Tampa/St. Petersburg Fla.

  7/23/11; 10:06:34 AM by AC
  Today's post comes to you from the Mongrove right in front of the RV at yet another excellent KOA campground in St. Petersburg Florida. It's absolutely beautiful here and I admit that I'm liking awakening in nature more every day. The wake-up process is completely organic, with the natural progression of sunlight slowly bringing us out of our comas back into 'reality'. It beats an alarm clock any day :-)
  Yesterday's journey took us from about an hour north of Jacksonville down I-95 into Florida. Of course we stopped at the state line on the interstate for an obligatory free cup of fresh Florida orange juice at the 'Welcome Center' to celebrate the crossing :-)
  John had recommended we stop in St. Augustine, so we opted for the longer route toward Daytona beach in order to make the visit. Arriving around lunchtime, we received several recommendations for food through the tweeters. We chose the A1A Ale House, right on the bay for some great seafood and locally brewed beers. Outstanding.
  The rest of the town appears to be overwrought with tourist attractions. Yet another 'touring tram', this time in the form of a red train streamed through the sreets. Plenty of gaudy shops to buy more crap no one needs, but we found our way to the historic old part of town and Ms Micky spent about 30 minutes taking pictures for her architecture collection.
  We had a meetup planned at 7:30 at Producer Nico de Haan's house in St. Pete, and we thought we would be able to make it with time to spare. Of course we didn't consider traffic on the I-95 on a Friday evening passing Orlando. That really sucked big time. Stop and go for 30 miles until the jam finally let up. Luckily the weather cooled down somewhat thanks to the typical post 3pm rain shower, which also made for some spectacular sun/lightning/cloud formations to marvel at.
  Somewhere in the past week I picked up a head cold, which konked me out after the traffic, prompting Ms. Micky to take over for the remaining 3 hours drive.
  I was jolsted out of my nap by an 'oh shit' from her. Apparently running google latitude and the GPS on Android while plugged into the 12volt cigar lighter doesn't actually charge your battery fast enough to keep up with the power drain and the the Samsung died on her just as the route and road changes got interesting.
  I plugged in the power inverter, plugged the phone charger into it and reboorted. Just in time to veer off towards Nico and Ellen's house.
  Nico de Haan is ducth by birth, emigrated to Canada just after the second world war and married his American bride 16 years ago. His is a martial arts expert, personal trainer, and host of an extremely interesting podcast, Living a Primal Lifestyle. I was floored when he told me he is 67. He is more in shape than I am, and almost as handsome :-)
  They had opened their home to us for a meetup, and we were joined by Sir Andrew Greene and his girl Amanda, Gitmo Slave and Chad Laston. We had beers, red wine, ribs and wings, all poolside unde the cooling breeze of tropical ceiling fans. Since this was a smaller group than our other meetups, we were able to have a great chat about the No Agenda 'tribe' and our dreams of 'just getting by'.
  We'll be staying at the camp ground through tomorrow, although we're planning to drive back to Nico and Ellen's place to take advantage of the wifi for Sunday's show, as well as the post show dip in the pool. Ms Micky will broadcasting live with GitmoSlave poolside as well.
  From there it looks like we're headed towards New Orleans, but you never know :-)
  Yesterday's route, with a gap due to failed interwebs