Across the High Plains

There isn't much to say about the state of Nebraska, except that it takes forever to get through and kind of reminds me of what the set of "A Prairie Home Companion" would look like -- which furthered my distaste for it. Sorry I just have never been able to get that show.

Anyway, when we left Tampa last Friday it was eighty-five degrees and coming through Nebraska into Wyoming this is what we drove through.



The weather aside we actually made great time and stopped in Cheyenne, WY around three in the afternoon to visit with my aunt and uncle and cousins that live there. The snow hadn't hit there that evening but when we woke up yesterday there was about two to three inches on the ground. We left a bit later than planned to allow for the roads to clear up, which were fine except for a few drifts that had blown into the highway.

Wyoming is one open valley after another, the horizons going on for dozens of miles to the north and south. There's a comfortable silence in the air between mountain ranges that calms any anxieties about driving through snowy passes. The elevation however was making me a little spacey but once we had been up that high, about nine thousand feet in some places, I started to adjust.

After crossing over the Great Divide Basin the elevation starts to go down a bit and from there it was only a couple of short hours before we hit Logan Canyon. Before you get into Logan Canyon you drive around the southern and western shores of Bear Lake which straddles the Utah/Idaho border.


Past the lake to the west is Logan Valley which houses the Cache National forest. The switch-backs on Rt. 89 that cut through the valley throw you into the humbling contrast of the snow covered peaks. It's a breath-taking drive that ends in Cache valley, bringing you to the eastern border of Logan.


We'll be here until Friday visiting more family and then we'll complete the last leg of the trip.

Through the seasons...

We made it up close to Macon Friday night and on into Nashville the following morning. We passed right by Atlanta on I-75 on the way there and I couldn't help smiling inside to myself thinking about how exciting the zombie apocalypse would be. For the first few days anyway.

Those first two days were shorter legs than we typically try cover. We planned it as such so that we could stop in Nashville and visit with Leslie's cousin Michelle, her husband Alex, daughter Mia and mother Barbara. We had some dinner in the hipster hub of Tennessee, a neighborhood near Vanderbilt college called 12 South. It was a fancy burger joint called "Burger Up" and it was stocked with as many thick black framed glasses (guilty as charged) and skinny jeans as you could stomach. They stock a great beer selection and some off beat burger creations. For myself I ordered the lamb burger with some kind of dill/mint mayo with a side of sweet potato fries and a frosty mug of Yazoo Dos Perros. I don't know if it was 'cause I was starving but the burger was outstanding and the beer had a perfect balance. It wasn't overloaded with hops like some micro brews can be. If you're passing through Nashville this place is worth checking out. It's not too far off of I-24 and there is plenty of street parking available. Fair warning though, you may end up waiting a bit for a table.

Enough drooling. Later on it was guys versus girls Trivial Pursuit and I'm sad to say that the guys were crushed, although it should be noted that we were outnumbered.

This morning we set off pretty early and made our way out through western Tennessee and on into Kentucky. We passed through a small southwestern corner of Illinois before crossing the entire width that is the vast nothingness of Missouri, with exception of St. Louis and Kansas City. We've stopped on the Iowa/Nebraska border for the night and will make our way over to Cheyenne, WY by (hopefully) early afternoon tomorrow. We've narrowly missed a snow-flurry system that's made it's way from eastern California on over to most of the western half of the country. If that doesn't slow us down tomorrow we'll be right on schedule.

Oh, and for some reason we didn't plan ahead when we packed our suitcase for this trip. I guess we became to complacent in the Florida weather and all that I have to wear for the next six days are a pair of jeans and a couple of T-shirts. The rest of what I brought is shorts and I have one hooded sweatshirt to keep shielded from the elements. Oh well...

Day 1 of 8

We're leaving Tampa today and heading as far north into Georgia as we can before ten o'clock or so. I'm going to try to post at least once a day during the trip out to Portland for anyone interested. We'll be making a few stops along the way to visit family and should land in Oregon next Friday some time.

A couple of things that I forgot to mention about Tampa. First, we went to the new location of the Dali museum in St. Pete's. The building was completed late in 2010 and open to the public just last month. The architecture stands out right away making for an appropriate prelude to the works inside. You can pay for a guided tour and hear all about Dali's life and evolution as an artist, or you can just read the plaques. Either way you can knock this one out in an afternoon and then tour around St. Pete's for a bit.


Second, I volunteered at Feeding America Tampa Bay a couple of days a week. This organization is truly an amazing effort and is so well organized. Donations are taken in from local grocery store chains and private contributors and are then assessed for quality, organized into categories and redistributed back into the community. It's technically a food bank but walking into this place is like being in a Costco sized warehouse full of donated food items. They have facilities in every state and you can find their locations through their main site linked above.




One last thing that I'll miss about Tampa - the Publix chain of grocery stores. Seriously, I know how lame it is to have a crush on a grocery store but what I'm going to miss most about it is their generic store brand. Not because the food is necessarily leaps and bounds beyond anything else out there. It's the graphic design on the packaging. Anyway, I know it's lame but there you have it.

Cigar City Pt. 2

Hello again and forgive me but I forgot to create links for the content in the last post so please feel free to revisit and click your heart out. We're still in Tampa with about a week and a half left before we head out again. This time it's back to Portland, OR for (hopefully) good. More specifically it's an area called Clackamas. Apparently the state of Oregon let their younger citizens make up nonsense words when they were naming their regions.

All kidding aside though, we've had a great time in Tampa. We hit up a couple more "must-see" spots around town since the last time I posted. Well for starters we spent a weekend in South Beach Miami which I know isn't in Tampa but hey -- we had to see what all the fuss was about. First note, be sure that you start a swear jar or a Roth IRA before traveling down there 'cause it's expensive with a capital "$". Secondly, don't waste your time paying vomit-inducing cover charges to any of the clubs or bars. All you have to do for entertainment is stroll up and down the A1A or S. Ocean Drive.

We took in a drag show that set up on the sidewalk next to the restaurant we were having dessert at. Fleets of trophy trucks and cars with names that I can't even pronounce cruised the over-crowded streets on Friday and Saturday night. We were never without about a thousand people watching opportunities and they all paid off.


I kinda felt like I was in high school and all the cool kids had been invited to some party that I didn't even know about. Aside from a little insecurity though we had a couple of great meals and the picture to the right here is what the inside of our hotel, the Penguin, looked like. We spent the afternoon on the beach on Saturday and poolside with our friends Mary and Jon on Sunday before we left.


Back in Tampa I should note a rather unusual attraction. On the east side, just outside of the city limits, is a coal burning power plant. Tampa Electric, just north of Apollo beach, expels water that's used in the production of electricity into Tampa Bay. During the winter months when the Gulf of Mexico is a bit too cold, manatees that would otherwise graze there shuffle over to a small inlet that hugs one side of the plant. This inlet is where the ejected water, heated after being used to cool machinery inside, comes out. The manatees take full advantage of this and loll about lazily and graze in what amounts to a several million gallon hot tub. There's a wooden walk way built up across from the plant and it's free for anyone who wants to stop by and check out about a hundred or so sea cows.

Oh and I almost forgot -- there's a Yuengling brewery in Tampa! I took a tour of the brewery with my dad when he visited. The tour is pretty standard but there's a small bar next to the gift shop with free samples of every brew that they make. I tried a double bock seasonal that I'd never heard of before, it was great!


That about does it. We've had a great time warming our thick blood down here but we're ready for more temperate climes. Next time I see you it will be on Pacific time.

Below the 30th Parallel

Hey there, coming at you from the Hillsborough county Laundromat. It’s a pleasant seventy-eight degrees down here today as it has been for most of our time down here so far. After Salisbury we shuffled on down south to Tampa, FL and just in time from what I hear. We spent Christmas day at Clearwater Beach just west of Tampa, and about as far west as you can get in this state. It’s true, the weather’s been kind to us but don’t think I didn’t get a little twinkle in my eye when I thought about how cozy the winters can be up north. There is a big part of me that misses being holed up in a warm living room with a hot beverage while the snow dances in the street lights outside.

So… well, back to Tampa where I haven’t worn long pants in at least two weeks (sorry folks). The first thing we heard about before coming here was the Gasparilla Pirate parade that happens every year in late January. A whole section of down town is shut down and a slew of pirates and other revelers begin their south to north march along the eastern border of the city. We expected a Mardi-Gras style spectacle with debauchery in the streets and hail storms of plastic beads. We scored some beads but the debauchery was a little tamer than the tales I’ve heard about the Big Easy celebration.



If you’ve been to any outdoor event that allows unchecked drinking throughout the course of a day (think Preakness, Bonnaroo, Hampden Mayor’s Christmas Parade and well -- Mardi-Gras) then you’re not too far off the mark for these festivities. Perhaps it’s just that I’m no longer of the target age for this breed of rabble-rousing but once you’ve had about a half dozen beers in the blazing sun anything can seem fun. The parade had some impressive floats and some great “Johnny Depp of the Carribean” costumes but the hype behind this event suggested an all out bedlam that on the day was at best PG-13.

In truth we kind of expected as much, but had heard that the real party started later after the parade in an area of Tampa called Ybor City. Ybor is an historic Cuban neighborhood that has a great selection of restaurants and bars. Like most cities Tampa, and Florida in general, has been hit pretty hard by the bursting of the real estate bubble. As a result there are there are tons of older buildings left empty. Ybor City has its share and most have been converted into all night dance clubs with lines wrapping around the block on any given Friday or Saturday night. Also, Ybor has a reputation for being the epicenter of rowdy good times in Tampa. That being said we, and by “we” I also include my good friend Shaun and his girlfriend Beth who were visiting that weekend and stayed in a hotel in Ybor, had mentally prepared ourselves for a marathon night of drinking and an all out ruckus. So we retired to 7th Avenue, the main drag in Ybor, and nested ourselves in a cantina overlooking the quaint brick sidewalks, convinced that we had the best vantage point for the night. After an hour or so of lackluster people watching, we drifted over to the New World Brewery, which turned out to be the highlight of the weekend.

If you have a chance to visit Tampa this bar is worth the whole trip. For my tastes this place is perfect and they have a free jukebox to boot. I have to say when I walk into a bar and the beer list that they hand out catches me off guard by its weight, then I’m resigned to spending the rest of the night there. I won’t gush too much about this place but as a nice distraction they offer a “Back to the Future” themed pinball machine and a variety of board games including “Simpson’s Trivia”. Needless to say the place is my version of a utopian watering hole.

The second place we heard so much about before landing in Cigar City was the Sponge Docks in Tarpon Springs. This Gulf side town gets its name from the booming sea-sponge industry that sprouted up in the early 1930’s. For some reason a huge contingent of Greek immigrants dominated this locale early on in the 20th century and pretty soon they figured out that you could make a decent living selling harvested sea sponges for a variety of uses, most notably in conjunction with cosmetic products. So not too surprisingly Greek culture flourishes here and you have your pick from any of the two-dozen or so Hellenic restaurants that all serve equally satisfying fare. You can also take short boat tours that take you out to the areas where the sponges are most frequently harvested from and learn all about how the methods have become more refined over the last eighty years, give or take. For a reasonable price you can purchase any variety of sponges that, so I’m told, have virtually infinite uses ranging from bath and beauty to household cleaning. We bought a couple, as it was hard to resist the charming sales staff, and I can attest to the effectiveness of what is known as a Silk Sponge that I use in the shower instead of a loofa.

Just south of Tarpon Springs is Clearwater Beach, about a half hour’s ride that takes you through Clearwater proper and then over to the small peninsula that is fringed on the west by the Gulf of Mexico.

Passing through Clearwater proper you might notice a building with a strangely familiar logo planted onto its forehead that faces the street. In the past couple of decades or so, and I’m paraphrasing, Clearwater is becoming to Scientology what Salt Lake City is (or was depending on who you talk to) to Church of Latter Day Saints. And apparently the Church of Scientology not only has a beautiful building that welcomes nearly any interested party but they also own a substantial cache of property in downtown Clearwater. Property that they rent out to restaurants and retail and on which they pay absolutely not taxes, being a church. The city of Clearwater, from what I’ve heard second and third hand, has a publicly discernible distaste for the church particularly during this recession when tax revenues from such auspicious real estate would greatly benefit the state government. I’ll get off my soapbox on that issue. I only include it to divulge some perspective regarding the local political culture.

To be continued...

Not missin' it

The weather that is. To get up to speed I have to jump over a wide hurdle of time that elapsed since that last post. After crashing in the 'Dena for the spring and summer we had plans to head up north. As far north in Maine as we could get to be more precise. Well that plan crumbled to dust and blew away as early fall settled in and before we could begin to plan our Halloween costumes we found ourselves whisked away to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in Salisbury.

This wasn't really what we had in mind when we decided to start traveling again after selling our house last April, but we made the best of DelMarValous. We made it out to Ocean City and the Delaware beaches as often as we could before the love of the sun crept too far toward the Tropic of Capricorn.

When we weren't being hypnotized by the elegant pull of ocean surf we spent most of our other weekends back in Baltimore. Although toward the end of Leslie's assignment we began attending trivia nights at the Green Turtle in Salisbury. This bar uses a company called "Let's Do Trivia" but there are several other equally reputable companies organizing trivia nights out there. This quickly became a moderate obsession and we have since (SPOILER ALERT!) found another company in Tampa, "Team Trivia", that operates out of a pizza joint called the Mellow Mushroom. It's a great way to flex your gray matter and find out at least a ball park figure for how much useless information you have up in the old noodle.

At any rate, we did happen to check out a few street festivals that occur during the fall and early winter in Ocean City. In September we had the displeasure of getting sucked into the annual Sun Fest which, unless you're in the market for living room decor gift ideas for your grandparents, isn't much more than an over-crowded and over-hyped excuse to buy turkey legs and snow cones.

Then, just before we left in December we experienced what some five year olds probably consider to be a blast when we witnessed the lack-luster Winterfest. The amount of marketing put out ahead of this event was enough to get our attention, particularly their claim that AOL listed Winterfest in the top ten for Christmas light displays in the country. This provokes me question either the validity of their claim or the reputation of AOL as a judge on fun and entertaining things to do. In short Winterfest is a ten minute ride in one of the famous (infamous) train vehicles that troll unabated up and down the boardwalk every summer. The train takes you around a small park that has animatronic displays of Christmas lights scattered throughout. Granted, some of the displays were creative but you could easily have the same experience for free driving around to any number of neighborhoods in your area to similar effect.

As the mercury continued to dive, we began the all too familiar process of packing up our essentials to prepare for a two day jaunt down to Tampa, FL. More on that to come...

Out of the past...

Being a royal procrastinator I've waited at least three months and change to post anything even remotely relevant to the history of Pasadena that I promised at the conclusion of the last entry. Needless to say there's not a wealth of exciting history flowing out the peninsula that's flanked by the Magothy river to the south and the Potomac to the north, yet its humble beginnings hold water in Baltimore's canon.

Like most early colonies in the country, Pasadena began as a series of farm land owned by early English settlers. For a long stretch of its early history farms were the dominant feature of the landscape, contrasted only by a few churches - one of which (Magothy United Methodist on Mountain Rd.) is still active today. It was this church specifically that drew any outside interest to the area. Families would come from as far away as what is now Dundalk and Middle River to attend services there every Sunday. These weekly pilgrimages provided the foundation of what was to become the resort industry in the late 1800's.

I'm jumping ahead though, still earlier it was the farms that took produce (at that time mostly strawberries, cantaloupe and tomatoes among others) to market at the Lexington and Cross St. markets. Roads had not been adequately developed for horse and carriage at this point therefore the most direct route to the city would have been by boat - up the Potomac, usually pushing off from what is now the east end of the Lake Shore area, and on into the Baltimore Harbor. It was this same trade route that later ushered in the Golden Age of Pasadena's resort allure.

As mentioned before, the families coming over for religious worship were some of the first "tourists" to the area. On weekends after church service families enjoyed some quality time on the beaches of what would later become Fort Smallwood park before returning to their respective homes. Along the way back from church these same families had a chance to sample some of the local produce and later on some sweet treats as well for the kiddos from the produce stand that later became Angel's market (still family owned and operated).

The Golden Age that I mentioned earlier was due in part largely to an interest to explore the fertile soil that provided richly flavored produce to the markets located in and around the Baltimore Harbor. Affluent families that could afford to began making their way down to Pasadena by boat on the weekends to get away from the hustle and bustle of blossoming industrialism. What these families began to discover was that the beaches on the north and eastern fringes of Pasadena were a calming respite from their frantic urban locales. Within a decade there were at least two steam boats regularly ferrying passengers to and from Pasadena from Baltimore Harbor every weekend.

These weekends were a time for families to enjoy day long picnics and swimming and later on, once the locals caught on, a chance for entertainment as well. On the grounds of what is now Fort Smallwood park large gazebos were built to serve not only as a stage for orchestrated music (mostly of the big-band, lazy summertime flavor) but also as a dance floor for the day trippers.

This continued on into the early dawn of the 20th century and relics such as Fort Smallwood park are a faded reminder of the weekend deferments favored by well-to-do's a mere hundred years past. It should also be mentioned that what became Riviera Beach also attracted wealthy investors from the north. Here however the idea was to build summer homes along what was then a fairly unpopulated area. These tracts of land were eventually subdivided to the Nth degree but along the water the views that lulled the hearts and deep pockets of successful businessmen still manage to hold a captivating audience.

It was at this time that automobiles became widely available and as a result better built roads. Residents of Pasadena were now able to find work in the city, making their way in on one of several bus companies. Produce also began to be shipped by truck up to Baltimore and down to Annapolis, eventually killing off the shipping industry that served the markets for better than a century.

Ironically it was the trucking industry that all but killed the farming standard in Pasadena. Refrigerated trucks brought exotic produce from southern states like North and South Carolina which began to dominate the produce markets in Baltimore. With the waning of its once main staple, Pasadena land began to be divided up and sold as individual lots by farmers who could no longer afford to keep up the broad swaths that had sustained them and their ancestors for so long.

This was the beginning of the suburbanization of what is now called Pasadena but back then was not known by any one moniker. There was the Lake Shore area, Jacobsville and later on Riviera Beach and Green Haven - names familiar to anyone that grew up there. It wasn't until a wealthy heiress came west from Pasadena, CA in the early 20th century to invest in what was at the time cheap land. She ended up buying in an area that Edwin Raynor boulevard now runs through and, possibly for a lack of originality, decided to name her slice of the pie after her hometown. Later on when the United States Postal Service was mapping out zip codes for a more efficient delivery service it was Pasadena that was chosen by committee.

The rest of the history of the 21122 outpost leading into the present day is akin to most suburban narratives. Better schools, better roads, a direct route by way of highway route 100 from either routes 95 or 295, chain fast food restaurants, Lauer's (my high school employment alma-mater) to name a few. You can still hit a few produce stands that are run by local agrarian die-hards and boating and jet skiing are a way of life during the summer months for most residents. If you ever have a chance while in Baltimore city you can look almost directly south by south east to see the mammoth twin smoke stacks (now defunct) rising out of the melee that are rooted in the Baltimore Gas and Electric power plant - that's us.