Cloudy, Rainy North Florida.....
(posted from Putnam County Library, Palatka, FL)
(This post coves 1 – 7 February, 2011)
------------------------------
Monday, 7 February -
It rained all night and then all day today! As Chester A. Riley so famously said 'What a revoltin' development this is!”.
Fortunately, I had the wi-fi link and used it to good advantage. We had an offer on the first house we re-habbed in Chambersburg. And as it happens, both Orat and Maypo were available so we had a Skype three-way phone conference to review the offer and decide what to counter.
By mid-afternoon I was ready to move. I looked up the Imax theater at the World Golf complex in St. Augustine and found it was only about a half-hour away. My trusty GPS took me to the parking lot but then I couldn't see that Imax theater and wasn't looking forward to walking around in the rain to look for it. Fortunately an oversized (and enclosed) golf cart showed up and I realized they were running a shuttle.
I once again had a bit of luck and arrived just ten minutes before the start of 'Sanctum 3D', the latest James Cameron movie. So this was my intro to Imax 3D-- on the biggest Imax screen and sound system in the Southeast.
And I didn't like it!!!!
At first the 3-D effect was cool but the movie was shot so close-up and at such a frenetic pace that it was distracting. There were several top-notch shots of a helicopter flying into the frame from behind and the first shot of the cave opening and the descent into the cave were wonderful. But I soon realized that a bit of motion blurred the view. And the movie was shot so close-up that I found it uncomfortable-- it was like being a fly buzzing around these giant humans.
But the worst of it was the poor and stereotypical story-line. Yes, it's an adventure and we are expected to suspend disbelief but this was like Raiders of the Lost Ark on steroids. Lots of dramatic and very loud music, visual cuts so quick you can't tell what's going on, the bad guy dying dramatically multiple times, the males all fierce supermen, the females needing rescues and doing stupid things the males know they shouldn't do, try to convince them not to do, and yet they go ahead and do-- proving the males right once again. Gimme a break.
After the movie I headed toward St. Augustine and then turned inland for good old familiar Palatka and the Wal-mart. I rented 'Fringe' at the next-door Blockbuster. 'Fringe' is another J.J. Abrams series, this one a series of Twilight-Zone-like stories of crimes which enter the 'fringes' of science, i.e., non-science (aka nonsense) like teleportation, telekenesis, mind control,bladdy-blah-blah-blah. Surprisingly, I kind of liked it-- in a '24' way. It's just interesting to see what they come up with next. I watched disk one (two eps) and then read a bit of 'The Brass Verdict' around midnight.
------------------------------
Sunday, 6 February-
Today was yet another cloudy day but I needed to do something other than work on the computer. I drove up into Jacksonville to the Cummer Museum of Art and Garden. I loved seeing their eclectic collection of European and American historical art (as opposed to contemporary art). My favorite was a painting called Allegory of Avarice, an early 1600s painting by Jacob Van Campen. I just love the light. You can see a version of it at http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1075-200 but please note that it has the photo agency's mark on it (marring it quite a bit) and the image is reversed.
I then went downtown to MOCA-- the Museum of Contemporary Art. I arrived only an hour before closing and thought that might be a problem but that was not the case. I was looking forward to their show 'The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design'. But I found it a bit disappointing-- probably because my interest was more in the 1960's and 70's iconic designs and there were only a few pieces of that time. I did learn that the see-it-everywhere alumimum 'Navy chair' (also known as the Emeco 1006) was first built for Navy ships in World War II and was (and still is today) manufactured in Hanover, PA. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeco_1006
After the MOCA I walked down to the river at Jacksonville Landing but it was mostly deserted, I suppose because of the Super Bowl kickoff in a few hours.
I then looked up the Wal-marts in the area for my parking spot for the night. For a change I was rejected at both a Wal-mart and a Sam's Club east of the city but then found a friendlier Wal-mart at Jacksonville Beach.
Around that time the rain started in earnest but I had gotten lucky and had a wi-fi connection from my spot in the Wal-mart parking lot. I spent a few hours on the web and watched the movie 'Salt' with Angelina Jolie. Part way through the movie I heard what sounded like gunshots at the far side of the parking lot but it turned out to be firecrackers, apparently celebration after the Packers' Super Bowl win.
------------------------------
Saturday, 5 February -
It's still cloudy with the occasional shower-- still no sun since I've arrived in Florida!
This morning I set up at the nearby Panera for my wi-fi connection. I spent much of the morning researching voltage monitors and jump-starters. I didn't like the surprise of finding my battery so dead it wouldn't turn the engine over. And I thought I'd look into using a jump-starter as a 12-volt power supply. But the more I looked into the jump starters, the more I became convinced I was over-reacting. I DID get a warning that the battery voltage was low. The inverter squealed at me multiple times and I kept resetting it because it showed an Overload alarm when I knew it wasn't overloaded by my laptop. I had decided the inverter was going bad and had even started looking for a replacement--- all the while draining down the battery it was protecting!
After lunch (and after draining down my laptop battery), I found the local library. I read for an hour or so, killing two birds with one stone-- checking out the library while charging up the laptop via the AC charger. I buzzed through several issues of PopSci and read a very interesting and thorough article in the New York Times Magazine about their interaction with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
I then took a drive up Blanding Boulevard to look around Jacksonville an hour or so but as supper time approached I remembered a bar-be-que place I wanted to try near my adopted Wal-mart home. This one was a local one called Bono's and it was perfect for me-- cheap, friendly, and an excellent selection of sauces.
I picked up the second disk of Californication- Season Two for my evening's entertainment.
This season had gotten a bit too raunchy for my taste though I 'LMAO' at some of the patter. At one point Hank breaks up an overly-rowdy party by shooting a shotgun into the ceiling. When the dust settles just a bit, he says: 'What we have hear is a failure to communicate!' (the Strother Martin line from 1967's 'Cool Hand Luke'. Later he says he's having a “Ratso Rizzo moment”, which refers to the Dustin Hoffman character in 1969's 'Midnight Cowboy'. Obviously the writers have been around awhile.
------------------------------
Friday, 4 February -
This morning I went in search of a wi-fi connection so I can get on radioreference.com and learn more about the scanner.
I found the Starbucks hidden behind a little mall across from the Wal-mart. I bought my coffee and returned to the van to start reading in earnest. I quickly confirmed my experience from last night in reading the Radio Shack scanner manual. It's terrible! I did get some help from radioreference.com and a few youtube videos but I'm going to have to start posting some of my questions to the experts on the PRO-106 forum (the scanner is a Radio Shack model PRO-106.)
In mid-afternoon I had another long chat with Labashi, again about bathroom fixtures. She has made her selections now and they look really nice and of course different from run-of-the-mill fixtures.
After our conversation I started hearing a squeal from the inverter I use to charge the laptop's battery. My initial reaction was there must be something wrong with this older inverter so I reset it several times and kept working. But eventually it went into a solid overload alarm. I knew I couldn't be overloading it and thought it time to go look for a replacement inverter.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I turned the key in the ignition and heard nothing but a clicking sound. I had drained the battery! I've not been traveling enough to recharge the battery and I've been spending quite a lot of time online with the inverter up. That alarm wasn't an overload, it was a warning that input voltage had fallen too low!
I sat thinking what to do. I looked up my AAA card and found it expired; I had neglected to replace it on the last update. I might get away with that but I'd better first see if I can resolve this myself. I decided I wanted to replace the battery since I knew it was getting old anyway and didn't seem to have the strength it used to. I used the GPS (running on its internal batteries) to look for nearby battery shops to no avail. But I also knew I was only a block from the Wal-mart and could get a battery there.
I popped the hood with the intention of checking the battery connections just in case. And as soon as I did that, a guy yelled over to me from the car wash across the parking lot, asking if I needed help. Incredibly, the guy and his buddy walked over and when it was clear I needed a jump, the buddy pulled his truck up to my van and emerged with jumper cables. In no time I was up and running again.
I drove across the street to the Wal-mart and, leaving the van running, went in looking for a new battery. I didn't like the selection so looked up several battery suppliers on the GPS and ended up finding a Pep Boys a few miles away.
At Pep Boys I decided I wanted to upgrade to an Optima battery. These are top-of-the-line, very tough batteries costing double the cost of a regular battery.
But then I ran into a big problem. As I removed the hold-down on the old battery, I snapped off the battery hold-down bolt. I thought this would turn into a major hassle (or expense) because there seemed to be no way to get the partial bolt out; there was no way to grip it and it was rusted tight. But once again I had good luck. The Pep Boys guys offered to lend me tools and even came out occasionally to check on my progress. I eventually decided the only thing that would work would be a stud remover but the store didn't sell them. But then the parts manager emerged with a type of bolt remover from the tool box of one of their installation mechanics (!!!!!). I've not seen this type before. It looked like a socket but contained a series of metal rods that, when turned counter-clockwise, gripped the remaining stud. I went in to buy a can of WD-40 so we wouldn't break it off again but the parts manager said he'd just lend me theirs (!!!!!!!). I found a replacement bolt in the store and I was back in business. After some hassle installing the special adapters to adapt the battery to my van's battery tray, I was soon back on the road, now with a fancy new $170 Optima starting/deep cycle (yellow-top) battery. Now I need to find a voltage monitor so I don't end up killing it too.
I returned to the Fleming Island Wal-mart for the night and spent the rest of the evening catching up the blog and marveling over how nice several strangers were to me today.
------------------------------
Thursday, 3 February-
This morning I decided I'd try to find The CB Shack, a local business that popped up on the GPS when I did a search for 'Shack' (looking for Radio Shacks in the area). I thought I see what options I have for mounting an external antenna. I currently have an external CB antenna for my very old portable CB I listen to on interstates while traveling by myself. That CB came in very handy on my trip down I-95 when I ran into heavy traffic south of DC. I could hear the truckers talking about the mile markers where the slowdown started and stopped.
So I went looking for 'The CB Shack' via my GPS. I thought I might be in trouble when it took me down a dirt road near Inverness and into a Florida-cracker housing development/mobile home park. I've not been so lost in many years. The roads were mostly narrow sand roads and most of the homes were modest but presentable. But there were a few that made you wonder. And as it turned out, 'The CB Shack' location was just another home.... apparently the resident has aspirations. He could at least hang out a sign-- I'd stop just to have a story to tell later. But no signy, no stoppy for me.
On the way back to Palatka I passed a library. I had looked for a library on the GPS and it said there were none in the area. I stopped and found a nice little Putnam County library branch and it couldn't have been a mile from the Wal-mart. I took my laptop in and surfed the web, looking for info on the radio scanner I was interested in. I found radioreference.com to have quite a lot of info and a forum dedicated to the specific model. Reading through it convinced me to go ahead with the purchase.
I then drove through Palatka and across the St. John river and up route 13 to the town of St. John and the Radio Shack I had called earlier to see if they had the radio in stock. After buying the radio I went to the nearby Starbucks for a coffee and while I called Labashi on Skype. We chatted for 45 minutes or so about the bathroom-rehab project she's planning for our home.
I then used the GPS to find a nearby Wal-mart for the night but when I arrived I didn't like the looks of it-- too small, too busy. I went on to another (at Fleming Island) which, if it didn't pan out, would position me to easily return to Palatka. This one turned out to be better than Palataka's in that it has a very large parking lot and much less traffic in and out. And there's a Starbucks, Panera, many other shops nearby and I'm within reach of Jacksonville.
I had a few more items to shop for and picked up a new book-- Michael Connelly's 'The Brass Verdict' for my middle-of-the-night reading.
The evening was cooler-- around 50 – and this cloudy weather just keeps hanging on. I've been in Florida three days and have yet to see the sun!!!!!
I spent an hour or so of the evening playing with the new scanner. I've got a lot to learn.
------------------------------
Wednesday, 2 February -
I spent much of the morning shopping at Wal-mart for supplies for the food box and cooler. Afterwards I drove to the nearby Krystal hoping to pick up a wi-fi signal. I didn't get one there but did pick up a signal from the nearby Home Depot. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the web researching radio scanners. I'd like to have one to pick up radio traffic in national parks (for wildlife sightings) and to pick up weather warnings. I'd love to have had one, for example, when we were in Mt Revelstoke National Park in British Columbia when we saw the rangers close the park because of a near-encounter with grizzly bears. As we drove out of the park we saw a pickup coming up the mountain towing a bear trap. I'd love to have found out what happened next!
In another instance we were in Grand Island, Nebraska and a violent storm was approaching. The regular radio wasn't much help to us in trying to get enough detailed info to avoid the storm. As it turned out the storm passed south of us.
Late in the day I drove over to the nearby Woody's Bar-be-que restaurant and picked up some Carolina-style bar-be-que. I've not been able to find BBQ like this around home-- it all seems too sweet.
Back at Wally World (the Wal-mart) I walked over to the next-door Blockbuster and rented the first disk of Californication Season Two. The series is quite raunchy but I like the plot twists.
-----------------------------
Tuesday, 1 February -
I awoke to a decidedly warmer yet still chill morning (around 45) in Smithfield, NC. Today was a pedal-to-the-metal day. I buzzed down I-95, stopping only for gas and a coffee until I reached the Florida border. There I several of the little taster cups of free orange juice (and it was sweeter this year than other years!) and collected a current set of brochures.
I then connected up to the welcome center's wi-fi connection and called Labashi. We spent the better part of an hour chatting while I waited for the rush-hour traffic to clear from the Jacksonville beltway.
Around 1830 I drove on to Palatka and my regular spot (in past trips) at the Wal-mart there. I was exhausted but couldn't fall asleep so I went into the Wal-mart to shop a bit for tomorrow.
****** END OF POST ********
(posted from Putnam County Library, Palatka, FL)
(This post coves 1 – 7 February, 2011)
------------------------------
Monday, 7 February -
It rained all night and then all day today! As Chester A. Riley so famously said 'What a revoltin' development this is!”.
Fortunately, I had the wi-fi link and used it to good advantage. We had an offer on the first house we re-habbed in Chambersburg. And as it happens, both Orat and Maypo were available so we had a Skype three-way phone conference to review the offer and decide what to counter.
By mid-afternoon I was ready to move. I looked up the Imax theater at the World Golf complex in St. Augustine and found it was only about a half-hour away. My trusty GPS took me to the parking lot but then I couldn't see that Imax theater and wasn't looking forward to walking around in the rain to look for it. Fortunately an oversized (and enclosed) golf cart showed up and I realized they were running a shuttle.
I once again had a bit of luck and arrived just ten minutes before the start of 'Sanctum 3D', the latest James Cameron movie. So this was my intro to Imax 3D-- on the biggest Imax screen and sound system in the Southeast.
And I didn't like it!!!!
At first the 3-D effect was cool but the movie was shot so close-up and at such a frenetic pace that it was distracting. There were several top-notch shots of a helicopter flying into the frame from behind and the first shot of the cave opening and the descent into the cave were wonderful. But I soon realized that a bit of motion blurred the view. And the movie was shot so close-up that I found it uncomfortable-- it was like being a fly buzzing around these giant humans.
But the worst of it was the poor and stereotypical story-line. Yes, it's an adventure and we are expected to suspend disbelief but this was like Raiders of the Lost Ark on steroids. Lots of dramatic and very loud music, visual cuts so quick you can't tell what's going on, the bad guy dying dramatically multiple times, the males all fierce supermen, the females needing rescues and doing stupid things the males know they shouldn't do, try to convince them not to do, and yet they go ahead and do-- proving the males right once again. Gimme a break.
After the movie I headed toward St. Augustine and then turned inland for good old familiar Palatka and the Wal-mart. I rented 'Fringe' at the next-door Blockbuster. 'Fringe' is another J.J. Abrams series, this one a series of Twilight-Zone-like stories of crimes which enter the 'fringes' of science, i.e., non-science (aka nonsense) like teleportation, telekenesis, mind control,bladdy-blah-blah-blah. Surprisingly, I kind of liked it-- in a '24' way. It's just interesting to see what they come up with next. I watched disk one (two eps) and then read a bit of 'The Brass Verdict' around midnight.
------------------------------
Sunday, 6 February-
Today was yet another cloudy day but I needed to do something other than work on the computer. I drove up into Jacksonville to the Cummer Museum of Art and Garden. I loved seeing their eclectic collection of European and American historical art (as opposed to contemporary art). My favorite was a painting called Allegory of Avarice, an early 1600s painting by Jacob Van Campen. I just love the light. You can see a version of it at http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1075-200 but please note that it has the photo agency's mark on it (marring it quite a bit) and the image is reversed.
I then went downtown to MOCA-- the Museum of Contemporary Art. I arrived only an hour before closing and thought that might be a problem but that was not the case. I was looking forward to their show 'The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design'. But I found it a bit disappointing-- probably because my interest was more in the 1960's and 70's iconic designs and there were only a few pieces of that time. I did learn that the see-it-everywhere alumimum 'Navy chair' (also known as the Emeco 1006) was first built for Navy ships in World War II and was (and still is today) manufactured in Hanover, PA. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeco_1006
After the MOCA I walked down to the river at Jacksonville Landing but it was mostly deserted, I suppose because of the Super Bowl kickoff in a few hours.
I then looked up the Wal-marts in the area for my parking spot for the night. For a change I was rejected at both a Wal-mart and a Sam's Club east of the city but then found a friendlier Wal-mart at Jacksonville Beach.
Around that time the rain started in earnest but I had gotten lucky and had a wi-fi connection from my spot in the Wal-mart parking lot. I spent a few hours on the web and watched the movie 'Salt' with Angelina Jolie. Part way through the movie I heard what sounded like gunshots at the far side of the parking lot but it turned out to be firecrackers, apparently celebration after the Packers' Super Bowl win.
------------------------------
Saturday, 5 February -
It's still cloudy with the occasional shower-- still no sun since I've arrived in Florida!
This morning I set up at the nearby Panera for my wi-fi connection. I spent much of the morning researching voltage monitors and jump-starters. I didn't like the surprise of finding my battery so dead it wouldn't turn the engine over. And I thought I'd look into using a jump-starter as a 12-volt power supply. But the more I looked into the jump starters, the more I became convinced I was over-reacting. I DID get a warning that the battery voltage was low. The inverter squealed at me multiple times and I kept resetting it because it showed an Overload alarm when I knew it wasn't overloaded by my laptop. I had decided the inverter was going bad and had even started looking for a replacement--- all the while draining down the battery it was protecting!
After lunch (and after draining down my laptop battery), I found the local library. I read for an hour or so, killing two birds with one stone-- checking out the library while charging up the laptop via the AC charger. I buzzed through several issues of PopSci and read a very interesting and thorough article in the New York Times Magazine about their interaction with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
I then took a drive up Blanding Boulevard to look around Jacksonville an hour or so but as supper time approached I remembered a bar-be-que place I wanted to try near my adopted Wal-mart home. This one was a local one called Bono's and it was perfect for me-- cheap, friendly, and an excellent selection of sauces.
I picked up the second disk of Californication- Season Two for my evening's entertainment.
This season had gotten a bit too raunchy for my taste though I 'LMAO' at some of the patter. At one point Hank breaks up an overly-rowdy party by shooting a shotgun into the ceiling. When the dust settles just a bit, he says: 'What we have hear is a failure to communicate!' (the Strother Martin line from 1967's 'Cool Hand Luke'. Later he says he's having a “Ratso Rizzo moment”, which refers to the Dustin Hoffman character in 1969's 'Midnight Cowboy'. Obviously the writers have been around awhile.
------------------------------
Friday, 4 February -
This morning I went in search of a wi-fi connection so I can get on radioreference.com and learn more about the scanner.
I found the Starbucks hidden behind a little mall across from the Wal-mart. I bought my coffee and returned to the van to start reading in earnest. I quickly confirmed my experience from last night in reading the Radio Shack scanner manual. It's terrible! I did get some help from radioreference.com and a few youtube videos but I'm going to have to start posting some of my questions to the experts on the PRO-106 forum (the scanner is a Radio Shack model PRO-106.)
In mid-afternoon I had another long chat with Labashi, again about bathroom fixtures. She has made her selections now and they look really nice and of course different from run-of-the-mill fixtures.
After our conversation I started hearing a squeal from the inverter I use to charge the laptop's battery. My initial reaction was there must be something wrong with this older inverter so I reset it several times and kept working. But eventually it went into a solid overload alarm. I knew I couldn't be overloading it and thought it time to go look for a replacement inverter.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I turned the key in the ignition and heard nothing but a clicking sound. I had drained the battery! I've not been traveling enough to recharge the battery and I've been spending quite a lot of time online with the inverter up. That alarm wasn't an overload, it was a warning that input voltage had fallen too low!
I sat thinking what to do. I looked up my AAA card and found it expired; I had neglected to replace it on the last update. I might get away with that but I'd better first see if I can resolve this myself. I decided I wanted to replace the battery since I knew it was getting old anyway and didn't seem to have the strength it used to. I used the GPS (running on its internal batteries) to look for nearby battery shops to no avail. But I also knew I was only a block from the Wal-mart and could get a battery there.
I popped the hood with the intention of checking the battery connections just in case. And as soon as I did that, a guy yelled over to me from the car wash across the parking lot, asking if I needed help. Incredibly, the guy and his buddy walked over and when it was clear I needed a jump, the buddy pulled his truck up to my van and emerged with jumper cables. In no time I was up and running again.
I drove across the street to the Wal-mart and, leaving the van running, went in looking for a new battery. I didn't like the selection so looked up several battery suppliers on the GPS and ended up finding a Pep Boys a few miles away.
At Pep Boys I decided I wanted to upgrade to an Optima battery. These are top-of-the-line, very tough batteries costing double the cost of a regular battery.
But then I ran into a big problem. As I removed the hold-down on the old battery, I snapped off the battery hold-down bolt. I thought this would turn into a major hassle (or expense) because there seemed to be no way to get the partial bolt out; there was no way to grip it and it was rusted tight. But once again I had good luck. The Pep Boys guys offered to lend me tools and even came out occasionally to check on my progress. I eventually decided the only thing that would work would be a stud remover but the store didn't sell them. But then the parts manager emerged with a type of bolt remover from the tool box of one of their installation mechanics (!!!!!). I've not seen this type before. It looked like a socket but contained a series of metal rods that, when turned counter-clockwise, gripped the remaining stud. I went in to buy a can of WD-40 so we wouldn't break it off again but the parts manager said he'd just lend me theirs (!!!!!!!). I found a replacement bolt in the store and I was back in business. After some hassle installing the special adapters to adapt the battery to my van's battery tray, I was soon back on the road, now with a fancy new $170 Optima starting/deep cycle (yellow-top) battery. Now I need to find a voltage monitor so I don't end up killing it too.
I returned to the Fleming Island Wal-mart for the night and spent the rest of the evening catching up the blog and marveling over how nice several strangers were to me today.
------------------------------
Thursday, 3 February-
This morning I decided I'd try to find The CB Shack, a local business that popped up on the GPS when I did a search for 'Shack' (looking for Radio Shacks in the area). I thought I see what options I have for mounting an external antenna. I currently have an external CB antenna for my very old portable CB I listen to on interstates while traveling by myself. That CB came in very handy on my trip down I-95 when I ran into heavy traffic south of DC. I could hear the truckers talking about the mile markers where the slowdown started and stopped.
So I went looking for 'The CB Shack' via my GPS. I thought I might be in trouble when it took me down a dirt road near Inverness and into a Florida-cracker housing development/mobile home park. I've not been so lost in many years. The roads were mostly narrow sand roads and most of the homes were modest but presentable. But there were a few that made you wonder. And as it turned out, 'The CB Shack' location was just another home.... apparently the resident has aspirations. He could at least hang out a sign-- I'd stop just to have a story to tell later. But no signy, no stoppy for me.
On the way back to Palatka I passed a library. I had looked for a library on the GPS and it said there were none in the area. I stopped and found a nice little Putnam County library branch and it couldn't have been a mile from the Wal-mart. I took my laptop in and surfed the web, looking for info on the radio scanner I was interested in. I found radioreference.com to have quite a lot of info and a forum dedicated to the specific model. Reading through it convinced me to go ahead with the purchase.
I then drove through Palatka and across the St. John river and up route 13 to the town of St. John and the Radio Shack I had called earlier to see if they had the radio in stock. After buying the radio I went to the nearby Starbucks for a coffee and while I called Labashi on Skype. We chatted for 45 minutes or so about the bathroom-rehab project she's planning for our home.
I then used the GPS to find a nearby Wal-mart for the night but when I arrived I didn't like the looks of it-- too small, too busy. I went on to another (at Fleming Island) which, if it didn't pan out, would position me to easily return to Palatka. This one turned out to be better than Palataka's in that it has a very large parking lot and much less traffic in and out. And there's a Starbucks, Panera, many other shops nearby and I'm within reach of Jacksonville.
I had a few more items to shop for and picked up a new book-- Michael Connelly's 'The Brass Verdict' for my middle-of-the-night reading.
The evening was cooler-- around 50 – and this cloudy weather just keeps hanging on. I've been in Florida three days and have yet to see the sun!!!!!
I spent an hour or so of the evening playing with the new scanner. I've got a lot to learn.
------------------------------
Wednesday, 2 February -
I spent much of the morning shopping at Wal-mart for supplies for the food box and cooler. Afterwards I drove to the nearby Krystal hoping to pick up a wi-fi signal. I didn't get one there but did pick up a signal from the nearby Home Depot. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the web researching radio scanners. I'd like to have one to pick up radio traffic in national parks (for wildlife sightings) and to pick up weather warnings. I'd love to have had one, for example, when we were in Mt Revelstoke National Park in British Columbia when we saw the rangers close the park because of a near-encounter with grizzly bears. As we drove out of the park we saw a pickup coming up the mountain towing a bear trap. I'd love to have found out what happened next!
In another instance we were in Grand Island, Nebraska and a violent storm was approaching. The regular radio wasn't much help to us in trying to get enough detailed info to avoid the storm. As it turned out the storm passed south of us.
Late in the day I drove over to the nearby Woody's Bar-be-que restaurant and picked up some Carolina-style bar-be-que. I've not been able to find BBQ like this around home-- it all seems too sweet.
Back at Wally World (the Wal-mart) I walked over to the next-door Blockbuster and rented the first disk of Californication Season Two. The series is quite raunchy but I like the plot twists.
-----------------------------
Tuesday, 1 February -
I awoke to a decidedly warmer yet still chill morning (around 45) in Smithfield, NC. Today was a pedal-to-the-metal day. I buzzed down I-95, stopping only for gas and a coffee until I reached the Florida border. There I several of the little taster cups of free orange juice (and it was sweeter this year than other years!) and collected a current set of brochures.
I then connected up to the welcome center's wi-fi connection and called Labashi. We spent the better part of an hour chatting while I waited for the rush-hour traffic to clear from the Jacksonville beltway.
Around 1830 I drove on to Palatka and my regular spot (in past trips) at the Wal-mart there. I was exhausted but couldn't fall asleep so I went into the Wal-mart to shop a bit for tomorrow.
****** END OF POST ********
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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