Travels with Randy and Bethany
OK, so I shouldn’t quit my day job to become a writer but exploring is one of the most enriching things I can think of and fortunately I've gotten to do quite a bit of it through work the last few years. Below are some "postcards" from trips Bethany and I have taken together. Actually given the length of some, they're more appropriately called letters, articles or novellas.
As any of the pregnancy guidebooks will tell you, the second trimester is the best time for a getaway vacation (e.g. expectant mother feeling better, last vacation possible for awhile as airlines won't let pregnant women fly after 6 months, etc.). As such we decided to spend a week at a resort in Florida.
So what have we've been doing on our week long vacation? Mostly lounging on the powder white sand beach in front of our hotel, the Trade Winds Sirita Resort on St. Pete Beach. How did we decide to go here? Well for starters we got a Southwest Airlines Visa card, and got a free ticket for all our past charges, so that narrowed the choices down a bit. But why here among the hundreds of beachfront hotels along the Tampa Bay/Clearwater/St. Petersburg Gulf shoreline? We found it by placing a bid on Priceline.com and have been very pleased by what our $60 a day bid got us (a third of the normal rate). The actual costs have been another $12/day more with a required parking/beach towel/newspaper/phone/FAX/complementary paddleboats fee. We thought about sending faxes to everyone since they were now "complementary" but that seemed more trouble than it was worth. Even with the hidden fees, it's seems like a great value given the plush accommodations, which includes a refrigerator in the room. We've stocked the fridge with soda, juice, leftovers, etc. so we haven't gone out for breakfast once. We're less sure about the $28/day rental car value we got on Priceline with an additional $9/day in taxes and local fees but couldn't find anything better on the net. We bring up the costs here to share our Internet travel shopping experiences and hopefully hear from others concerning their experiences as well, good or bad.
On a small-world note, before leaving, Amy Sage provided us with an article from the most recent AAA Midwest Traveler magazine concerning things to do in St. Petersburg, Florida. The focus of the article was on the family friendly accommodations at…you guessed it…the Trade Winds Resorts at St. Pete's Beach. The "Family Friendly" nature here might explain the lack of the limbo and beer bong contests so far in the evenings. We really haven't missed the "Big Party" atmosphere due either to maturity or to Bethany's pregnancy. In case you're a little worried about our mounting fuddy-duddinees, the complete absence of fruity rum/tequila drinks with colorful small umbrellas in them has been lamented by both of us more than once.
We weren't here 24 hours before Randy grew restless with the beach lounging and decided to go exploring the area a bit (as predicted by most of his co-workers). About 20 minutes to the south of our hotel, there is an 1898 coastal defense gun emplacement, Fort DeSoto, where he spent a couple hours wandering around the four 12-inch mortars, 6-inch Armstrong guns, the museum and the cantonment area foundations. It wasn't a complete busman's holiday as he didn't go scrounging in the mangrove swaps of the surrounding Mullet Key (island) which had been used as bombing and gunnery range in WWII for MacDill Army Air Field/Air Force Base. During the training regime, they lost so many B-17 bombers, that the refrain "one a day in Tampa Bay" became locally infamous (one a week would have been more accurate but doesn't have the same ring).
Having only piqued his wanderlust and having trouble thinking of it as a vacation without driving 300-400 miles a day (see our honeymoon and previous vacations), we decided to make a trip inland on Monday to see the renowned Tiffany art glass collection at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum in Winter Park, just north of Orlando. Being a bit pink in the skin from her first full day of sunbathing, Bethany decided to join in the excursion. Although we left late in the morning so as to avoid traffic in and around Tampa Bay, we neglected to consider the highway construction and resulting snarls around the amusement park hell west of Orlando. After creeping through about 45 minutes of traffic to go 15 miles and navigating with crude maps and no tourist signage to Winter Park we arrived outside the AAA Gem attraction of the Morse Museum only to find…are you ready for the punch line…that it was closed on Mondays (like all museums). Randy laughed immediately at the Chevy Chase Wally World irony, especially given that the Museum closed on Monday thing has happen to him before.
The next two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, saw a marked decline in the use of the rental car, as lounging by the beach reading seemed like a much better use of time and certainly more relaxing. The purchase of a couple cheap inflatable rings for floating in the ocean also added to the lazy, drifting nature of our afternoons. During the evenings, we spent several hours moon bathing and walking along the beach.
I thought we might go a whole day without hearing Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" but on an hour and half cruise we got to hear the best of JB twice. Based on the constant repetition, I'm sure the locals consider Buffet "white" background noise, like you would with the drone of the automobile if you lived next to an Interstate. The grotto, swimming pool and bar areas of our hotel are similarly "decorated" with sound. At least in our car we can choose the radio stations and found an 80's rock station and "lite" station with a penchant for Barbara Striesand (yeah, mostly) and Kenny G (B-yuck!).
On Thursday morning we took a short kayak tour along an inlet of Mullet Key, where reportedly you could spy dolphins and the occasional manatee looking for a belly rub. We left only after the outfitter assured Bethany that there were no alligators, crocodiles or sharks to be found in the area. Unfortunately there were no itchy manatees either but the egrets and pelicans were nice, along with the jumping mullet fish every few minutes. The trip also confirmed our wisdom and continued happiness in the purchase of half a pair of single person kayaks and not a double one. J
Our restaurant selections have generally proved pedestrian, with the exception of the Greek and Italian family owned restaurants we've visited. Based on the accents, first generation families of immigrants run or service all of them and the food has been great. The seafood fare has been a bit of a disappointment however (at least for Randy, as we're sure you know Bethany has avoided it based on mollusk allergies and general distaste for the rest).
Well that pretty much covers it as we finish this up at the Tampa Airport waiting to board our plane back home (at just over 2,000 words).
When the road is your mistress, time at home can be a cruel confinement of responsibility, domestication and good citizenship. Creativity is stifled, and a layer of ennui engulfs your life, seducing you to a passive acceptance of the commonplace and suppression of dreams. But late at night, if you listen, you can hear her whisper “Come to me. Come to me.” Don’t deny her, the Open Road.
R&B Florida - 20-27 April 2002
Randy Adak Island - July 2002
Randy is composing the first draft of this "postcard" from beneath the comforting shade of a braided palm leaf umbrella on the beach while Bethany is busy soaking up the rays a couple of hundred feet in front of him. It's our sixth day here in Florida and despite the SPF 45 Randy has been lathering on for the interludes in the sun; he is sporting some patches of mild sunburn/heat rash on the tops of his feet and knees. Experience has taught him that being the end product of centuries of inbreeding among people who live in lands that infrequently see direct sun for any period of time (i.e. Irish, English and German), that attempts at "tanning" result in only pink to red patches of skin that peel off like a glazed doughnut with in a couple days (and it hurts too!). On the other hand, Bethany's genealogical heritage includes a Native American of some undetermined tribe, which not only gives her the wonderfully thick dark hair coveted by the thin hair types (e.g. the Curtises) but also allows her to "tan".
As such she is trying to recapture some of the deep brown tan look she sported in her teens in the 1980s, when using baby oil instead sunscreen was the norm. This isn't to say that Bethany hasn't seen the light (?) about the dangers of UVs but in my opinion she was more bothered by the loss of the dark skin that peeled away than the sting of the mild sunburn she's gotten so far (aloe lotion is a wonderful thing). Despite the huge disparities in lifetime full body exposures to the 10am-2pm rays of the sun between the two of us, there is little doubt that the greater potential for skin cancer lies with me, which is why I'm sitting here in the shade writing this (and probably getting a lot of disapproving "nerd/dork" stares from the others on the beach). Anyway I digress and haven't said anything about the beach.
To make it worse, it also crossed his mind earlier when planning out the week not to go on Monday but that was before he took his watch off, declaring that on vacation "time didn't matter" (he put the watch back on upon their return). It took Bethany until the evening to see the humor in the 2.5-hour one-way pleasure drive getting there. Visiting a "Premium" outlet mall on the way back didn't do it, as there weren't any deals and at the risk of sounding noble, our materialism is much less self focused (the maturing effects of pregnancy again?). An evening movie in the "real" part of St. Petersburg helped smooth things out but the idea of a jaunt to Everglades Park and back (7+ hours driving time) was never seriously considered again.
By Wednesday evening we were once again looking for a little adventure and decided to take a late afternoon pleasure cruise of Boca Ciega Bay at John's Pass (between Treasure and Madeira Islands). The stated purpose of the cruise was to see dolphins, which took about 4 minutes before we spied a trio near one of a series of bird sanctuary islands in the bay. It proved to be the first of nearly a dozen total including several leaping in the wake behind our pontoon boat (which was actually much cooler than it sounds).
We also got to see two dolphins "playing" very closely together with much tailfin in the air action and a marked lack of commentary from the guide concerning their actions to the passengers including parents and children (chica-boom, chica boom-boom). One of the mangrove tree islands sported a wonderful bird rookery filled with nesting pelicans, cormorants, and egrets where one tree might have dozens of nests. The tour also included passing by the ¼ to $4 million ranch houses/palaces along the dredge filled waterfront, including the bathhouse featured in "Cocoon". Do you think that when the people agreed to let the filming occur there, it dawned on them that their home would become part of a thrice daily sightseeing tour (and there are multiple tour boats operating in the area)?
Thursday evening, we made the drive north to Clearwater Beach, which Bethany visited with a few friends in the spring of 1997 (?). As opposed to the majority of the rest of the beaches in the metro area, almost all the Clearwater shoreline is public and open. The sand there is the nicest we've ever seen, white, with a uniform nearly powdery grain size that is wonderful to walk through in your bare feet. After a pizza at another Greek restaurant, we watched the sunset, strolled the kitschy craft table offerings at the Clearwater Festival on the Pier, and watched a chainsaw juggling unicycling street performer entertain the crowds. Clearwater Beach had definitely more of a festival feel to it than the rest of the area.
On Friday morning, we got up so that Randy could try out parasailing, going for the "Super Eagle" package of 1,400 feet. It was pretty cool even though it lasted only 15-20 minutes. The take-off and landing were surprisingly dry and easy. The only scary part was the creaking of the ropes and rigging when you up a quarter mile in the air and imagining all the things that could go wrong. We thought it best that Bethany pass on the opportunity, not from any real concern, but from a fear if something did go wrong we would chastise ourselves forever. She got the complimentary T-shirt as an IOU to go sometime in the future. If I were to go again, I'd suggest bringing a camera along up there, as the view is terrific, and going tandem. I'm sure the scaring of/calming of a partner would heighten the experience for both.
