Travel Archives

March 23, 2015

A Football Upset

Road Warriorette Shari and I rolled into Cape early Sunday evening. The 1,311-mile ride was pretty unexceptional most of the way: weather was good except for some heavy rain Saturday evening and light rain for a couple of hours Sunday morning. We DID see three unusual things Sunday afternoon.

Just south of Nashville, I saw a vehicle pulling a travel trailer slowing to a stop, so I passed him with plenty of room. Just as I got even with him, I saw flames shooting out of the left rear trailer wheel. It took 100 yards or so for me to stop and back down the shoulder to see if he was going to need an extra fire extinguisher. It turned out that he had a wheel bearing lock up, causing the grease to catch fire. Luckily, he noticed it before the tire started burning. The fire went out without us having to do anything; he called for roadside assistance, and I went on my way.

Brake lights and smoke

Near Paducah, I saw brake lights come on, a cloud of smoke and cars swerving. A minivan had blown a driver’s side tire. He, too, made it to the shoulder safely.

Not 30 minutes later, I was passing an 18-wheeler and saw sparks and smoke coming from under the trailer. I slowed in front of the driver, turned on my four-way flashers and motioned for him to pull over. It turned out that his spare tire had come loose and was dragging the ground. The rim bouncing up and down was causing the sparks, and the friction was causing the tire to smoke.

What does this have to do with football?

Actually, not a thing. I scanned this photo just before leaving West Palm Beach so I’d have something to post if I got in tired and late. I’m both.

This shows how the same photo can look entirely different depending on if you run it pretty much full frame, like at the top, or cropped in tight. The picture won prizes in Missouri and Ohio press association contests, but I don’t remember anything about what was happening here. You can click on the photos to make them larger.

January 16, 2015

Swimming with Manatees

Road Warriorette Anne is back in Florida for a few weeks fleeing cold weather in Texas. For the record, that is NOT Anne. She took time off from her travel schedule to swim with manatees in Kings Bay in the Crystal River on Florida’s Gulf Coast. She bought a video of her experience, and I pulled a few frames out for this post.

Here is her account:

I’m not crazy about the cold

The night before my manatee swimming experience, I was actually pretty stressed out. I was excited, certainly. But the forecast was for 36 degrees at 7:15 a.m., which was the time we were due to arrive at the boat dock for our short ride to Kings Bay, where all the manatees were lounging in the relatively warm waters of Crystal River.

I am not a person who enjoys cold weather. Scratch that. I am a person who despises cold weather. But I had decided earlier in the day that if I was indeed going to honor my reservation, made before this rare arctic front swooped into west central Florida, I was going to do it cheerfully and have fun. A stop at the Goodwill store in Perry, complete with purchase of a cheap coat and blanket to keep me warm on the boat ride out and back, sealed the deal.

But the alarm was set for 5:45 (leaving time to eat breakfast before the boat ride), and I am ALSO not an early morning riser, so that was additional cause for anxiety. Not to mention I had driven 540 miles that day (and 525 miles the day before that), so I had a bit of white line fever running through my veins, I admit.

But I digress! It’s all about the manatees. Once I saw my first manatee in the waters of Kings Bay that morning, everything else slipped away. In my experience, it’s such a transporting experience to have a close encounter with another species, especially in their own habitat. [Editor’s note: that’s why she visits me.]

Although there were large areas of water cordoned off with buoys where visitors can’t enter, the manatees very often leave these sanctuary areas and come “visit” you! They are curious and just come right up to humans again and again.

My coat and blanket kept me warm on the boat ride out, and since it was such a cold day, maybe just 14 to 16 guests were in the whole area. Our guide told us the previous week (the holiday season) there were as many as 200 people in the water at one time. Which meant anytime a manatee was spotted, it was positively swarmed by humans, all with grasping hands and cameras, etc. I was definitely feeling there was an upside to the cold weather by this time.

Watch the video

The manatees’ whiskers were softer than I thought they’d be, but their skin is quite tough. Their wrinkles feel funny and it’s darling the way they almost always turn over to have their tummies scratched. I had two wonderful encounters; one was on camera, which you can see on the video, and one all alone, when I got nose to nose with a cow who came up for a close look. Then she turned over for me to pet her tummy, which I did; but then she slowly began twirling around and around, mesmerizing me so that I just kept my hand on her while she quietly rotated.

Violated the two-hand rule

Our guide happened to be filming when I had my second special encounter. A cow came up to me very close and then actually reached toward me with both fins. It was the dearest thing. Something within me wanted to respond in kind, so I reached out with both hands to sort of cup her face or perhaps touch her fins, I’m not sure which. I wasn’t really thinking, just reacting to her gesture. But apparently there’s a “one-hand” rule, which I didn’t recall hearing, despite closely watching the video about procedures before departure. Whatever, I did actually get to touch her with both hands before I got caught and it was very meaningful to me (and maybe to her because she reached out first!) so I don’t care about getting caught!

Two hours with the gentle giants

Our small group of six that left from The Plantation Dive Shop stayed in Kings Bay for close to two hours, having multiple encounters with the gentle giants. The only time I was truly, bitterly cold was when we got out of the water. Then we were all actually shaking so hard that we spilled lots of hot chocolate as we tried to drink it to warm up.

But every one of us agreed it was totally worth it.

Swimming with manatees has been on my bucket list for quite a while. If it’s on yours, go do it, and don’t be afraid to pick a cold day.

August 25, 2014August 26, 2014

A Squirrelly Night In Kent

I think I’m going to stop letting Road Warriorettes pick the motel rooms. Remember the problems I had with Friend Shari?

Curator Jessica and I took a road trip from Athens to Kent, Ohio, Sunday so we could meet some museum folks in Kent and Massillon. We had a great drive with many stops and diversions that’ll show up in posts in the future.

Curator Jessica reads the reviews

About two hours south of Kent, I pulled into a parking lot while she researched motels. When I heard her discount this one because of bloody sheets and another one because it had more #1 ratings than #5 ratings, it looked like it was going to take awhile. I told her to wake me up when she had made a choice.

She booked us two rooms in the Clarion Inn and Conference Center in Hudson, about 30 minutes from where we have to be on Monday morning. Then, we made arrangements to meet one of her friends for one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had.

Internet doesn’t need password

When we got to the front desk, I asked about the internet connection. I was assured that it didn’t need a password, just connect and go.

My tablet connected fine and dropped me into a screen where I agreed to something or another, and I was on my way.

The laptop I use to do the blog would connect and it would tell me that I should click HERE to open my browser (presumably to get the OK screen). No go. I tried everything I could think of: connecting, disconnecting, reconnecting, changing browsers, disabling Adblock Plus, etc. Finally, I called the front desk. Gal says to reboot my computer. Oh, yeah, I would NEVER have thought of THAT.

I tried the reboot and all the other stuff, then called the desk again. Guy answers and tells me he can give me an 800-number for tech support. I didn’t rent a room from some third-party tech support company, I rented it from Clarion Inn and Conference Center, but I say “Give me the number.” While he’s searching for the number, I hear loud banging in the hallway. I figure somebody can’t get a door open or closed.

Router is busticated

Guy comes back on the phone and says that due to the recent storms in the area, they are having problems with the router that serves the 140-numbered rooms. He’ll move me to another room if he can.

“It’s 11:17. I have everything unpacked and spread around, I have at least an hour’s worth of work to do if I start right now, and I’m sitting here in my underwear. I don’t think you want me to go walking down the hall like that. When I check into a motel chain that is supposed to cater to business users, I expect to be able to use the internet.”

While I’m on the phone, Curator Jessica sends me a text: “Wow, there is a small drama going on in the hallway next to your room. This night just gets better.” She calls the front desk to report the disturbance.

Desk Guy wishes me a good night

Yeah, like THAT is going to happen.

Tumult outside my door gets louder, with much cussing and banging. I cautiously peek around the door and see a woman with enough tattoos to rival a map of Ohio striding down the hallway screaming, “I’m going to call the cops on everybody in this hall.”

Jessica texts an offer to bring over her pepper spray to protect me if I need it. She’s full of late-night help and information like her text moments before midnight, “Somebody on Facebook told me that today is National Go Topless Day. If it was on Facebook, it must be true, right?”

OK, it’s been 30 minutes of quiet. Now I hear door pecking, then banging again. Map-looking woman is there with two cops (or uniformed security guys, I didn’t look closely) and they are trying to get someone in Room 145 to open up. (I’m in 143.)

Maybe Jessica should have picked the motel with the bloody sheets.

Oh, yeah, the squirrel

I guess you are wondering about the picture at the top of the page. It’s a sculpture of a black squirrel in Acorn Alley in downtown Kent. Here is the background about the black fuzzy-tailed rodents and how they got to town.

UPDATE

I had an early morning call from the manager of the hotel who had see my post on Facebook. After a discussion, she agreed to comp the room because of the inconvenience. She also said she would encourage the staff to check for log entries that might indicate that a room wasn’t up to snuff.

We both agreed that the hotel had no control over unruly guests. I’m pretty sure she was talking about the drunk woman in the next room who was banging on doors and hollering, not me, but I’m not positive.

Neither of us could turn back the clock to undo the problems of the previous night, but I was pleased that she reached out for me so quickly. Nice save.

June 1, 2014

Albany Art Park

All of my Road Warriorettes – Jan, Shari, Anne and Curator Jessica – have different sleep patterns than I do. I’m up until the wee hours of the morning doing blog posts after driving all day. They’re snug in their beds snoring the night away, then they get up early and traipse down to the motel’s free breakfast. I sleep until 9:32, check my email and get rolling just before check-out time. Actually, Shari was the strangest of the batch: she doesn’t come to life until she fills her tank with Starbucks coffee. I’d set the GPS for the nearest Starbucks and leave her a set of keys, hoping she wouldn’t leave me stranded in some backwater town.

Because Anne and Jessica had the early breakfast this morning, they weren’t overly hungry. My hunger alarm was clanging loudly by the time we got to the first town of any size, Albany, Georgia. We had set a goal of avoiding chain joints and had been doing well so far. The first candidate looked a little tea roomy for my taste, so Curator Jessica was dispatched to see if it had tablecloths and/or candles.

I don’t remember if she said it had hanging ferns or not, but we elected to drive around the block to see what else was downtown. When we made the turn, the Albany Artpark on Pine jumped out at us.

At first glance, it was hard to tell if the front windows were painted, if we were looking at reflections or if the colorful images were inside. I put my hunger alarm on snooze.

Fascinating urban art

What we discovered was one of the most innovative uses of an old building I had ever seen. A local organization bought a neglected building, razed the upper floor to make it open to the sky, and beefed up the exterior walls. It became a huge open-air art gallery.

There was such a 3-dimensional feeling to the graffiti art and the surrounding walls that it was hard to tell what was art and what was reality.

We were a day early

The stuff we saw was, for the most part, the equivalent of finger exercises. A formal paint-off was held the day after we were there. News accounts I saw online showed some remarkable work. It’s sort of like the annual chalk street paintings held in Lake Worth, Florida.

Opportunities for other towns

Every place I’ve lived has more than its share of decaying buildings in its downtown areas. I’d love to see art parks like this pop up all over. It’s a great outlet for artists, and the images are fun to look at.

While we were walking around, we visited Ray Charles Plaza, the subject of yesterday’s blog post. We found a great local restaurant on the way of town. It had great food at a reasonable price, served without table cloths, candles or hanging ferns.

Art Park photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.