Historically, Nicole and I seem to come to Florida in the middle of a hurricane, or at least a tropical storm. Even if not, we seem to find St Petersburg beach empty, the parking lot of Isla del Sol vacant, and many restaurants and stores shuttered. The oppressive and muggy heat that Florida is known for this time of year was present, but oddly so were a lot of other people. Why did they not get the note to leave? Bricole expect a private beach experience!
Not only that, but we figured that going to the beach in the morning would avoid the crowds. It was Father’s Day and a Sunday. The sabbath! That combination would surely have people tied up with church and/or brunch. Unfortunately for us, this area must be full of Jesus-haters and nonbelievers in brunch. We struggled to find a parking spot at Pass-a-grille beach and when we did, it cost Nicole $12 for a couple hours. We struggled for a few minutes to set up the Conadio-provided cabana. Putting together awkwardly-constructed objects is one of the reasons I have no children. Can you picture me at a TSA checkpoint trying to fold a stroller? I would simply end up breaking it and walking away flustered. We put in our obligatory two hours at the beach as we observed . . .the others. Then we headed back to the car and across the bridge to the relative safety of Isla del Sol.
We returned again to the clubhouse for dinner thinking we would have a better experience, but it was more of the same. Being younger than everyone else by about 30 years led to us being the last people there at…7pm. The food was…ok, and the beer poisoned us with an overdose of CO2. This would give us the toots for the rest of the night and there was nothing a Soviet recipe for ice cream was going to do to fix that.
The following day, Nicole smashed balls into the abyss at the driving range. I think she was intimidating the older men because they would kind of drive by in their little carts as if they wanted to drive some balls as well, but not with *gasp!* a girl. 30 minutes in the sun proved enough for lil’ ‘Cole, and we returned to the conadio to fashion a lunch of peanut butter and banana sandwiches to spare ourselves further disrespect and poisoning at the clubhouse. For our last act before getting on a plane, I took Nicole to the Sunken Gardens.
It had a retro vibe in the middle of St Petersburg. We were handed a map, but it was relatively useless as the gardens themselves seemed to have no logical route or path to use. In fact, everyone we saw seemed to keep turning around looking confused as they ambled around in the heat. There were a few species of wildlife present including macaws in a cage, but there were also some flamingoes and koi who had a little bit more freedom.
After doing several figure 8s around the gardens, doubling back, cutting across other paths, seeing the same people at various points, we think we saw most of the gardens and headed for the exit. From there, it was time to clean up the conadio and head for the airport. As always, there was unexplained traffic on the bridge to Tampa, but we arrived at the airport with ample time to return the rental car, board the multiple trains, go through the security checkpoint, and order some Potbelly’s before boarding our Delta flight back to Los Angeles. Riding back in seats 12 E/F, we probably won’t find ourselves together like this for a spell. Summer means recurrent training and sometimes crappy flight schedules, but Nicole might be joining me on one of my trips soon. But for that you’ll have to head over to Flyin’ Brian. Ta ta for now.
passports & pepto bismol 