Cold wave linked to temperatures.

Kristen and I headed to St. Pete Beach this weekend to hang out with the family and enjoy the sun and water for a while. Besides having a great time just hanging out with them, we also enjoyed doing some wave riding on rented jetskis and had a blast out in the ocean jumping waves and getting bounced around!

When regard for truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened, all things will remain doubtful. - St Augustine

This weekend was spent on a little road trip. Two of the Tampa runners were getting married (to each other even!) in St. Augustine on a weekend which happened to coincide with the annual pub crawl held in the city. I have been there a couple of times before and have always enjoyed the area, especially the beaches and old fort. I've also been dying to really try out the teardrop camper I picked up a few months ago and decided to take it with me, especially since the hostel was all booked up by other runners and folks that were with the wedding party. I got a late start on Friday since I had to run a bunch of errands to do.

After arriving, I found a place to park, put together my bike, and found the place folks were meeting. Most of the people there were wedding party members milling about and dancing. We hit a couple of different spots such as Tradewinds Tavern, the local VFW, and St. George Tavern. After shutting down the last bar those still standing grabbed a couple of slices of pizza before heading to the hostel. Apparently some folks were asleep, however we soon took care of that little issue. I didn't want to hang for too long and soon left to to ride over to where I was parked, throw the bike into the truck, and crawl in for a nice rest.

When I got up in the morning, I decided to bike around the city for a while to take in some of the nicer areas. I first hit the old Spanish fort, Castillo de San Marcos, since the National Park Pass that I got for the California trip allowed me free access. As I was going in, I happened to run into a couple of Tampa hashers and watched the cannon firing demonstration with them for a while before starting to head off again. The reenactment is done several times a day by local volunteers that give up their time to help teach visitors about the fort's history. I then did a quick ride to the Mission of Nombre de Dios that is readily noticeably by the 200+ foot steel cross looking over the city. This is a site of some beautifully maintained grounds and holds the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche. After reflecting here for a while I checked out some of the numerous art galleries and gift shops that make up much of the downtown area.

Around one o'clock I loaded up and drove across the bridge to Anastacia Island to where the pub crawl would start. Using the camper kitchenette I made a couple of sandwiches while taking the time to relax a bit and enjoy the weather (which was considerable warmer than the previous evening). Much of the rest of the day was a lot of fun as I met and chatted with new folks and even ran into some friends that I wasn't expecting to see! We hit numerous pubs including The British Pub, Nubby's Sports Bar, Santa Maria Restaurant, Tradewinds Tavern, VFW, Milltop Tavern (good live music), St. George Tavern, and another bar or two of which I cannot remember the names. At the last bar the wedding party (or those still moving) caught up with us and livened things up a little bit, however it was already pretty late and people were dropping out.

I caught a ride back to where my car was and followed some folks to the Anastasia Island State Park since they already had a spot reserved. After getting cleaned up, I quickly crawled into the camper (being very thankful for not having to set up anything) and quickly crashed. In the morning I made some portabella mushroom sandwiches and elected to stay at the park while the others took off for breakfast and home. The park offered several hiking trails, including an ancients dunes interpretive trail that provide info on the local flora as it looped around for a couple of miles. I then headed to the beach and rode the bike one a 7-8 mile round trip to go around to the inlet so I could get some shots of the approach to the fort and enjoy a nice bit of peddling. After making a quick lunch, and getting stopped a couple of times by people wanting to check out the camper, I took a last stroll in the park along the old Spanish quarry and made a quick stop at the St. Augustine Light Station for some photos, though I didn't have time to climb to the top.

Overall it was a great weekend and a nice way to not only hang out with some old and new friends, but also take in the sites and enjoy some of the Florida resources.

Our brochure says 'safe beach'. You must have gone into the water

On Friday I went to the Santana concert with my roommate, her friend, and my friend Adrienne's roommate (since I had an extra ticket). We got in a little early and parked for some tailgating before heading inside. I was working on the teardrop camper wiring and wanted to make sure everything worked with the inverter and found that the floor fan made things quite comfortable.

The show itself was quite enjoyable with a pretty large crowd in attendance. I liked how there were many different instruments including quite a bit of brass and even an organ. There was a good set list covering the decades Carlos Santana has been playing and towards the end the tempo really picked up, which got me to do some dancing even! After the show ended, we returned to the trailer to wait out the insane traffic and relaxed in relative comfort as the gridlock worked itself out. After about an hour we packed up and were able to pull out without stopping, which made for some stress free riding back home. Saturday was spent doing some house work and more painting at the apartment before heading to the hash run that evening. The trail was set by a some hares that are training for a marathon, so I knew we were in for a good trail that ended up covering a little over four miles. We hit Po Boys cafe as the on-after and then a few of us had an impromptu pool party at SLF and BS's place. Since I had to be back at the apartment around 9 in the morning, I decided to not even bother driving home and just slept in the camper in my office parking lot since I was just a couple miles away. Though it is a bit tight in terms of roominess, I think it'll work perfectly for my intended uses, namely a quick and comfortable place to crash when on road trips and place to cook a few personal meals.

Sunday was spent doing a little work in the morning before I met Dad at the residence of someone selling a small camper. Apparently he found a tiny pop-up style camper and was considering getting it when the bigger camper is just overkill. While we were looking over and discussing it someone else pulled up and after they conferred with the owners, we were told (while we were standing right next to it mind you) that it was no longer available and had just been sold. That is a pretty pissy thing to do, but what can one do about it? I headed over to the beach since I wanted to take Kinda out for some exercise and since I hadn't really been able to lay out on the beach during the day in quite a while. The weather was awesome and I sat out while catching up on some reading for a few hours. Before taking off I walked around Fort DeSoto for a while and then drove over to the point closest to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to take a few pictures of the Carnival ship heading out to sea. Kinda decided that even after the bath she wanted to play a bit more and ran out to lay in the water. While I grumbled at having to dry her off *again*, it did make for a couple of decent shots. This week will be spent finishing with the apartment, office financials (bleh) and packing for the upcoming weekend in DC. It should be fun.