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Mar. 5th, 2012 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
demakatI read the internet today until about noon and then I packed up the order from etsy and after getting down stairs with the library books that I needed to return I remembered that hey!!! its a holiday here and the post office is closed. I don't really know how people who work regular hours are suppose to get to a post office. I haven't had this problem before. It wouldn't really be a problem at all except the envelope is going to the UK and I really have no idea what the postage would be now.
anyhow, I went on vacation.
I was worried because I'd scheduled this vacation two or three months ahead of time. Then in january there was an opening for a job I wanted internally. It didn't occur to me to be worried until I realized the interview for it might fall during the vacation. As it happens the interview was the friday before I went away. Interview friday morning in the city, drive out to work at my regular store until nearly close. close the next day, open sunday or something like that and then I was finally on vacation.
Monday I had to make sure all of my stuff was packed because I was taking it all to the city with me to meet up with a friend from work so we could visit the store in the south loop in chicago. I get dropped off at the train and head in. Stored my bags in the car and then we had lunch and went shopping and then finally I managed to not get lost (first time after failing twice) when I got off the el going to a second friend's work. Its hard to get lost on the el but apparently once I get off the train I have no idea what direction is what.
I'd bought all of the things to make chili with and thats what we did that evening. I slept on the couch in the front room and at 4am we all got up and got a ride to the airport from her mom. airport security didn't seem to care about my knitting needles, so awesome. Not so awesome was me putting my clothes bag in the overhead bin along with my hoodie. When we got up to leave the plane I took my orange case, my clothes back and walked out. Completely forgot my hoodie in the overhead bin.
It was an hour bus ride and a short taxi to the house my friend's mom has in the retirement community. We did that instead of renting a car because there is a jeep in the garage at the house. What we found out was that the jeep did not run. My friend called her roadside assistance thing for the car insurance and eventually after enjoyably laying about the house in the warm weather two guys in a tiny nissan pickup truck came by to try and jumpstart the jeep. I thought this was kind of dumb because I'd imagine the jeep is a bit more beastly than this guy's nissan, but it sort of worked. The problem eventually was that the battery was completely dead after having sat for a year with no one driving it.
So we walk into town while trying not to get mowed down by golf carts. Its a golf cart retirement community and not only are we not old people, but we were walking. The local grocery store was astronomical price wise! I work at a specialty food store and even for me things were stupidly expensive. Also they were importing all of their citrus from california, so it was gross and it cost two arms and a leg.
Town had some weird event every single day, and to top it off that evening was mardi gras and we were in the south...it was certainly an event.
The next morning we got this other guy with an actual tow truck (which we had just assumed the first guy would be driving, and we were wrong) and he took the jeep into a local shop and later we called a taxi to drive us over. After having the guys at the shop tell her that other than a new battery the jeep was in really good shape, we hit up sams club for a hot dog. At that point I was so hungry it tasted so awesome.
While we sat there eating lunch I thought about how creepy it was that nearly everyone was white. I'm white, but I went to college in the city and my high school was similarly diverse. So I get super creeped out when I suddenly realize there isn't anything but white people! Also all the stereotypes for people who are hicks, or live in trailer parks...this must be where they get that image from. There were some totally normal people with southern accents, as one would assume, but then about half the people were... ...
On that note I learned how many hounds fit under a truck when its sunny out. 5+ ...in the parking lot of the walmart...while their people take turns standing on the median asking for money from passing motorists.
Ooo boy central florida you go it goin ON... in a bad way.
also you have cancer, it just happens to look like baby boomer retirement communities.
The next day, we head about 2 hours southwest to tampa and hit up the whole foods there. Then we went through tampa south and ended up at the de soto wildlife refuge or something. The de soto part is correct. It was pretty awesome. For a while we had just pulled off the road and were wading around on a little sandy bank. A great white heron and three snowy egrets decided they didn't care if we were there or not, so they landed on the sand and began poking about.
Then I saw a stingray in the water and my friend nearly missed seeing it "that stingray had somewhere to BE" She had been busy taking pictures of a nest of Ospreys across the water way. We spent the rest of the trip calling them ocean-sprays because we are dips and have bad hearing apparently.
Eventually a lady who worked for the park came buy and said we needed to pay 5 dollars if we were going to stay, and then we got talking about how we'd seen cranes places. Places like, standing on a grassy median in the rain waiting to cross the street, just your regular 6 foot tall bird...no big deal... O.O! The forestry lady and I had both been to the Nacedah Wildlife refuge and been the crane place in wisconsin. I learned a very shortened version of this, which is that the whooping cranes which were being lead down to florida got stuck in alabama so long (grounded the ultra-lights for some reason) that the birds became birdy teenagers and wouldn't follow their "parents" anymore. Operation Migration is the team who originally did the study with the geese that became the movie Fly Away Home. It worked with geese and it has worked for the whooping cranes. The released birds have chicks from what I last heard (as they're finally old enough to start reproducing)
So we ask the lady where we might kayak with manatees near by. She says after we pay the 5 dollars, go down the road and turn right. On the right side of the road is a place, we'd see all the kayaks. So we thanked her and went down the street and did find the place. At this point its 4 and we finally find the guy who rents the kayaks and he says that no because they close at 5. For our 32 dollars we would have only gotten an hour. But then he says we can just use some and to be back by 5, and we confirm that its for free and go out kayaking.
We didn't really see much other than some little fishes, but it was a pretty awesome thing to get it for free.
While driving home through tampa again we stopped for food at a sonic, because we kept letting ourselves get to the feed me now hungry stage. The best part about this sonic though, it was next to a strip club. This website does not do justice to how wonderfully tacky the outside is. It had a neon sign and at the back of the building was a giant flying saucer thing, with a rather obvious enclosed stairway leading up to it. But the spaceship had neon lights as well, that would blink on and off. It was something.
I think we just putzed about for the weekend because I pointed out that the place to kayak with manatees that we had found was likely to be less busy on a monday than a weekend day.
Finally though we took another hour drive to the west coast. I figure we got there at about 10:30 in the morning and the lady knew we were coming. She exclaimed that we were early, but that was good. For 35$ each we got to rent a kayak all the way until 4. If we had gotten there earlier we could have had them all day. So she sets us up with two kayaks and I ask about a map. She tells us that the maps are out of date so we should just go around pete's pier here and head straight for a ways and we'll see a river to the side that has a little bridge and to go in there and we'll see people out there with manatees. so... no map.
So we paddle, and on the way we go past this house on an island. I hope no one was living in it, I would live in it but only because what I saw was awesome. It was vulture island! There were over a dozen turkey and black vultures wandering around this house's porch and yard. There were brown pelicans sitting in the trees (I don't understand how with the webbed feet...) and right up next to the house a pole went up with a platform on top. On that were three Ospreys, one of which I will assume was a chick.
So finally we find the bridge and are paddling under it. There are people standing on it looking down into the water, and generally just standing around. Weird, but whatever. Then as I see ahead of us pontoon boats and people in the water, this giant roundy rock suddenly appears in the murky water next to me. "Uh...that was not a rock" and my friend who I thought might flip out on me (excited style) says "huh, they really do look like rocks" apparently I was more alarmed by these giant things next to my kayak than she was.
We got to where the pontoon boats were and the manatees were uh... "wrestling" in the water. I checked online recently and apparently they will do that year round but from the behavior I'm pretty confident it wasn't just joyful frolic.
In that area lots of people were bobbing around in snorkles and masks swiming with the manatees.
It was at the spring a ways down that I learned why I personally did not want to swim with manatees.
We go further down the little river thing. It wasn't so much a river with sloping banks as it was concrete walls that went up and then flattened off into someone's lawn. It was almost like a lock, but all along the whole thing. As though the street was the waterway. Only this street was full of endangered mammals.
The three sisters spring was called that because there are three springs welling up in one area, creating some amazingly clear water and keeping the temperature at 72 year round. This is the whole reason why the manatees go inland in the winter. It also means that its the best time of year to see them because there are just more in the area.
There was a roped off area of sleeping manatees here and you could see where they all were in the water. Now here are all the awesome things they don't tell tourists. Manatees can get colds just like people, with stuffy noses and things. So one manatee in the roped off area would come up for air now and then and make a different and gross sound while breathing, and then you would hear a little plop sometimes. This manatee was shooting snot rockets straight up into the air and they were landing in the water near it. awesome...
Then I noticed that in the murky water there were rings on the water from the manatees swimming, so you could sort of tell where they were going. Sometimes though there would be bubbles. Fart bubbles. ...yeah take that in. Now when the bubbles reaches the surface of the water they popped. Let me tell you manatee farts are really really horrible.
So manatees were cool, but did I want to swim with mister snot rocket or miss fart farts? no.
It was still awesome.
This is my friend trying to paddle but also not hit manatees with anything. It was hard because some would be curious and come at the kayak, so sometimes there was no avoiding them.
Down a tiny waterway was the springs, and eventually all the manatees back there moved to the main waterway so people stopped coming back there so often. It was mostly ours and we spent time just sitting on the water and eating the snacks we'd brought with us.
then of course we had to crazy clean the house, and leave the day after that. I got burned to shit because it was overcast when we started out and sunny later.
The philadelphia airport is kind of crap. I mean sure the shops are nice, but bathrooms with only 4 stalls? people getting off flights have got to GO! and I don't want to stand in line after standing in line to sit in a tuna can to stand in line!
chik-fi-la waffle fries = so good, their chicken stuff...meh and I keep wanting to call it chik-felay.
so then the day after I got back I started my new job off with a 6:30am meeting and then learning the more complex part of my job. Thankfully I seem to have absorbed lots of it and knew how to do some things the next day. This was my first day off from all of that and then I do five days and finally get my first real weekend (two days off together) in ...9 years? Sadly I think I will have to drive 3 of 5 days a week, but oh well.
and that is what I've been doing lately. :)
anyhow, I went on vacation.
I was worried because I'd scheduled this vacation two or three months ahead of time. Then in january there was an opening for a job I wanted internally. It didn't occur to me to be worried until I realized the interview for it might fall during the vacation. As it happens the interview was the friday before I went away. Interview friday morning in the city, drive out to work at my regular store until nearly close. close the next day, open sunday or something like that and then I was finally on vacation.
Monday I had to make sure all of my stuff was packed because I was taking it all to the city with me to meet up with a friend from work so we could visit the store in the south loop in chicago. I get dropped off at the train and head in. Stored my bags in the car and then we had lunch and went shopping and then finally I managed to not get lost (first time after failing twice) when I got off the el going to a second friend's work. Its hard to get lost on the el but apparently once I get off the train I have no idea what direction is what.
I'd bought all of the things to make chili with and thats what we did that evening. I slept on the couch in the front room and at 4am we all got up and got a ride to the airport from her mom. airport security didn't seem to care about my knitting needles, so awesome. Not so awesome was me putting my clothes bag in the overhead bin along with my hoodie. When we got up to leave the plane I took my orange case, my clothes back and walked out. Completely forgot my hoodie in the overhead bin.
It was an hour bus ride and a short taxi to the house my friend's mom has in the retirement community. We did that instead of renting a car because there is a jeep in the garage at the house. What we found out was that the jeep did not run. My friend called her roadside assistance thing for the car insurance and eventually after enjoyably laying about the house in the warm weather two guys in a tiny nissan pickup truck came by to try and jumpstart the jeep. I thought this was kind of dumb because I'd imagine the jeep is a bit more beastly than this guy's nissan, but it sort of worked. The problem eventually was that the battery was completely dead after having sat for a year with no one driving it.
So we walk into town while trying not to get mowed down by golf carts. Its a golf cart retirement community and not only are we not old people, but we were walking. The local grocery store was astronomical price wise! I work at a specialty food store and even for me things were stupidly expensive. Also they were importing all of their citrus from california, so it was gross and it cost two arms and a leg.
Town had some weird event every single day, and to top it off that evening was mardi gras and we were in the south...it was certainly an event.
The next morning we got this other guy with an actual tow truck (which we had just assumed the first guy would be driving, and we were wrong) and he took the jeep into a local shop and later we called a taxi to drive us over. After having the guys at the shop tell her that other than a new battery the jeep was in really good shape, we hit up sams club for a hot dog. At that point I was so hungry it tasted so awesome.
While we sat there eating lunch I thought about how creepy it was that nearly everyone was white. I'm white, but I went to college in the city and my high school was similarly diverse. So I get super creeped out when I suddenly realize there isn't anything but white people! Also all the stereotypes for people who are hicks, or live in trailer parks...this must be where they get that image from. There were some totally normal people with southern accents, as one would assume, but then about half the people were... ...
On that note I learned how many hounds fit under a truck when its sunny out. 5+ ...in the parking lot of the walmart...while their people take turns standing on the median asking for money from passing motorists.
Ooo boy central florida you go it goin ON... in a bad way.
also you have cancer, it just happens to look like baby boomer retirement communities.
The next day, we head about 2 hours southwest to tampa and hit up the whole foods there. Then we went through tampa south and ended up at the de soto wildlife refuge or something. The de soto part is correct. It was pretty awesome. For a while we had just pulled off the road and were wading around on a little sandy bank. A great white heron and three snowy egrets decided they didn't care if we were there or not, so they landed on the sand and began poking about.
Then I saw a stingray in the water and my friend nearly missed seeing it "that stingray had somewhere to BE" She had been busy taking pictures of a nest of Ospreys across the water way. We spent the rest of the trip calling them ocean-sprays because we are dips and have bad hearing apparently.
Eventually a lady who worked for the park came buy and said we needed to pay 5 dollars if we were going to stay, and then we got talking about how we'd seen cranes places. Places like, standing on a grassy median in the rain waiting to cross the street, just your regular 6 foot tall bird...no big deal... O.O! The forestry lady and I had both been to the Nacedah Wildlife refuge and been the crane place in wisconsin. I learned a very shortened version of this, which is that the whooping cranes which were being lead down to florida got stuck in alabama so long (grounded the ultra-lights for some reason) that the birds became birdy teenagers and wouldn't follow their "parents" anymore. Operation Migration is the team who originally did the study with the geese that became the movie Fly Away Home. It worked with geese and it has worked for the whooping cranes. The released birds have chicks from what I last heard (as they're finally old enough to start reproducing)
So we ask the lady where we might kayak with manatees near by. She says after we pay the 5 dollars, go down the road and turn right. On the right side of the road is a place, we'd see all the kayaks. So we thanked her and went down the street and did find the place. At this point its 4 and we finally find the guy who rents the kayaks and he says that no because they close at 5. For our 32 dollars we would have only gotten an hour. But then he says we can just use some and to be back by 5, and we confirm that its for free and go out kayaking.
We didn't really see much other than some little fishes, but it was a pretty awesome thing to get it for free.
While driving home through tampa again we stopped for food at a sonic, because we kept letting ourselves get to the feed me now hungry stage. The best part about this sonic though, it was next to a strip club. This website does not do justice to how wonderfully tacky the outside is. It had a neon sign and at the back of the building was a giant flying saucer thing, with a rather obvious enclosed stairway leading up to it. But the spaceship had neon lights as well, that would blink on and off. It was something.
I think we just putzed about for the weekend because I pointed out that the place to kayak with manatees that we had found was likely to be less busy on a monday than a weekend day.
Finally though we took another hour drive to the west coast. I figure we got there at about 10:30 in the morning and the lady knew we were coming. She exclaimed that we were early, but that was good. For 35$ each we got to rent a kayak all the way until 4. If we had gotten there earlier we could have had them all day. So she sets us up with two kayaks and I ask about a map. She tells us that the maps are out of date so we should just go around pete's pier here and head straight for a ways and we'll see a river to the side that has a little bridge and to go in there and we'll see people out there with manatees. so... no map.
So we paddle, and on the way we go past this house on an island. I hope no one was living in it, I would live in it but only because what I saw was awesome. It was vulture island! There were over a dozen turkey and black vultures wandering around this house's porch and yard. There were brown pelicans sitting in the trees (I don't understand how with the webbed feet...) and right up next to the house a pole went up with a platform on top. On that were three Ospreys, one of which I will assume was a chick.
So finally we find the bridge and are paddling under it. There are people standing on it looking down into the water, and generally just standing around. Weird, but whatever. Then as I see ahead of us pontoon boats and people in the water, this giant roundy rock suddenly appears in the murky water next to me. "Uh...that was not a rock" and my friend who I thought might flip out on me (excited style) says "huh, they really do look like rocks" apparently I was more alarmed by these giant things next to my kayak than she was.
We got to where the pontoon boats were and the manatees were uh... "wrestling" in the water. I checked online recently and apparently they will do that year round but from the behavior I'm pretty confident it wasn't just joyful frolic.
In that area lots of people were bobbing around in snorkles and masks swiming with the manatees.
It was at the spring a ways down that I learned why I personally did not want to swim with manatees.
We go further down the little river thing. It wasn't so much a river with sloping banks as it was concrete walls that went up and then flattened off into someone's lawn. It was almost like a lock, but all along the whole thing. As though the street was the waterway. Only this street was full of endangered mammals.
The three sisters spring was called that because there are three springs welling up in one area, creating some amazingly clear water and keeping the temperature at 72 year round. This is the whole reason why the manatees go inland in the winter. It also means that its the best time of year to see them because there are just more in the area.
There was a roped off area of sleeping manatees here and you could see where they all were in the water. Now here are all the awesome things they don't tell tourists. Manatees can get colds just like people, with stuffy noses and things. So one manatee in the roped off area would come up for air now and then and make a different and gross sound while breathing, and then you would hear a little plop sometimes. This manatee was shooting snot rockets straight up into the air and they were landing in the water near it. awesome...
Then I noticed that in the murky water there were rings on the water from the manatees swimming, so you could sort of tell where they were going. Sometimes though there would be bubbles. Fart bubbles. ...yeah take that in. Now when the bubbles reaches the surface of the water they popped. Let me tell you manatee farts are really really horrible.
So manatees were cool, but did I want to swim with mister snot rocket or miss fart farts? no.
It was still awesome.
This is my friend trying to paddle but also not hit manatees with anything. It was hard because some would be curious and come at the kayak, so sometimes there was no avoiding them.
Down a tiny waterway was the springs, and eventually all the manatees back there moved to the main waterway so people stopped coming back there so often. It was mostly ours and we spent time just sitting on the water and eating the snacks we'd brought with us.
then of course we had to crazy clean the house, and leave the day after that. I got burned to shit because it was overcast when we started out and sunny later.
The philadelphia airport is kind of crap. I mean sure the shops are nice, but bathrooms with only 4 stalls? people getting off flights have got to GO! and I don't want to stand in line after standing in line to sit in a tuna can to stand in line!
chik-fi-la waffle fries = so good, their chicken stuff...meh and I keep wanting to call it chik-felay.
so then the day after I got back I started my new job off with a 6:30am meeting and then learning the more complex part of my job. Thankfully I seem to have absorbed lots of it and knew how to do some things the next day. This was my first day off from all of that and then I do five days and finally get my first real weekend (two days off together) in ...9 years? Sadly I think I will have to drive 3 of 5 days a week, but oh well.
and that is what I've been doing lately. :)
