Well this trip was bound, as is this mortal coil,  to ride the sine wave roller coaster and yesterday was a prime slice. The daytime portion was unbelievably good, the nighttime, not so much.
The day started with Lily, Laurie and I heading of for Caladesi Island north of Clearwater on the Gulf.
    The drive was very pleasant across the causeway from Tampa then north to Dunedin to take the ferry to the Island. If you like the Florida tropics, palmettos and palms, beautiful beaches this is pretty close to paradise. The 20 min passenger ferry from the state park was lovely with a history of the area from the captain including the way the area, bay and island have been reshaped by various hurricanes.
     Caladesi Island itself is really a wildlife refuge where people are allowed to hike, beach, swim and fish with conditions under the watchfull eye of the Florida Parks and is the only natural island on the Gulf Coast.
   We walked the five minutes across the dunes via the boardwalk to the beach which was a couple of miles long and beautiful. The park rents chairs and umbrellas, which you really need, as even with mass amounts of sunscreen, you're not going to want to spend extended time in this intense sun. We parked ourselves, there were probably 20 other people on his huge, beach which was wonderful. For me one of the downsides to it being so hot was the ocean was in the 80's, so not tremendously refreshing when you've been in the heat.
    We did some beach-combing and then as Laurie and Lily settled in for some reading under the brollies, I decided to take a walk south on the nature trains through the palm and palmetto dunes. I was wonderful bringing me back to days at FIT JBC in the 80's when I was in college. I walked about a mile and then decided that the heat was too much and took a shortcut to the beach for the return hike. The shell acquisition was particularly successful on this return trip. No Rattlers or tortoises, but the natural vegetation including cacti was superb. The birdlife is spectacular with sandpipers, pelicans and all sorts of shorebirds, hunding for food in the littoral zone. We also learned the "Stingray Shuffle" (everybody form a line?) to keep from stepping on one or getting stung.
    As I found nice whelk shell a the woman of a couple, in a very English accent as where I had found it. We got to talking and the told me they were there with their daughters to celebrate their 15 Anniversary,  and that they were married here on the island 15 yrs ago! They were very nice and we chatted some more while waiting for the return ferry.
   After we had has enough sun (we all got some burn even with mass sunblock!) we headed back to the snack bar by the ferry dock for lunch and drinks. We chatted with a couple from CT who now lived in Orlando and were in a boat club and had taken a 20' center console out to the island for the day.
   The return trip was great and we had a nice drive back to out hotel. We when out with Iz and Hanna and her parents for a nice meal in Ybore, the old section of Tampa. It was a nice meal but everyone, especially the girls seemed tense, and we all felt that Iz didn't care if we were there or not. An emotional and not pleasant evening because of this. The emotions of leaving your child/sister  in a strange place for college are pretty intense and I think this was the time when it all came our. So some drinks were had and tears were shed. I went off to bed and Laurie and Lil stayed up talking in the balcony. The all of a sudden herd strange noises and rushed down to see the fins and blow holes of a pod of dolphins swimming by....

"After the waves were breaking, ancients eased in their pain, mothers took fire in their hands,'
Then the dolphins came..."  TTDC - MeccaLiy

Across the Big Pond - Observations of the State of the Union...Jack

So in contemplating posting some current observations, I decided to start a blog as I've been having the urge to write as of late.  Life has been a bit of a roller coaster ride as of late with our youngest Isabel (Shmell, Bel, Chiga la Nupe, et al) heading of to the University of Tampa for the next chapter in her exciting young life.
     So I find myself with Laurie J, Iz  and our oldest Lil, back in Florida, the scene of my college years and much of my misspent youth. I attended college from 1976 - 1980 obtaining a Degree in Oceanography from Florida Tech at their now defunct Jensen Beach campus, near Stuart on the East Coast just North of West Palm. These were the college years, with many fond memories, a few regrets and some trepidation that my youngest would chose a Florida university to attend. Ocean Enginnering at 8:00 AM or waves? Tough decisions.
    But 2014 is not 1976 and Tampa is not Jensen Beach and Izzy is really not a lot like I was at 18. That being said I was happy that one of her baggage items was her acoustic, her music is to her as it was to me, solace, a way to express yourself and ultimately something you have to do. The years with Jim Johnson doing coffee houses, the Rat and parties have served me well as a performer.
     So we arrived Tues after a pretty sleepless night at Tampa Airport where we met up with Lil who flew down from Burlington, Vt for this delivery/family vacation. She was in some distress due to antibiotic etc, and was very emotional upon seeing her little sis when they set eyes on each other across the terminal. Laurie had booked us into a lovely suite at Sailport right on Tampa Bay with a vista of the Middle Bay and  the causeway to St Pete to the south. Walking out of the airport.  it hits you immediately, this is Florida in the summer, hot and sticky, where AC is a must. It was a nice change from the unseasonably chilly nights we have had in RI the past week or so, So we hauled all our luggage (80 % Izzy's stuff) into our suite and had a relaxing day getting acclimatized. Laurie and I made one trip out to Publix to get groceries so we could eat in some meals as the suite has a kitchen and then we camped out by the pool, before venturing out for a lovely meal at "Bella's" a fantastic old style Italian restaurant in South Tampa. The meal was superb.
    So with some weird deja-voodoo in my head here are my observations on Florida, and Tampa so far:
1.  The landscape:
It is flat, flat, flat. The saving grace for Tampa is the bay and the surrounding ocean front. The vegetation especially the palms is lovely.
2.The Birds:
The birds around here are amazing. From the cranes in front of the hotel, to the pelicans and all manner of crows, wrens and smaller birds, it is a thriving avian ecosystem. This morning I had the privilege of seeing a mating pair of Ospreys, my favorite raptors, hunting just off the point in front of the hotel.
3. The heat and humidity:
As Laurie J said, as we were walking around, I don't think I could do this tropical heat and humidity all year round. As my friend Louis said as we messaged "It's not the best time to come to Florida, it's Africa hot right now.
4. The driving.
     The highways and interstates around Tampa are fucking looney bin, I pride myself in having a good internal compass, but we to a wrong turn, 3 times in two days. And when you do you pay dearly with the re-route to get you back on course. I drive a tweaked WRX so speed is not an issue, but in general people drive really fast here, Kinda glad we took the insurance on the rental. The signs, road number and right and left exits seem at best to be randomly placed and it seems to cause GPS to go into conniptions on a regular basis. Right, left, North, South...Tilt, Game Over!
5. Customer Service
     If this is southern hospitality, then us Yankees could take some lessons. We have had nothing but pleasant,  friendly and courteous service and interactions with the majority service personnel. At grocery stores, restaurants, etc people are friendly, chatty and seem generally interested in talking to you. How lovely and especially when you're on holiday.
Final thoughts:
The deja vu is tempered with the sense of foreignness for a place you once lived but are no longer a part of. Like an old friend you feel the warmth, and your senses, sights, smells are at once familiar, but distant, like the faint sea air a little too far inland.  But as was stated so beautifully by Frosty Hesson in
"Searching Mavericks" which I watched again two days ago:
 "We all come from the sea, but we are not all of the sea. Those of us who are, we children of the tides, must return to it again and again, until the day we don't come back leaving only that which was touched along the way."
May the tides and the waves look kindly on our Izzy as she navigates the seas of the next few years in this tropical landscape. Oh and watch out for the foot fuckers....