A rather busy couple of days around here lately. My girlfriend, Rima, flew down from Virginia on Friday afternoon and stayed until her flight finally flew out of the St Pete airport at nearly 8:30 p.m. last night.... only 7+ hours late, but I'm not complaining a whole lot about it. I went to pick her up early in the afternoon of last Friday as I said. Of course her flight was slightly delayed at that time also, but she finally arrived and that is really all that matters in the end. We loaded up the truck and started the long drive back up the west coast of Florida to where the trailer was parked for the week. Along the way we took a short side trip right at dusk to go over to the actual coast and watch as the sun was going down to the west. I think Rima was enjoying the fact that the temperature was still in the low 70's after she had left Roanoke in the morning where it had been below freezing.

    An  hour or so further on brought us up to the town of Clearwater where we stopped for some dinner and a chance to relax a bit. Good to see her again and catch up on everything that we hadn't already talked about on the phone. Once done with dinner it was on to the trailer after that where there was hot tea and more conversation before calling it a night and hitting the rack.

    Saturday we were up early and took a nice walk around Otter Springs before loading up the truck and heading on down to Manatee Springs for a couple of hours. Wandered around the spring and marveled at the amount of water coming out of one hole in the ground. (About 65 million gallons per day.... yep, I didn't stutter on that number). We watched lots of birds and fish and turtles, but no alligators there, and no manatee's either. The park system also had some people there in the park that were dressed up as natives and early settlers would of been. They were there to show how some common things were once done before the modern age, such as making shelter and eating utensils and hunted and trapped and grew some of their food.

   Once we were done there we drove on out to Cedar Key were we sat on a bench overlooking the beach and had a light snack while watching all the birds going about their daily 'birdy' type things. We wandered around down along the docks and the small shops along the water there where we had a great view of a bunch of cormorants and pelicans sitting on some old wooden pilings. Photo's will be posted in a day or two. We stayed there long enough that we both finally ended up being hungry again. So we found a wonderful little restaurant with a view out over the water and watched the sun go down as we enjoyed some surprisingly good food.

   Another drive back to the trailer in the dark... and once again we managed it without hitting any of the bazillion deer that seem to come out in droves to eat the mowed grass along the highway. On the trip up from the airport the night before I would say that we had to have seen several hundred deer along the way, some really, really nice bucks too. Lucky for us none of them seemed inclined to jump out in front of us, which we are both thankful for. A long day for both of us, but really a lot of fun overall.

    Up early again on Sunday. I had a full day planned out for us on that day, so first on the agenda was to drive over to Payne's Prairie State Park just south of Gainsville in order to show her some real live alligators. And see them we did. We had a nice hike out along some of the waterways were we saw upwards of a hundred or more alligators of all sizes. Some were quite large, in the 8'-12' category and in some cases we were within 20 feet of them sunning themselves on the shoreline. It is somewhat scary to walk past some of these ancient relics and know that if they wanted to they could run you down and kill you with no problem at all. It makes you realize that out in nature we kind of fool ourselves into thinking that we really are the top of the food chain.... but we aren't.

   Rima and I seem to be on the same schedule when it comes to food, so after a couple of hours there in the park we had to take off and go find some food. She used a new, for me, APP on her phone, called 'Yelp' to look up local restaurants, and found a Mexican one not to far away that had really good reviews. I'm always a little leery about Mexican food back here in the east, having had more bad experiences than good. But it was a good sign that most of the staff were speaking Spanish between themselves and that there seemed to be a good population of locals that were eating there. I had a carna asada burrito for my lunch and it was, not only cheap, but tasted terrific.

    To continue our day we next went over to the local contra dance and danced for about two hours there. They had a special band in from the NE, Sassafras Stomp, with calling by Terry Doyle, so it certainly exceeded expectations.

   One final fun thing for the day after that. We packed up one more time and drove a couple of miles over to the Hippodrome there in Gainsville, in order to take in one of their Christmas plays for this year. We had gotten a couple of 'two for $20, tickets to their version of 'A Very Tuna Christmas'. A rollicking good time in Tuna Texas performed by only two actors that perform 6-10 characters each. It takes a little while to get into the play and understand what is going on, but once you are clear on who is who it's pretty funny. Both actors did a good job in their multi gendered roles and I admire their mastery of their 6 inch heels and nylons.

     We had to be up pretty early yesterday as Rima's plane was scheduled to take off around 1:30, but of course that was delayed before we even left the trailer. Since it was going to take us several hours to drive to the airport anyway, we went ahead and started down as we had originally planned. As the day went on her flight was pushed back to nearly 4:00 p.m., then a little bit after 6:00, and then all the way to 8:15 before bouncing back and forth between those times for several different iterations. The good side of it is that we managed to sneak in a couple extra hours over at 'Sand Beach' over in Clearwater as well as eat some good Greek food at a little local dive of a place. We also had about an hour to visit a local dive shop where we shopped for some snorkel gear for Rima to take with her on our trip down to St Croix next month.

   We finally ended up spending a couple of hours just sitting in the waiting area of the airport because the actual departure time kept bouncing back and forth with no one really knowing when the plane was actually going to arrive, let alone depart again. We finally said our good by's  though and when I was sure she was actually boarding her plain to Roanoke, I finally walked out the door and started the long drive home.

    Nearly 3 1/2 hours of driving to get back to the trailer, but no real problems otherwise. Funny thing is that I made it back only 10-15 minutes before Rima walked into her house after flying all that way and then driving for more than an hour. It was a very long day, but very fun, as was our whole weekend. We seem to get along very well together so I am sure we will be spending more time together in the future.

    Back to 'normal' this morning, meaning I got to sleep in and catch up on my sleep again. Have been busy trying to get my schedule for the next couple of months straightened out. There are still lots to figure out, but I think the next month is pretty much worked out. Talked to the people at the office  here at Otter Springs about long term rates and they showed me that I can actually leave the trailer where it is for the next month for $340 for everything. I will still check into the possibility of just shutting the whole thing down and putting it into storage, I am sure it would be cheaper, but there is something to be said for simply being able to leave everything in the freezer and the lights on and then just come back on what ever day I want to, and just turn the water back on. Also went and had the truck serviced this morning in preparation of my trip north in a few days. It is looking like sometime early next week when I head back up the highway for at least a week. Now though it's time to go outdoors and enjoy a little of this wonderful weather.