Clearwater Beach, The Keys, and DC. The End.

Welcome back everyone!  I know I know I know…I started strong with three posts a week and have slowly moved to just one post per month.  In fairness, I’ve had a lot going on…what’s that? You’re still not happy that I left you to read past posts without explanation or apology?  Well, let me make it up to you…by telling you what I’ve been up to the past month(ish) in what is easily the longest post yet (1,800 words)…try making it through without taking a break…I dare you!

Let me take you back to a simpler time…like the weekend before Thanksgiving.  I had been searching for upcoming events in the Tampa area and stumbled upon the inaugural “Uncorked in Clearwater” event which featured a wine, beer, and liquor (shots?) tasting…mixed with all the food you could eat…mixed with cooking demonstrations.  And where was this all held? Why on one of the most beautiful beaches in Florida…literally right ON Clearwater Beach.  I could have thrown my wine tasting glass a short distance in any direction and hit a European in an unfortunately revealing speedo.  What was the cost of this event (keeping in mind that there was no limit on alcohol or food consumption)?  $200? $100?  Try $27!!! That’s right folks, it might have been the greatest deal in history (except for the obvious rebuttal of the Louisiana Purchase, Bobbie Sue).  LK, soon to be LS, made her way down from Georgia to partake, and we took full advantage of what the event offered.  Some of my favorite areas were the “grape stomping” booth and most of the beer areas.  We obviously made several rounds which included repeat stops at the Sam Adams, Sangria, and pizza booths.  Once we found there was top shelf liquor across the street in a tasting room, we quickly made our way to try such beverages as “Adult Chocolate Milk” and some Vodka that had allegedly been distilled 5 times by some guy in Texas…I think they were more impressed with themselves that the crowd was.  Despite all of the booze available to us, it should come as no surprise to most of you that my favorite part was the food…and my favorite food was the oysters we’re talking oysters with bacon, oysters covered in melted cheese, oysters with hot sauce (I’ll stop there for varieties, but you get the idea)…for those of you who haven’t tried fresh seafood from the Gulf, you need to…like today.  My second favorite food was the pizza.  We must have gone back to the pizza stand 5 times during the day and each time we loaded up.  Once the event had ended, we stopped by one more time and the guy running the stand gave us a full pizza! (pictures available on facebook)  Trust me when I say that I took a looong nap on the beach after all of this before we finally went home a few hours later.

Let’s fast forward to the Thanksgiving weekend.  I decided to take off the Friday after Thanksgiving and the Monday after that to make way for a 5 day weekend trip down to the Florida Keys!  On the way down I drove down I-75 which goes south through Tampa to Naples and then cuts across the state to Ft Lauderdale…apparently this is due to the large national park south of Naples…I believe it’s called the Everglades?  (side tangent: the Everglades literally look like portions of South Dakota…if the water was replaced with grassland…so I guess they aren’t really so similar, but the trees that are down there reminded me of driving east on I-90 between Kadoka and Murdo…(sigh))  After several hours, I made my way to the only highway that goes from the mainland to the Keys (aptly named Federal Highway 1).  It is literally a 2 lane highway with no passing possible.  I don’t see how this is possible with all the hurricanes in the area…one two lane road?!  

I decided to make my base camp in Key Largo at the Marriot.  They easily had the best Tiki bar in town and their prices were pretty reasonable.  I arrived on Thanksgiving Day and ate in the hotel restaurant (they had a great turkey dinner and pecan pie…you all remember how I feel about pecan pie) (side tangent #2: Yes I went on this trip by myself…no it wasn’t weird or awkward or lonely.  If you go on vacation and can’t find anything to talk about with the thousands of other people on vacation, then that’s on you.  I was not about to pass up the chance to road trip to the Keys because I had no one else to go with).  After my dinner, I made my way to the hot tub/tiki bar.  While there, I started up a conversation with a few of the locals (see side tangent #2) who told me that people who live in Key Largo are encouraged to use the hotels and bar areas as they want.  They decided that since I was there by myself that I should be shown a proper evening.  They took me to several bars and showed me a great time!  They even gave me the number of a scuba/snorkel guy down in Key West that I should contact…the locals could not have been more generous.

The next day, I drove the 2 hour drive on the same 2 lane highway to Key West.  Key West is a very interesting place…Duval Street has all the food, booze, and souvenir shops you could ever want.  Kind of like a Las Vegas meets Hawaii meets your high school’s hallway (Packed, with people wearing island attire holding open containers…really cool vibe). Vendors on the street want you to go see Ernest Hemingway’s house which is apparently filled with 20+ 6-toed cats…(none for me, thanks!)  Instead of going to see the cats, I went to the southernmost point on the continental US (note: I had previously been to the southernmost point in the US which is in Hawaii so this was a must…81 nautical miles from Cuba? Really?! Believe it).  After the quick trips, I made my way to see Don…the scuba/snorkeling guy (I may or may not have referenced Along Came Polly…yes, I was for scuba).  Don took me to the corral and I got to swim with a ton of different sea creatures on the Atlantic side of the Keys (side note: as you drive down to the Keys, one side is dubbed “the Atlantic side” and the other is “the Gulf side.” What the difference is, is beyond me.)…it was truly one of the greatest experiences of my life.

After all of that, I drove back across 7 mile bridge and through the various Keys to Key Largo.  If you ever want to go down to the Keys and don’t want to deal with Key West tourists and chaos, stay on Marathon Key…just trust me on this one…So much else to tell, but this is already becoming a really long post, if you want to know anything else about the trip, you know where to find me.  Also, if you want to take me with you on a trip down there, I wouldn’t say no.

My final weekend trip was up to the Washington DC area to meet up with CM and LS for CM’s birthday!  I booked the ticket for a direct flight from Tampa to Baltimore for a measly $181 after taxes…did I mention that I also got the exit seat with no one sitting next to me for both of the flights?! (note: there were at least 30 empty seats on the way there and back…apparently no one is flying between Tampa and Baltimore…I repeat, no one).  This was my first trip to our nation’s capitol so I naturally had a few destinations I wanted to see while I was there: 1.) I had to see the National Christmas Tree and 2.) I had to eat at Ben’s Chili Bowl.  I know what you’re thinking: Zach, I understand wanting to see the tree, but Ben’s Chili Bowl? Wait…you’re thinking that wanting to see either one of those things instead of the usual tourist stuff is ridiculous and a huge waste of time?...well…you’d be right, mostly.  The Tree was the most disappointing things to happen to trees since the invention of Arbor Day (go invent another holiday Nebraska!) The only thing to save the tree experience was a lonely bagpipe player (who CM claimed to have hired for our entertainment) who played for our entire time there (10-15 minutes).  Following our trip to the tree CM led us on a tour of Washington DC that included, but was not limited to the White House, Capitol Building, The Smithsonian, the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Monument, the Best Ethiopian Food restaurant in DC, and a lot of “that place” references.  I believe her exact words were: “no one else has ever taken this tour of DC.” Her mom’s words upon hearing of CM’s tour: “Oh. Well, I thought she would have been better.” 

(Note: Ben’s Chili Bowl was fantastic!  The girls were struggling a little from the night before and didn’t take as much joy in fried potatoes and hot dogs smothered in chili, but if you make it to DC I recommend you take the time to eat there!)

The nights we went out in the DC area were also a ton of fun.  My favorite night was the second one in which we rode the subway system and took the largest escalator that I have ever seen (for those of you on facebook, LS has posted plenty of pictures of me riding up and down it in various poses with KW (a boyfriend of EC who is a good friend of CM…get all that?)) to the street level. The night also included a stop at a bar called “The Big Hunt” (a name which we found hilarious) and a dance bar.  Everything was going smoothly until the end of the night when some random dude decided to dance up on EC (remember this is KW’s girlfriend).  KW stepped in to make sure random dude knew he wasn’t welcome and random dude decided that he wanted to start a silent staring contest (keep in mind: random dude might have been 5’8” and was swimming in an extra medium polo…I don’t think KW or I really took him seriously).  The staring contest lasted several moments and ended with random dude breaking the silence by yelling incoherently as we walked away…I’m pretty sure that’s the same as blinking…we win. 

Overall the trip was a huge success!  I had Ben’s Chili Bowl, had 2 great nights out, and got to sleep on an incredibly comfortable couch 2 nights in a row. (my apologies to CM’s mother who…I think was a little disappointed that I didn’t sleep in the beds that were laid out for me…and I didn’t drink any of the of apple cider…which she purchased solely because I mentioned, in passing, that I wanted to drink cider at the National Christmas Tree…if I could have taken the entire gallon in my carry-on, I would have!)

So that’s what I’ve been up to!  I’ll make this my last post for this blog.  I only have a 26 hour car ride with RT back to SoDak left before I start my next clinical in Des Moines and if any good stories happen along the way, I’ll update you through facebook.  I really did enjoy writing these posts and want to thank all of you who read them!

PB&C and #90sProblems

Alright everyone, I know I promised to keep this updated more frequently, but I’ve been busy saving money for my trip over Thanksgiving down to the Florida Keys so I haven’t been as busy on the weekends as I would like and therefore don’t have much to write about…at least not on a regular basis.  So I decided that after my stressful post last time around I would make this post about things that made me smile over the past few weeks:

1.       For those of you who know me best, you will recall that I have a strong affinity for peanut butter.  And what’s better than peanut butter? How about peanut butter and chocolate?!!  Now you’re saying…”Zach, we get it, peanut butter is great…get to the point”  Calm down blog reader, I’m getting there!  Today, Houselady decided to make peanut butter…wait for it…PIE!!! Let’s delve into this thing part by part:  She started with an oreo crumb crust which was soaked in butter and pressed against a pie tin…then she whipped peanut butter and something else amazing together while mixing in peanuts and pecans (Note: I love pecans).  And as if that weren’t enough, then Houselady did the unthinkable…she drizzled the top with caramel and chocolate topping (you know…the kind that freezes to the top of ice cream to create a shell).  Every bite of this pie was filled with peanut butter, chocolate, oreo crumb, and awesome.  The best part of all of this is that she made 2 pies for her family and 1 for “us” to share…(note: I may be 230#’s the next time you see me)

 this is the picture of it I took seconds before devouring 2 (maybe 3) large pieces

2.       Watching Southern people makes me smile.  Make no mistake about it folks, the South is still 99% sure that they will “rise again” and they aren’t afraid to advertise it on their oversized trucks.  (Note: I would like to make a distinction between “Floridians” and “Southern People.”  Floridians are just happy people who enjoy the weather and beaches and drive sedans.  Southern People (typically born in/ transplanted from Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi) are a whole different kind of person and typically drive trucks that have no muffler)  For instance, some of the bumper stickers that I’ve seen in the past week include: 1.) “I heart G.R.I.T.S.” Upon asking the patron what his sticker meant, this good ole Southern boy answered “Girls Raised In The South” (cute); 2.) “The South Will Rise Again” (not unexpected); and 3.)  (my favorite) “On the 8^th Day, God Created the South”  (note: this must be in those textbooks their using in the Texas public school system)

3.       The pool, the weather, driving with my windows down, seafood festivals every weekend, and my new Homosassa Anytime Fitness shirt #thingsthatmakemesmilebutdontdeserveanentirenumber

4.       Today, while discussing Disney movies at work (obviously), AM (a PTA…whom you’ll remember from the Flugtag post) and I began to discuss the Newsies (Note: she had never heard of it…which was hard for me to believe until I polled everyone in the clinic and no one else had heard of it either…add this to the many issues I have with the South).  During our discussion, we got into how old the movie was…do you realize that movie came out in 1992?!? It’s almost 20 years old!  The conversation quickly changed to how much things have changed since the 90’s and we came up with a list of things that wouldn’t be an issue in today’s world…confused?  Let me give you an example: Programming the VCR #90’sproblems; I don’t have any change for the payphone #90’sproblems; I forgot to feed my DigiPet and it died #90’sproblems.  Got it?  Good!  (and if you don’t, google VR troopers or Salute Your Shorts…you’ll get there eventually)

Alright everyone, that’s it for today!  In 9 days, I will be making the 8 hour drive down to Key West to check out the beaches down that way and along the East coast of Florida.  I will definitely try to take notes of anything I see and do!  If anyone would like to join me instead of spending time with your families on Thanksgiving (lame), let me know, fly to Tampa, and I’ll pick you up on the way (someone with the initials JCAM decided to fizzle)

Stresses and Rants...Rants and Stresses

Welcome back everyone!  I want to take a few lines to say thank you to the international readers who read the blog over October despite my lack of posts.  One week the blog actually had more readers from Russia than America…very impressive.  Thanks for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy the stories and stresses!  Now, onto the post:

In honor of November’s arrival I’m going to give you the top 5 things that have caused me stress recently.  They are in no particular order except for that #5 is the most stressful.  Enjoy!

1.       With all of the retired citizens of Citrus County, you’d think that I would have lost some of my disdain for the driving habits that are commonplace on the highways and trails on my way to work…I haven’t.  Let me begin by explaining that my morning commute has become much more enjoyable as I have started to leave earlier so I can avoid some of the “I have nowhere to be right now” crowd (which is more prevalent than makes sense).  HOWEVER, every night I head to the gym around 8:30pm and travel on a dark stretch of road known as Homosassa Trail.  The speed limit is 55 and it serves as a connection between two highways that I need to travel.  It never fails that someone in a wood-panel laminated PT cruiser or a Cadillac sedan is driving with its brights on…at 40 mph.  This is my nightmare. (note: if you happen to be someone over the age of 70 and you get nervous while driving on dark stretches of road and you don’t know how to push the gas pedal downward so as to propel your vehicle at or about the posted speed limit…you should probably avoid stretches of road that are not well lit and require speeds above 35.)

2.       What happened to “I Used To Be Fat” on MTV?!?!  This was a fantastic show!  I came home early from the gym tonight only to find that some True Life episode had taken its place?  Maybe I missed the memo…or maybe I just haven’t been watching as much MTV now that Jersey Shore is between seasons, but I am thoroughly disappointed.  (Note: one of my favorite afternoons was about 3 Sunday’s ago when I watched a marathon session of the first season while eating absurd amounts of food…yay metabolism!!) (note #2: apparently the show is on at 10:30 ET…and rather than delete the above stress, I’ll just make this extra note…my blog)

3.       I missed an event in Citrus County this last weekend known as The Great American Cooter Fest…I repeat: I MISSED THE GREAT AMERICAN COOTER FESTIVAL!!!. You cannot imagine my level of disappointment.  With events such as the Miss Cooter Fest Finals and the Cooter Scooter Race in which you can win the “Cooter Cup”, I feel like I missed an opportunity.  Here is a link for those of you interested in what “The Legend of the Cooter” is all about: http://bit.ly/tRO2lJ  (Note: I was also unable to attend the Mullet Festival with my friend RT up in the Niceville/Ft Walton Beach area a few weekends ago…again…just a missed opportunity…but don’t worry, this weekend is the “Stone Crab Jam” and there will be a lengthy post about the insane amount of Stone Crab that I take down.)

4.       This Eastern Time Zone is really messing with my head…and TV watching schedule (as you can tell from stress #2).  I am so used to looking at listed airing times and automatically deducting an hour or two (I grew up in the Mountain Time Zone) to find out when the show will be on, that I’ve found it hard to break the habit.  Additionally, I cannot believe how late sporting events start out here!  Some of the World Series games didn’t get over until well after midnight…and don’t get me started on Monday Night Football.  It’s almost impossible to finish watching these games unless I’m invested (and for those of you who know me well enough…you know that I don’t really have a vested interest in most sports/teams…at least not to the point where I will lose sleep over catching a game that I’ll see the highlights of the next morning).  Overall, I’ve started to get used to the TV schedule, but it isn’t coming easily…hard to break old habits.

5.       This is the final…and most important stress…for this post.  Yesterday, while walking in toward the front door from my car…I saw the largest spider I have ever seen that wasn’t separated from me by a thick wall of glass.  It seriously looked like a tarantula…and apparently it could have been one.  I don’t pretend to like spiders, but I have never been afraid of them…until I saw this one sauntering across the sidewalk.  It looked like it was hungry and wanted to snack on a crane…or one of these sickly looking cows that Florida breeds. (not to get off on a rant here, but you should see the cows down here…they look like they are absolutely starving.  I’m not sure you can get a steak big enough for a full portion from any single cow.  Now I’m not sure if these are the “free range” cows or “grass fed” cows, but I can tell you that there’s a reason that the best beef comes from the Mid-West…I’ll be sticking to stone crab, oysters, and shrimp while I’m down here.) I now check under my covers and pillows before I go to bed to make sure I don’t become some spider’s midnight snack…and that...is stressfull.

Thanks for reading everyone!  If anyone has any good Halloween stories that they would like to share on here, feel free to write them up and email me by Thursday!

Oh therrre you are! (Peter)

After a 27 days away from the blog, I’m back!  You realize that the last time I posted on here, Moammar Gadhafi was alive, Rick Perry was leading in the Primary polls, and I didn’t know “I Used to Be Fat” was a show that existed…OOOOOOhhhh how things have changed.  With all of this ground breaking news happening all around us, you might be asking: “Zach! What the $#!T took you so long to type out a couple of words and amuse me?  Could you really be that lazy that you couldn’t take time out of your day TWICE a week to make me happy?!”  …to which I would like to respond with: (with a coy smile on my face and pinky in the air) I’m sorry…I’m sooorrry….saarrrry.

Now that we’ve made up.  What have I been up to?  Let’s start from least recent and move our way to last weekend shall we?  OK:

1.)     I was able to attend the Florida vs. Alabama game in Gaineville on October 1!  The first quarter of this game was absolutely the most exciting moment in my sports watching life (except for…of course…the Klepatz to Krogman to Foster 3 pointer to win in the first round of the NCAA D-II basketball tourney in 2009…but I digress).  The game started off with a solid kickoff return by the Gators followed by Brantley pulling off a Ronny from Jersey Shore’s first season on the Tide (One shot son!) with a bomb of a touchdown pass.  The stadium went absolutely insane.  I hugged more Southerners than I am comfortable mentioning on a public forum such as this…but it was in the moment.  From there, the Alabama squad decided that they didn’t particularly enjoy getting scored on and dominated the game on both sides of the line.  (note:  Do any of you remember a D-lineman for Alabama a few years back nicknamed Mt. Cody?  He was the fattest man I’d ever seen on a football field…until Saturday Oct 1…when I saw 3 men at least his size patrolling the sidelines…I assume that this is explained by the lack of treadmills…and self-control in the state of Alabama.  Yay job security!)

2.)    I went to Flugtag!  I’m not sure how many of you have heard of this event, so stick with me.  Flugtag is an international event put on by RedBull every year in which man propelled aircrafts are “dropped” (for lack of a better word) off of a cliff.  The apparatus that flies falls the farthest, and has the most creativity points, wins! (note: do you know what I’m talking about now? No? ok…here’s the link: http://www.redbullflugtagusa.com/)   In addition, there were judges (of whom I only knew Evan Longoria) who offered their two cents.  There were a ton of different themes that grabbed my attention and I’ll try to upload some of the videos on facebook, but the ones that I especially enjoyed were: a Pro-wrestling themed one, an Oktoberfest themed one, and one with a midget pilot…who was a midget pro-wrestler…named “Little E.”  Most of these “planes” just fall flat which leaves the “pilot” in some danger…but everything went off without incident…except for when Little E’s “plane” fell on top of him and he had to be rushed out of the water by the first responders on site…but it’s ok everyone.  Little E powered through and arose victorious to do an interview several hours later with only a concussion and minor cuts and bruises.  Overall, it was an awesome time and if you ever get the chance to go or participate in it, I recommend it!

3.)    This past weekend, I went with one of my co-workers to go kayaking with manatees, turtles, and stingrays!  Was it awesome? Yeah…it was.  We put in at a bar/eatery known as Mac Crae’s which is known for cheap beer and fresh seafood.  We then proceeded to kayak several miles to a wildlife area where the aforementioned animals congregate and interact with passers-by.  The water in this area is known as brackish, which means that it is a mixture of salt and fresh water.  It is also the clearest water I have seen in my life and allows you to see down to the floor of these channels.  Additionally, there is an “island” near the shore that is known as Monkey Island because it is inhabited by several monkeys that are apparently afraid of water and have no desire to make it to the main land...  I guess there are also times when dolphins come in to swim with the manatees and other sea creatures, but I did not see any of them on this trip…don’t worry, I’ll be back.  After our kayak trip, we stopped back at Mac Crae’s for some Stone Crab claws…which recently became in-season.  Stone Crab is a little more difficult to eat than your traditional crab due to the thickness of their shells (check out my pic on facebook and you’ll see the mallet they give you to crack these things…they weren’t messing around)…despite the extra work to eat them…they are absolutely delicious!

So that’s what I’ve been up to…it feels good to be writing again and I’ll try to get back into the habit of keeping this updated more regularly.  I can’t promise the same schedule for posts as we had before, but I’ll try.  See ya’ll you all back here next time!