Our second Spring Vacation trip to Ft. Desoto, with the Cadillac MI crew. This time was different. Madeline brought along her best friend Elise. I drove my new Tundra down alone with the pop-up, so that Eileen, Madeline, and Elise could fly and get some more days out of this vacation.
Other than that, the whole deal went down much like our first trip. Hot weather, clear skies (with one major exception), great beaches. Lots of bike riding, and lots of loafing.
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Here’s some pics of our camp:
There was an antique car show up in Tierra Verde, the nearest “civilization” coming out of the park. I couldn’t resist snapping a few:
Eileen and I rode the original western section of the Pinellas Bike Trail. It starts in the general south central part of the Pinellas penninsula and heads north, through a bunch of small town, on the way to Clearwater and beyond. You have to drive to the starting point from Ft. DeSoto, there is no clean way to pedal to it. We made it to Clearwater this day. Had breakfast for lunch at a great greasy spoon, a locally owned joint whose name I won’t recall. Big portions , cheap prices, strong A/C.
We took Madeline and Elise to downtown St. Petes to check it out, on a very hot afternoon that wasn’t worth much else. St. Petersburg has a nice vibe, a bit of an edge. There’s counterculture, a welcome change in ultraconservative gun-totting Florida.
North Beach was where we hung out. Bob and the other fishermen went up as far north as they could go to get into the channel where they’d previously caught fish. It’s so cute how fishermen are superstitious. Nonetheless, its didn’t work. They caught no fish.
Bob brought two yaks down, a feature which contributed nicely to his “Grapes of Wrath” traveling style. Eileen and I borrowed them one day for a very pleasant circumnavigation of the island. Bob’s poor coefficient of drag was our gain.
Back to Bob’s rig. Was it the two boats? The four bikes? The three large adults, with a big guitar? Whatever. His Toyota blew a seal on the way home and leaked more oil onto the highway than the Exxon Valdez. They bought oil by the tankerful. I heard they just kept the hood open, tied Debi to the front bumper, and had her pour oil continuously into the crankcase while they desperately strove for the next town with a Toyota mechanic. It all worked out, especially since they got to spend a lovely, unscheduled evening in Dothen, AL.