Strawberry Festival

Yesterday I saw signs at the grocery store offering free tickets to the 2015 Florida Strawberry Festival.  The clerk wasn't certain where it was, but thought it was somewhere near Tampa.  I looked it up (Google) and she was correct -- it is east of Tampa in a town called Plant City, appropriately enough.  Apparently it is an annual event, and moves from place to place each year.  Last year it was in Naples, according to the internet.  I had already purchased some strawberries, since they were cheap and said "Product of Florida" on them.  I had some this morning, and they were tasty.

Blackberry (also local) and blueberry (not local) for scale.  I don't think I've ever seen a strawberry field down here, so a tour de strawberry field bike ride is not possible.  I did take a bike ride a couple of days ago, though.  And had an unusual close call.  It was windy -- Florida in winter is windy, I may have mentioned that -- and as I approached a basketball hoop of the sort pictured below -- it gave in to the wind and fell over, directly into my path.

It was not so close that I had to brake, but it was close enough that I had to swerve to avoid it.  I seriously doubt that my helment would have provided much protection.  It's a new hazard to look out for.  I took the photo today, when there was a different wind speed and direction.  And it's not even the same basketball hoop.  Illustrative only.

Today's turn around spot, above.  Ollie's Pond continues to be far enough for a bike ride for me.   In other news, tomorrow is the Super Bowl.  We've been invited to a football watching party next door, hosted by the same neighbor who hosted one last year.  I don't expect anything bloggable to come of it, but you never know.  I'm taking Texas baked beans and cookies.  I wonder if someone will bring strawberries.

Cool Sunshine

Not much biking has gone on here lately -- so today I invoked the Auckland Rule and rode about a dozen miles.  This is the park along the other side of Spring Lake.  I rode along the crushed shell paths here for a short while.

I entertained myself by trying a few new routes through some old familiar neighborhoods.  (I am easily entertained.)  Kiwanis Park is always a good spot to hide from the wind.

I like the way the walking trails loop back through the woods.  It doesn't look like it is completely surrounded by houses. It's interesting how much different a route looks when ridden more or less backwards.  Though it was still up hill and into the wind both ways.

Big Winds

Three of the last four days have had winds over 25 mph for most of the afternoon.  I walked most of the way to the beach this morning before the wind had ramped up that far, but it was still blowing hard enough to blow the palm fronds around.

I always enjoy these bushes -- from arms length it looks like it is full of flowers, but it is the leaves that turn this hot pink/red color, and the flowers are little and white.

One or two more days of small craft advisories.  (And if your oldest parent would be 106, you're probably no spring chicken yourself.)

Winter in Florida

Yesterday seemed like a nearly ideal day to be outside, particularly on a bicycle.  I took this photo from Como Bridge, about a mile the other side of Ollie's Pond.  The only negatives were the swarms of gnats that I rode through on several occasions on the way there and the traffic that I had to mingle with on Edgewater to get over two bridges.

Light wind, upper 70's -- I rode about as far as my January fitness level would allow.  It was a nice ride.

Today I opted for a shorter ride -- those two bridges on Edgewater will be closed at some point as they are scheduled to be replaced.  I wanted to try out a route that went that same direction, but used the Highway 41 bridges instead.  Some of it worked, some of it didn't -- there are a few weird kinks I hadn't considered -- but I was treated to this piece of bicycle art in a yard that I'd never noticed before.  Two days, two bike rides.  The weekend forecast is for howling winds and much cooler temperatures.  Winter in Florida.

Shadows and Reflections

This bike is more than 20 years old, and weighs a ton.  It's been in Florida for approximately 15 of those years and has some rust to prove it.  It still works though, and provides me with more exercise per mile than my much lighter Michigan bikes.  It also gets me to Ollie's Pond now and then.  This was on yesterday's ride when the sun was shining and the wind was blowing at about 15 mph, also increasing the amount of exercise I got per mile.

Today was overcast and occasionally a few sprinkles fell.  The radar showed rain at about the time I usually leave for a ride, which I took as a sign I should go to Kohl's and buy a couple of new bath towels.  I eventually took a walk around the neighborhood for exercise, and spent some time chatting with neighbors.

The clouds cleared enough for a nice reflected sunset a few minutes after 6:00 tonight.

Lull

It's been a quiet week here in the swampy southwest.  We have settled into a routine of sorts, with visits to the gym every other day, a few walks and the occasional bike ride.  JB had a birthday this week, and we celebrated with a nice dinner at the Crimson Crayfish and a nice long chat with OSLO and the Grands over Skype.  Technological marvel, really.

Construction has begun on the project to widen Edgewater Drive, but so far the work hasn't impacted driving or biking routes.  This will be a multi-year project, so there's lots of time for it to get annoying.

I sighted this guy on a walk around Ollie's Pond earlier this week.  The audubon society's Facebook page has a similar photo captioned "An anhinga dries its wings."  So I'm going with that as an authoritative source.  I've also made a couple of trips to the Bicycle Center, just because its there.  It's a typical bike shop, 3.4 miles from here, and when I was browsing their bike gear today there was a couple who clearly wanted to buy a comfort bike for the wife.  I commented "nice color" because I couldn't think of anything else nice to say, and they said that it was hard to get waited on in there.  Yep.  A typical bike shop.

Some Exercise Today

It's been a while since I've posted warm photos just for the sake of warm photos.  I took a few new ones today -- this first one while on a bike ride.  This was my turn around spot.  I'm looking either south or west over Charlotte Harbor from one of the neighborhoods near the beach.

I emailed this one to Kelly and Jill, because Kelly has been emailing me photos of the two of them cross country skiing at Hemlock Crossing.  She's also been sending me photos of Charlie.  I wanted her to know that I'm not sitting at home twiddling my thumbs.  At least, not all of the time.

I took a walk across the street to Sunrise Park about 5:30 and took this photo of the sun dipping behind the trees.  Sunset is theoretically at 5:55 pm here today.  With the trees it's earlier, apparently the 5:55 is at the horizon.  I should have known that.

Our next door neighbor has installed a nice dock and shore station which, unfortunately, obstructs our view of sunset at this time of year.  Though the sun is moving the right direction for better views of  the setting sun, eventually.

Sometimes I like the reflected sunsets nearly as much as the sunsets.  This was taken from the same spot on our dock as the previous one, but I was facing the other direction.  It was as nice a day as any we've had here this trip.

Rainy Days and Mondays

Even without looking, I'd bet that I've used that title before.  Rain on Mondays is not exactly rare.  It was a gym day, and a grocery shopping day (the only other exercise I got) and a day to find a new frying pan to replace the one with the peeling Teflon.  I have a few photos from the weekend --

This heron/egret bird didn't seem bothered by my presence.  Yesterday I took a nice long walk through the neighborhoods north of here before taking a bike ride.  I'd heard the weather forecast and decided to double up on exercise.

Yup, Ollie's Pond again.  There's a rumor that the county is planning to expand Sunrise Park (across the street from us) and that it will have some walking trails and a water holding pond.  Dare we hope for another Ollie's Pond right here in the neighborhood?  That would be cool.  That's really I all have to put on the internet, but it seemed like a good day to report in.

50 Years Ago

The subtitle to this goes something like "who?  what?  No, wait...."  The title refers to that cold Sunday afternoon in the chapel of the Lutheran Church near the campus of the University of Minnesota when these two young people got married.  January 10, 1965.  50 years ago.  That's my Mother's locket that I'm wearing -- I'd forgotten that detail.

When I was scanning these old photos into my computer last month, JB took a look at them and commented that the people in them were "unrecognizable."   That's a fair assessment, I think.  I remember -- years ago -- seeing photos in small town newspapers of couples celebrating their golden wedding anniversary.  There was always a before and after set of photos.  And the after photo never looked anything like the before photo.  I'll spare you the after photo.  You all know what we look like now.  It's the before photo that's interesting.

A few of you already know the story.  We met in the summer of 1963 while both of us were working at the Great Northern depot on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis.  He was working the "extra list" for the railroad while working on a degree in electrical engineering at the University.  I worked at the soda fountain, and took two buses to get back to the Macalester campus after work was over at 10 every night.  It was the summer of 1964 when we had our first date.  I was 19, JB was 25.  The wedding took place about seven months later, with only a handful of people there to witness it.  Two of my brothers representing my family.  His parents were there from his family.  Three of our friends and the minister make ten, I think, counting the two of us.  After the ceremony the group went back to his parents' house in Roseville, where all of these photos were taken. For the 60's -- the real 60's -- that was a fair amount of formality.

This is us,  newly minted married people, with JB's parents, John and Margery.  There was cake, I remember, probably because there's a photo of it in the same envelope that these pictures were in.  50 years is a long time, and memories fade.

Here's a great photo of the bride (I believe that this is how "say cheese" looks in photos) and groom, with her brothers.  I know, I can hardly believe it either.  I had asked TT, as the oldest male member of my family available that day, to give me away. Though he was my first choice anyway, as my big brother, my sometimes defender and my friend.  I felt a bond there that made him seem like the obvious choice -- and then the minister never asked the question.  In the end, it must not have mattered much.  What did matter greatly was that Jim and Gene were there for me, looked good, and upheld the family honor.

50 years in the blink of an eye.

One, Two, One

I'll do a couple of numbers posts here over the next few days.  This one is in the vein of "Off Again, On Again, Gone Again, Finnegan."  GZ wrote a post on that old story a while back.  And TT has a copy of Heart Throbs, where I believe the story came from, at least as far as I was concerned.  It was a short story.  I digress.

When we arrived here last month, the post that holds all things electrical at the end of the driveway looked like this.  Sometime last summer, a teenage driver had failed to make the gentle curve in front of the house, and had hit it head on.  The immediate fix involved something resembling a splint.

Last week a crew of several showed up with two trucks and a new pole.  The new pole was buried in the ground and the crew set about moving wires and lines and such from the old pole to the new pole.

They seemed to work largely with live wires.  We were without electricity twice that day, for fairly short periods of time.  At five o'clock or so last Friday they left, leaving us with two poles.

This week they returned and removed the old pole.  One, two, one.  That's my story.  I could blog about the weather, I suppose.  It's been cold, but above freezing even at night, so nothing like what's been going on in Minnesota.  Even by Chicago standards, this isn't cold.  It's been windy -- there were gale warnings along our coastline yesterday.  But there were 55 mph sustained winds in Michigan yesterday, with higher gusts.  Too much wind to be able to measure the foot or 17 inches of snow that fell there yesterday.  Traffic is bad here, but the college girl is spending the weekend in her dorm room because the roads are too slick to drive on and motorists are being advised to stay off the roads.  (The 150 car pile up on I-94 near Kalamazoo was on our local news tonight.)  So I'm left with my story about the power pole.  Wait until tomorrow, though.  I have a better story to tell then.  It might even be scheduled to post early in the day.  Check back in.

Southern Bridges

Blogging has gotten off to a slow start in 2015.  I'm going to start things off with a couple of bridge photos, just to break the ice (so to speak).  The first one is the bridge that connects Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda, spanning well over a mile across the Charlotte Harbor. Also known as the Peace River.  We've been in the middle of a really humid spell here which has kept us mostly indoors since before the first of the year. Dew points in the 70's aren't conducive to outdoor exercise, at least for me.  Fortunately the view is nice, though biking seemed really hard that day.

This bridge has been a barrier to bike rides for the entire time I've been coming down here. It isn't much good for walking, either.  The Sunrise Waterway bridge is a narrow bridge on Edgewater, less than a mile from here.  About half way between here and the beach.  I rarely ride across it, choosing to ride up the highway and around the top end of the waterway, adding a couple of miles to the trip to the beach.

Whoever designed this bridge apparently had never ridden a bicycle.  The top railing is almost exactly handlebar height, so even if you're willing to brave the metal posts and their risk of extreme bodily damage should you fall against one, you should think twice about using this poor excuse for a bridge.

What's most interesting about the bridge is that it is on its last legs.  Not in the falling down sense, but it is about to be torn down .  A long discussed road project is apparently about to begin and Edgewater Drive will be widened along this stretch.  This bridge, along with two others, will be replaced in the process.  Work will begin shortly, or so we have been told.