday the 29th. Mine was June 23rd and other than Facebook, I never mentioned it in the blog so as to avoid a fuss.

I’ve read a few comments on the blog as well as Facebook regarding the end of our trip and the possibility of the blog. Thanks for the sweet words expressing dismay in it’s possible termination, however, I’ve never said it would end. I have no plans to stop blogging until it seems like the best thing to do.

Hmmmm, that’s only a couple of things. A few is 3 things. It would seem that as I performed household chores, I came up with a few thoughts, but then forgot one by the time I made it to the computer. Maybe I’ll think of it; maybe it will remain a mystery.

We made it into Florida! It’s kind of exciting. As we got several miles into the state, 2 things occurred that made us giggle. #1 – splat, splat, splat went the love bugs on the windshield. We forgot about that. #2- Water splashing up from vehicles in front of us. It was sunny but we just missed the afternoon rain. These 2 items are seasons for Florida. Oh no, there’s no Winter or Spring or such. It’s Love Bug season. For you non-Floridians, these are bugs that fornicate while they fly. They are all over, they don’t bite, they splat on cars. Then there’s Rainy Season. Each year you can just about set your watch to it. Torrential rain storms out of no where that are so intense you consider building an ark. The rain simply laughs at your wipers. It rains at about X o’clock and then the sun comes out like nothing ever happened. Scary is our Hurricane Season. We make sure our generators are runable, and bottled water plentiful. There may be more seasons but the 4th I could think of is Tourist Season. No, we can’t shoot them, even though many times we want to. They are helpful to our local economy. They come during their northern winter months, seeking our Florida warmth.

Above: We stopped at Walmart, I did some shopping while Jim got a haircut at SportClips. We fit into the spaces, didn’t we? I guess we’re compact.

Enough with the rambling about seasons and such. It’s time to meet with Alix and her sister Lisa! They picked us up, and off to the Columbia Restaurant. I don’t know if this place is world famous, or even country famous, but it certainly is Florida famous. The have many famous dishes including their Spanish Bean Soup. It’s so good, think soup Nazi from Seinfeld. We ate scallops (my first time), shrimp in garlic, and black bean cakes. All yummy. We also had the 1905 Salad which also lived up to it’s popularity. I had Steak Palomilla. All so awesome! Let’s not forget a pitcher of white and a pitcher of red Sangria. I think I covered it all! If not, head over to Casa Hice to read Alix’s take (this link will not work right away until she posts) on the evening.

Above: Garret – Alix - Jim

Above/Below: Left to Right (Jim, Alix, Garret, Lisa) in the RV before dinner. Not even a drink in us yet! You can tell it’s gonna be a wild night!

Above/Below: Our server, Jeff, was very photogenic.

Above: Sangria!

Above: Lisa shows off the Tapas (appetizers)

Above: A toast! When the Blogosphere creates friends!

Below: Dinner was so filling, we needed to rest in the Columbia lobby.

Above/Below: Alix comes to our home bearing gifts. S’mores!