Category Road Trips

Even though I have only been off for four days it feels like longer due to just how jammed pack those days have been.  On Wednesday night we did some prep for the arrival of the appliances that was scheduled for Thursday.  We got the microwave off the wall after a lot of hassle.  My brief internet research said the wall bracket for the microwave is basically just a lip the back end sits on.  Once the top two bolts are removed it should lift off easily.

Well after removing the bolts I was able to get the microwave to tip down but not pull free from the bracket.  Evidently Maytag for some reason has some additional thin side arms that slide into the microwave that were preventing me from pulling it free.  After a lot of grunting and awkwardly holding the unit by both Cindy and myself I finally got it off the wall. After that frustrating episode we deemed our appliance removal as good enough for the night.

The appliance installers had an install window between 9:30 and 1:30, a wide window.  We were hoping they would arrive early which would allow us to be able to still drive to the east coast in the evening to pick up the new Tacoma.  Cindy left early for her middle school track coaching gig so I got busy doing more appliance removal.  Our purchase at Home Depot supposedly included free installation of the stove and fridge.  The dishwasher and microwave had an extra charge.  I paid to have the dishwasher installed but not for the microwave.  Regardless the delivery/installer services should include pulling the old appliances out.  Well to expedite things I wanted to get the removal out of the way ahead of time.

I was able to get the old stove and dishwasher out to the garage with the help of my handtruck.  I removed the front handles on the fridge but waited for Cindy to get home to get it moved outside due to it’s heavy weight and tight clearance with the front door.  I had already put all of the freezer items in our coolers.  All of the fridge stuff was on the counter.  Once we got the fridge back in the garage we plugged it right back in and put the food back in there for safekeeping until the new Samsung refrigerator was in place.

Just as we were finishing up moving the food to the garage the installers showed, close to the start of their installation window which was awesome.  Both of the guys were very nice and surprised we did the prep work that normally falls on their shoulders.  They wasted no time getting busy.

The install went smoothly.  It was my time to be pleasantly surprised that they installed the new microwave as well, despite me not paying the extra money for the installation.  When we pulled the fridge out it revealed the plastic outlet cover was broken from overly aggressive fridge pushing over the years.  I ran out to the nearby hardware store and got a metal replacement.  By the time I got back home everything but the new fridge was in place.

The installers said in order to get the new fridge in it would be best to pop the hinges on the front door which was easier said than done.  The top two pins came out easily but the bottom pin was tough for them since you can’t get a good swing of a hammer on it.  Some determination and WD-40 eventually broke it loose.  I helped the one guy cart the new fridge although he did most of the grunt work.  My primary role was to make sure the doors stay closed.  Before long they had the fridge up and running.  Both of the guys were really friendly, helpful, and professional.  We gave them whatever cash we had as a tip.

After they left Cindy and I spent a lot of time just admiring our new kitchen hardware.  We liked the contrast with the white cabinets as well as the way it complemented the granite which has a lot of black.  The fridge was especially cool.  Over the weekend Cindy did several reworks of the layout trying to figure out the best way to utilize the large amount of additional space it has.  I had a big pile of manuals on the counter to look through so I had a basic understanding of how all the bells and whistles work.

So I contacted the Delray Toyota dealer and let them know that I indeed would be able to pick up the new truck that evening.  We set a tentative time of 6PM, plenty of time for them to get it all prepped and ready to go.  However before we left Cindy had a dentist appointment in the afternoon.  The plan was for me to take her there so we could leave immediately afterward to save time.  While Cindy was in the chair I ran to the credit union to pull some cash and stopped at Walmart to grab some safety pins for the race I was timing Saturday.

When we left Naples I figured we had plenty of time to get to Delray which according to the GPS should take about 2 hours.  What I didn’t give any thought to was the time of day we were making the trip.  We got onto I-95 right in the heart of rush hour which was miserable.  We had no choice but to sit in stop and go traffic for long periods of time which made the drive 30-45 minutes longer than expected.

Our GPS got us right to the door of the dealership which was visually impressive and huge.  We walked inside the massive showroom and soon met up with Owen, the sales guy assigned to delivering the vehicle.  Up until that point I had dealt with a guy named Tony on the phone and via email as he is the guy assigned to all internet/Costco leads.  Owen was an older, relaxed man with a pleasant demeanor, certainly not the prototypical car salesman template.

After a much needed bathroom break I asked Owen if we could first take the truck for a test drive.  Despite the foregone conclusion I was buying a new Tacoma I had not actually sat behind the wheel of one, I just assumed I would like it.  Owen walked us out the side door where the truck was waiting for us.  It looked awesome in it’s Inferno Orange color scheme.  Cindy had to jump in the back of the access cab which isn’t too bad for someone of her dimensions while Owen rode shotgun.

As I slid into the driver seat for the first time I could not believe how big the truck felt.  It felt tons bigger than my 99 Tacoma, almost as big as a full size truck thanks to the large and in charge hood design.  It feels bigger because it actually is bigger in every dimension.  It’s longer, wider, and sits higher.

I immediately loved the interior complete with the high tech info center that was equipped.  It had all the bells and whistles.  This was a pretty big thing for me.  Yea I had bought a total of 4 new vehicles in my lifetime but the only other time I bought one 100% based on what I wanted was my Pontiac Sunfire GT after my first divorce.  It felt sort of surreal.

The big size of the truck felt a bit disorienting.  Plus I found myself distracted checking out all of the feedback the truck gives you through the two screens, one in the radio position and another integrated into the instrument cluster.  The test drive was a couple miles at most but it was enough to convince me I made a good choice.  Cindy shared my enthusiasm for the truck, she thought it was awesome in pretty much every way.

So when we got back it was time to run some numbers.  This deal was unconventional in several ways.  Not only did I have to drive to the other side of the state to find a Costco affiliated dealer, I had no idea exactly what the truck would cost me since they will not pull out the Costco pricing book until you are inside the dealership.  So Owen brings out the book and we begin the negotiation process which again happens in reverse to what is normal.

Normally you start at the marked up price a dealer has on a vehicle which usually includes their addendum sticker and work down from there.  In our case we started down way low at the Costco member price which according to the book was 1100 under INVOICE, not MSRP, INVOICE.  So I had all of my internet pricing info with me so I immediately knew the invoice pricing they were listing was a little inflated but not much.  However from that number there were additions for stuff like floor mats, nitro filling the tires, and title/tag work which of course were dramatically inflated in pricing.  In addition there was a $799 dealer fee that Owen said was added to every vehicle they sell.  When I asked him what exactly that was for he said prep but admitted that of course there was additional profit taking in there.

So even with this subtraction followed by addition, the out the door pricing was much, much better than any number any other Toyota dealer offered.  They started their pricing at MSRP plus since the Tacomas have been selling very well with the new redesign of the truck this model year.  When I started doing my research I assumed I would be lucky to just get the truck for MSRP.  Even with the overpriced add ons I was still well under MSRP and able to very easily swing into my financial wheelhouse.  Even so I asked Owen if he could do a little better for me.  When he came back with a price 250 bucks less that was good enough, we agreed to the deal and moved on to stage 2.

So I had all my financing in place so I hoped our visit to the F&I guys office would be brief.  Even with my own financing and turning down all the extended warranties and other profit padding options we were in there for a while.  There seems to be a lot more paperwork involved than when I sold cars.  I was signing and initialing for quite a long time.  After we were done it took awhile to track down Owen so we could head out.  He had already attached the license plate and gave me a brief run down of the vehicle although I probably knew as much as he did based on my extensive internet research ahead of time.

When we left the dealership we were both starving and hit a nearby Chipotle to fuel up.  By the time we left the east coast it was quite late.  At least the traffic situation was much better.  The disorientation with the new truck continued on the way home.  It’s bigger dimensions made me feel unsure of my position in a lane.  Once we got back out onto Alligator Alley things were fine.  We didn’t pull back in the driveway until after 11PM, much later than I was expecting.  The garage was in no shape to house the new Tacoma with the old appliances residing there.  Cindy and I planned on working on alternatives over the weekend.  As we were laying in bed we could hardly believe that we got new appliances and a new vehicle, on the east coast no less, the same day.

On Friday I kept busy around the house for a good portion of the day.  Cindy had a fitness class to teach.  I told her to take the new Tacoma since she hadn’t had a chance to drive it yet.  She gave the truck a glowing report card as well.  One of the things I did was list the old appliances on Craigslist, hoping to quickly sell them to reclaim garage space.  I had exactly zero responses from the ad.  Used appliances on CL are a dime a dozen.  I followed up later on in the weekend posting on a local FB yard sale group and at least got some possible interest but as of now all of the appliances are out there.  Although I would like to get a little bit of money to offset the expense if we don’t move them within the next week I have no problem donating them as well.

I also needed to do prep for the race I was timing Saturday.  During the day I met up with John to pick up one of his generators.  The race finish line location had no nearby power available.  I also picked up Sadie for an extended visit while Ali and her boyfriend are up in PA.  I chose to do both of these things in the old Tacoma.  I figured I may as well try to keep the 2016 Tacoma as pristine as possible while I can.

On Saturday morning Cindy and I awoke to the 4:30 alarm clock.  Cindy actually had a track meet she had to attend but she agreed to follow me to the race to help me get as much equipment set up as she could.  The inflatable arch is particularly difficult to get set up solo.  I punched in the address for the race that was on the entry form which took us into the Immokalee Airport access road.  We saw noone around so I called the race director.  He said he was 5 minutes behind me and would be there soon.  We sat for another 10 minutes without seeing him so I called again.  He said he was now there but did not see us.  He described a park where the race was held which was nowhere in sight.  We came back out of the park and used his verbal guidance to get to the right spot.

So the location confusion cost us valuable time since Cindy had to leave asap.  We hustled and got the arch up and running off the generator and most of the other finish line equipment in place before Cindy had to head out.  The morning had a hectic start and it only escalated from there.  The location of the finish line was not good.  It was staged on the main road used for vehicles to park.  I had cars coming back and forth the entire time before the race.

At one point while I was setting more equipment up I heard the generator start to sputter.  Just as I thought to myself, “it better not die”, it of course did, sending the arch quickly to the ground as yet another vehicle was approaching.  I ran over to the generator and realized I did not have the vent on the gas cap turned to the ON position which caused it to shut down.  After opening the vent the generator fired back up on the first pull and was fine the rest of the event. The registration area was at least a couple hundred yards from the finish line which was problematic as well.  I had to go back and forth several times to do data entry while trying to finish the equipment set up at the same time.   I definitely wished I had Cindy there to help me.

So with the vehicle traffic constantly going through the finish line before the race I wasn’t going to put the timing mats in place for a chip start.  The field of runners was small so using just gun time wasn’t a big deal.  As the race was getting ready to start the race director came up and made some announcements on my bullhorn.  He then asked me if I had a starters gun we could use to start the race.  I told him no but the bullhorn had a siren we could use.  I showed him how to start it, assuming he would start the event.  Instead he asked me if I could start the race since he was going to run the race as well. Um ok.  Of course he didn’t realize that I already had a clipboard, my atomic watch, and a stopwatch I utilize when starting a race.  Trying to awkwardly work the siren was not going to be a good thing.  I managed to get the race started in a rather clumsy manner.

So once the runners cleared I had to quickly get the timing mats in place but I had to get the race clock set first.  I had some issues getting it set just right but eventually got it working. I then jumped on the laptop where I have to do stuff like set the time on the timing box.  I was getting no response.  A quick diagnosis revealed that the USB ethernet adapter seemed to not be working.  My only option was to power off the laptop and bring it back up.  By the time I got it back up I getting close to crunch time time-wise.  I quickly set the time on the Ipico box and got everything up and running literally seconds before the first young kid crossed.

So as I started looking at my finish line time reports I noticed something was wrong.  The times on the report were almost a minute more than they should be??  WTF…   So I started to try to figure out the problem.  This was my first timing with the Ipico equipment in roughly a year so I wondered if I missed a step.  Part of the process is setting the time on the laptop to match the time on my atomic synched watch.  The laptop time is then used to set the time on the timing box.  I had set the time on the laptop to match my watch before the race.  Well somehow my shutting off the laptop had caused the time to fall out of synch by almost a minute so I set the time on the box with the incorrect time, causing the problem.  I was luckily able to apply an offset to the finish times to correct the problem.  I was glad I had my new security dvr there to allow me review the time the race winner crossed the line so I could determine exactly how much offset I needed.

The security dvr system also came in handy for environmental conditions.  The way I was facing the rising sun was directly in my face.  The large 27 inch monitor I have attached to the DVR served as a sunvisor.  I spent much of the race ducked down behind it so I could see.

So in the end all of the race results worked out without anyone realizing just how much scrambling I was doing behind the scenes to make it happen.  It also revealed some weak links in my GMT race equipment.  My $149 Asus laptop is going to need to be swapped with something more substantial and I need to get more adept at setting the race clock.  Clean up from the event took FOREVER with me doing it solo.  I bet I spent damn close to an hour just tearing down and putting everything back in the truck.  I pulled off site mentally and physically tired.  Just as a final exclamation point on the morning, I had a hell of a time getting back on Immokalee Road due to a farmers parade going down Main Street.  I probably spent 15 minutes finding a route around it.

By the time Cindy got home I had already finished unloading all of the equipment and had started on post race work like posting results and ripping finish line video.  After we ate lunch turned our attention to the garage.  At first I had given up hope on keeping the new Tacoma housed in the garage.  It’s bigger dimensions would not allow it to fit where the SSR resided.  Initially Cindy’s suggestion of changing the layout of the shelves in there, which meant removing them, was not appealing to me since I hate losing storage options.  However the more I thought about it the more open I was to it.

We first had to get the old appliances moved to the opposite wall as they were sitting where the Tacoma would go.   We then started pulling stuff out of the garage.  Of course this was also an opportunity to purge some shit.  I had a bunch of maintenance items like transmission fluid, air/oil filters, oil and other stuff that were needed for the maintenance of the old Tacoma and the SSR.  Obviously I had no need for these anymore so we deposited them by the curb for someone else to use.  Like I said almost everything was unopened.  We moved some shelves around and completely removed others.  The non-Tacoma side of the garage looked like a mess.

After we got done we did a test park with me backing into the space.  I fit fine but it was tedious backing in there.  We discovered that I could pull in forward and still have enough room to get out of the door once I raised an adjustable shelf on the wall, awesome.  Cindy came up with the good idea to utilize the wall space where the shelf use to reside for extra pegboard space, something I have been in dire need of for many years.  We stopped at that point since we were going to a sweet 16 birthday party for Cindy’s niece.

Even though I knew sweet 16 parties existed I never attended one and I never knew anybody that had one.  I was surprised at the size and scope of it all.  It almost seemed like a mini-wedding reception.  It was held at a cool little marina that I never knew existed.  Of course we cruised there in the new Tacoma.  By Saturday I was finally feeling adjusted to the different driving dimensions and was comfortable on the road.

The party was very cute.  Cindy’s niece is a terrific young lady with a bight future in front of her for sure.  Cindy’s daughter and mom were there as well so we got to hang with them to varying degrees.  We also got to meet Cindy’s brother’s girlfriend who was very nice as well.  I chilled out with four beers to take the edge off.  After the prior three days of go go go it felt good to just sit and chill for a bit.

Despite our high activity level up to that point, Sunday morning Cindy and I decided to get out and run, something that just has not happened on a consistent level for a long time.  We put in a little over 3 miles at the track.  With my lack of running of course I never felt comfortable the entire time but at least I got it done.

When we got home we loaded up Sadie for a ride.  I needed to stop at Home Depot to get stuff to expand the pegboard and a few other things.  Going there when we have Sadie is so much more fun now that we found out she is allowed to shop with us.  The 4×8 piece of pegboard hung out over the edge of the old Tacoma but was held in place by the weight of three bags of mulch pretty securely. We took the old Tacoma, trying to spare the 2016 from unnecessary dirt and labor until necessary.

Most of the remaining daylight hours of Sunday were spent out in the garage getting the new pegboard up.  I had some challenges along the way due to inconsistent stud placement on that wall but I worked around it.  In addition we built a small shelf/table to get back some of the storage capability we lost.  We also hung a tennis ball on a string parking aid we found at HD to make pulling the new Tacoma in far enough a no brainer.  We were both quite pooped when our day’s labor came to an end.  We now are quite anxious to get the old appliances out of there so we can again welcome the Prius back into the garage as well.

Like I mentioned earlier, we had a bunch of stuff by the road to give away.  Late in the day Cindy noticed like it looked like it was scattered.  We walked down there and saw a big freaking mess.  Some idiot ran off the side of the road and into the various bottles of automotive products.  In particular it looked like he squarely ran over one of the full bottles of tranny fluid, causing it to spray all over the other items, ruining them.  The only good news I could see was the spray pattern included a good portion of the road as well so I hope the asshole has transmission fluid dissolving his paint as we speak.

Of course I would be remiss to not mention the celebrity deaths over the weekend.  Chyna, one of the first big name female WWE stars died at the young age of 45.  Her death was quickly overshadowed by the shocking death of Prince who was 57, far outside of normal dying range.  It sounds like there are some odd circumstances in the week or two leading up to his death which I am sure will be beaten to death in the media.  Regardless of how it happened he was an extremely talented performer and musician that in my book gave Michael Jackson a run for his money.  I hate being old enough that famous people I grew up with that aren’t that much than older me are dying off. RIP Prince (and Chyna).

I also have forgot to mention my thoughts about the Eagles big move, trading what many (including myself) think was too much to move from the number 8 position to number two in the upcoming NFL draft.  The team is presumably going to pick one of the top two projected QB ‘s in the draft and at this point it seems it will be the kid from North Dakota, Carson Wentz.  This move concerns me on several levels.

If the Eagles were already holding the number 2 pick and wanted to draft the kid I guess I would be ok with it.  To be successful every team needs a franchise QB eventually and the Eagles don’t think they have one currently on their roster.  I agree with them.  However to trade 5 picks to move down 6 spots to get this kid seems really, really stupid.  How often do early pick QB’s fall on their face?  The answer is all the time.  More of them fail than succeed.  To compound that, they are giving this up for a QB that played at a small school that faces a competition level far less than bigger programs go up against.  Expecting him to jump from that scenario to play in the NFL where the talent level is magnified many times over seems like a stretch to me.  When you factor in giving up all those picks it all just makes little sense to me.

Last year when Chip Kelly made all of those questionable moves, I said I thought they were bad decisions (which they obviously were), but I hoped he would prove me wrong.  Once again I am hoping Howie Roseman turns out to be some sort of super genius and Carson Wentz proves to be the Eagles franchise QB for the next decade or more but I have a bad feeling it’s not going to be the case and cost us dearly in future draft talent to boot.

On Saturday morning Cindy was coaching at her first track meet, leaving me alone to run wild at the house.  I did a number of chores around the house including having all four of my cleaning robots running simultaneously scrubbing/vacuuming all of the flooring.  I then decided I was going to head out to Home Depot.

Cindy and I decided we were going to add an extra level of castle stone to the landscaped border around the pool.  We are both sick and tired of the chickens going into the area and kicking the rubber mulch out into the grass.  It has become a constant see saw of work.  So our thought was adding the second layer of stone would be enough of a wall to deflect their shrapnel back into the bed where it belongs.

Cindy had counted and we needed a little more than 90 of the 12 inch stones to do the second layer (we already had bought a few).  I had bought these stones in bulk once before and just had them bring them out on a pallet which I requested once again.  The immense weight immediately bottomed out the Tacoma’s suspension.  I am sure I was well over the posted maximum payload of 1700 pounds.  I drove very conservatively on the way home.

On the drive home my cell phone rang from an Oregon number.  It was a guy named Al that was calling about the SSR.  He had not seen the ad on Craigslist.  In fact he didn’t see any ads at all.  He was called about it from one of the main guys from SSR Fanatics.  On Friday I decided to also post my truck on their forum for sale.  I didn’t expect a lot from the posting but obviously I was wrong.  Al was called because the SSRF guy (Dick) knew he was looking for a 6 speed truck.    So anyway Al said he could leave Cape Coral right away to come see the truck so I told him to come on down.

When he showed up I was a bit shocked to see ANOTHER SSR parked in the driveway.  I had no idea he already had an SSR, a 2004 with a slick custom paint job.  He actually has owned his truck for 4 or 5 years but he was interested in a 6 speed.  Since Dick has met me and worked on my truck at a few of the meet ups he personally vouched for my truck, letting Al know it was nice.

Al was like the vast majority of SSR owners I have met, of retirement age and very nice.  Of course I didn’t have to give him a walk through of the truck like I did last week since he was already very familiar with the vehicles obviously.  When I told him some of the upgrades I had done like the LS7 Corvette clutch swap he knew exactly what it was and why it was a good thing.  We went on a decent test drive and he confirmed he liked the truck, just like Dick said he would.  Unlike last week where the buyer was all about lowballing, Al was fine paying my asking price, his background as a SSR owner made my price fair to him when compared to other trucks out there.

After the test drive Al hung at the house for quite awhile talking with Cindy and I.  Most of the conversation was not SSR related at all, just exchanging snippets of our background.  Al has been retired since he was 55 and spends 3 months out of the year living on his boat in Oregon.  It sounded like he was very fortunate the way things fell in place for him when retirement came around and he was grateful for it.  So we got around to making plans for the sale.  He left me a check for a deposit and said to call him Sunday after he checked his calendar to see when we could do the sale.

We worked it out that I am leaving work early today to get it all done.  I brought the SSR to work and will be driving it to Al’s house with Cindy following me in the Tacoma.  We will then leave the truck there and head to the bank and DMV office to finalize the paperwork.  It will feel weird for sure to walk away from the R but it is offset by getting much more money for it than I was willing to accept a few days prior.  It’s funny how things work out.  It’s also funny that Al will have two SSR’s in his driveway until he manages to sell his 2004. 🙂

After Al left I wasted little time heading outside to work on the 2nd level of our castle stone border.  Cindy and I first unloaded all of the stones, putting them in place on the wall where they would go.  It was only temporary as I needed to go stone by stone and reset both the first and second layer.  When I originally put the castle stone in place I just used the sandy soil as the base under the wall.  Over time areas of the wall have shifted as a result.  A good number of the stones had a slight downward facing angle which looked shitty.

Along with the pallet of stone I also bought 6 bags of substrate normally used under a paver installation.  The substance was basically very small stones, designed to give a firm base to support the blocks.  I began a very arduous process of pulling up each and every stone and re-leveling it, using the stone base to provide support.  It was not enjoyable as you can imagine.  Most of the work required me to be on my knees which gets painful very quickly.  I just kept my blinders on and focused on getting done.  Before I called it quits for the day I had about 75% of the wall complete which was cool.

We cleaned up and headed out to Germain arena for an Everblades game.  We had not gone to see the local minor league hockey team for a couple years.  I saw it was Star Wars night so I thought it would be fun to go.  When we got there the parking lot was pretty full, something we arent used to with the sparsely attended Tarpons games we are used to.

As we walked up to the ticket window I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw signs on the window saying SOLD OUT. WTF?  Germain seats between 5000-6000 people I could hardly believe the game would be sold out.  Cindy and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders.

Just as we were ready to start walking back to the parking lot a couple behind us stopped us.  The man said he had spare tickets and we could have a couple of them.  I told him I would gladly pay for them.  He said to not worry about it they were already paid for by his business.  Cindy and I could hardly believe our good fortune.  When we got inside I tried to repay their kindness to at least a small degree by buying the guy a beer.  It’s always nice to confirm that not all people are assholes.

Now I am the farthest thing from a hockey fan you can get but it was still fun to be at a live game.  I downed a couple large Shocktop drafts to help up the fun level.  We also enjoyed chowing down on our standard arena menu of pizza, a soft pretzel and roasted nuts.  At the end of the second period Cindy wasn’t feeling great after downing her alcoholic cider.  The home team was down 2-0 at that point.  I told Cindy I was fine heading out and although she didn’t want to be the impetus to leave I could tell she liked the idea.  After thanking the couple once again for their generosity we headed out.  I saw later the Everblades wound up losing 2-1.

On Sunday morning there was no way I felt like running/riding after the block work Saturday afternoon.  Plus I wanted to take advantage of the cooler morning temperatures to finish up the wall.  Of course I was just a little short of what I needed to finish so Cindy and headed out for yet another Home Depot trip.  We grabbed more castle stone as well as 12 more border stones that looked like smaller cousins of castle stone.  We wanted to lay them down as a test in the rock border area to see how they look.  Unfortunately the chickens have no problems kicking small river rock out of a landscape bed either.  Cindy has been putting the displaced stones back in place several times a week.  Surprisingly the chickens don’t listen when we ask them to stop scratching in those areas. 🙂

When we got back I finished up the main wall.  Both Cindy and I liked the finished product and we have not seen any projectile mulch clear the wall since it was extended.  We laid down the smaller stone border on a small section of the river rock bed and it looked good.  Although it is significantly smaller than castle stone in height we are thinking it should be high enough to block the stones since they won’t fly as far as mulch.

I was pooped from the labor that covered portions of both days of the weekend.  Late in the afternoon I decided to finally get to making a video that told the story regarding my drone prosecution.  Although I kept the video pretty in the middle, not trash talking the NPS tactics as much as I could have, I wanted to get a video out there shining a light on what happened.  Perhaps the same ranger that thought it was fair game to ruin my Xmas holiday will stumble across this video as well.  Hopefully it makes him sleep better at night.

The video is about 15 minutes long.  I don’t believe I have ever talked at that length on film at one shot.  As expected there are some stumbles along the way but all in all I give a pretty clear outline of what went down and why I feel it was handled poorly.

It gets dark earlier significantly earlier in NYC than it does in Naples, meaning heading over to the Empire State building around 5:15 meant we had complete darkness to view the NYC nighttime skyline.  We were glad that 5:15 on a Tuesday is apparently a good time to go, we had very minimal lines to deal with.  This was the first attraction on our “Explorer Pass” that didn’t work smoothly.  You were supposed to just scan it at the turnstile and walk in.  Instead we had to get walked over to the regular ticket window to get conventional tickets.

The view up top was cold, windy and awesome.  I was glad that we did the Top of the Rock tour during the day to contrast what we saw at night.  Even though the daytime view gives a better scope of the immensity of the greater NYC area, the nighttime view is definitely visually more interesting.  A number of the buildings, including Empire State were lit up in a holiday appropriate way which was very cool to see.

There are two observation decks in the building, one at floor 86 and another at 110.  After seeing all of the stuff at 86 we figured we would hop on the elevator to go up to 110.  I was a bit annoyed to find out that the 30 bucks plus per head you pay does not include a ride up to 110, that costs extra.  I thought it was sort of bullshit. It is also something that is not well communicated.  I saw numerous people like us, assuming their ticket got them all the way to top, only to be told they would need to open their wallets again to get there.  Cindy and I agreed we saw what we wanted to see and headed back downstairs.

They had a lot of displays regarding the recent retrofitting they did to the building to make it dramatically more energy efficient.  They actually removed every single window in the structure and replaced the glass with a variety that is 4 x more energy efficient.  They made a ton of other changes that add up to energy savings of over a million dollars a year, impressive. The entire building is impressive.  Everywhere you look there are expensive surfaces and intricate attention to detail.  There was much more marble on the walls than paint.

I got the idea to head up to the Bryant Park area which was only 4 blocks north of us.  I recalled they transformed the park for Christmas the last time I was there and it was very cool.  I was happy to see the transformation was once again in place.

They fill the park with a bunch of temporary structures that are filled with unique food and crafts vendors.  They also construct a giant ice skating rink in the middle of the park that is heavily utilized, even when the temps are up in the 50’s.

Cindy and grabbed some very tasty veggie burgers from one of the stands for dinner.  I also showed Cindy the two outdoor ping pong tables that I found so intriguing in my past trips to NYC.  We were sitting there watching a game when a nice black guy came over named David who filled us in on how it works.  He said after a certain point in the calendar they don’t have free paddles available for people to borrow to play with, you have to bring your own.  Cindy and I were both surprised when he offered to let Cindy borrow one of his to play with.

I told Cindy I was in no shape to play with my painful, swollen knees but she should play anyway.  David and her got to play once the in progress game finished up.

The outdoor tables are funny with a metal “net” that is suitable to outdoor conditions.  The lighting also is not fantastic so I imagine it makes play a bit tougher.  David was surely a very good player but Cindy did well once she adjusted a little bit to the conditions.  She lost but they had a lot of good rallies that were entertaining to watch.

We thanked David for his generosity and for playing a game with Cindy.  He was just one of the examples of the bizarre dichotomy I find in New York.  When you are on the subway or walking the congested sidewalks it seems like the city is filled with nothing but stoic sour pusses.  However when you actually open up a line of communication with most people they are actually some of the friendliest and interesting you can find anywhere.

I also commented to Cindy how the obesity rate in NYC has to be incredibly below the national average.  Nearly everyone you see appears to be walking around at a healthy weight.  I can only assume the hustle and bustle of New York which requires copious amounts of walking is the major factor in this healthy trend.  It is really a dramatic difference from most places I have been.

I stumbled across an impromptu juggling lesson they also had at the park.  There was a decent rectangular plot of grass filled with juggling balls and clubs along with lots of people juggling them.  I did a couple quick standard juggling sessions while Cindy recorded it.  It was totally random, totally unexpected, and totally cool. We walked around Bryant park some more before calling it a night.  Cindy and I still were feeling  pretty beat up from the Sunday workout compiled with all the walking we had done the last few days.

This morning we grabbed breakfast at a different cafe on the other side of the street.  Just like every dining experience we had during the trip, it was great.  When we got back to the room we worked on getting all of our luggage consolidated and ready to go.  We had a couple hours to kill so I thought it would be neat to take Cindy to the southern end of Central Park, we only saw a small portion of the northern section the other day.

The temperature was very pleasant for walking, right around the mid-50’s.  We saw just a small portion of the numerous awesome treasures housed inside the park.  The coolest was the the Bethesda Fountain and Terrace. Wow.

The ornate architecture in every square inch of this area is amazing.  Cindy was open mouthed at just how beautiful it all was.  I never saw this area myself.  I felt quite lucky that we just happened to stumble across it as we walked along, what luck.  You could easily spend an entire day doing nothing but exploring the park, there is just so much beauty in there.

It was also cool seeing all the runners and bikers snaking through the park.  We actually packed stuff to run but there was just no way I could do it with the swelling going on in both of my knees.  I felt bad because I know Cindy would have loved to get a couple miles in around the park.

We kept an eye on the clock, making sure we got back to the room before the noon checkout time. We made it with time to spare since at this point we were more adept at utilizing the subway system effectively.  After checking out we took advantage of the hotels bag hold service where they will keep an eye on your bags until you are actually ready to leave.

We walked up 35th street in a different direction than we had so far.  We wound up eating lunch at a very cool chain called Pret A Manger.  The staff there was incredibly nice and the place does an incredible thing.  Each and every night they use any of their left over food to provide free meals for others instead of reusing it or throwing it out.  They even gave Cindy a free desert, just because they felt like giving it to her.

We decided to make one more trip up to Bryant Park to see whatever we missed the night before.  Despite the constant light rain we circled around checking stuff out.  We watched the people skating for a little while.  Cindy and I both zoomed in on an older guy in a full suit that was circling the ice with ease.  Cindy said she bet the guy used to be a hockey player.

About 15 minutes later we decided to head back.  Who did we happen to run into but the old guy in the suit with his skates in a bag.  Cindy told him he was a great skater and asked if he played hockey.  The guy smiled and said he did indeed play hockey.  He was quite appreciative that we noticed his skill out on the ice.

When we got back it was time to start the long haul back to the airport.  My large, soft sided duffel bag with wheels is great for stuffing shit into but a royal pain in the ass to pull for long distances.  I had to switch arms repeatedly on our way to the Herald Square station.  To get back to the JFK airport required two subway rides and a trip on the Airtrain.  The contrast in difficulty level to make this commute between when we arrived and when we left was dramatic.  Unlike the first time, we had no confusion or anxiety at all, we knew exactly how to get there.

When we got off our last subway ride Cindy offered our unlimited 7 day MTA passes to another couple that was headed into the city.  The passes still were good for unlimited subway rides until Christmas day so we figured somebody could get use out of them.

We got to the airport super early which is fine.  It is allowing mt to do stuff like get this blog entry completed.  Cindy had an embarrassing incident where she accidentally walked into the toilet stall side of the MENS room while no other men were in the area.  She only realized her mistake after coming out of the stall and seeing a man looking at her awkwardly.  Oops.

Our flight takes off  in an hour, returning us to our comfortable and familiar south Florida home base.  As always it will be great to get back home but Cindy and I both really enjoyed putting a distinctly different spin on our holiday season this year, giving ourselves a truly meaningful gift.   Clothing wears out, electronics break, and alcohol is consumed, memories like this last forever.

Adios NYC, we will be back.

Our first stop this morning was the Today Show outside spectator area.  We grabbed coffee and a bagel on the way there instead of doing a formal breakfast arrangement.  When we first got there we were trying to get a picture into the studio from the sidewalk that is right next to it.  There was a very persistent police officer that insisted you were not allowed to stop in front of the window at all.  I guess they don’t want somebody flashing a moon to a national morning show audience.  We stepped across the street and used the camera zoom to at least get a half decent picture.

We then decided to try to get into the formal crowd around the outside area where the cast shoots various spots from.  We had to walk up and around the block to the far side to get into the entrance where they give you a quick wanding to make sure you aren’t carrying any weapons.  When we first got in there the back section of gated area was pretty empty which is where we stood for a little while.  It was pretty far away from the action however.

It started to rain at a decent clip.  About half of the people that were packed around the other side, close to the studio, left the area.  Cindy used it as her opportunity to get us close.  We made our way to the closer fencing and Cindy actually managed to get herself right up front.  We were there too late to catch any of the cast back out on the street but we were clearly on the crowd pan shot that went down right around 9AM.  We have the DVR running at home recording the Today Show so we can check it. After the 9AM pan shot they close down the spectator area for the rest of the show.

We went in the NBC gift shop briefly next door so Cindy could pose with cardboard cut outs of her favorite morning show.  We decided to do the Top of the Rock tour since we were right there.  We sat for a few minutes in a common area.  My lower body and lower back just feel all kinds of tight after Sunday’s IronLoo workout.  I just can’t stay upright for that long without being in a lot of discomfort.

The light rain and overcast skies dampened the view from the top of the Rockefeller Building but it still was very impressive.  Looking down on the huge expanse of urban engineering is something you really have to see first hand to appreciate.  It can realign your perspective on things and give you more appreciation for the quiet and simple things, if that is what you value.

After thoroughly checking out the view from the building from every perspective we had to decide what we wanted to do next.  The shitty weather made the idea of doing a lot of walking outside not sound like a great idea.  Cindy suggested we should catch an early Star Wars showing, something I dismissed earlier in the trip but now made good sense.  The weather sucked, I was looking to sit, and going around lunch time on a Tuesday, even in NYC meant we could probably see the movie without being overly crowded.  We made out way to the AMC theater in Time Square who was playing the movie every half hour in 2D or 3D all day long.

This was a multi-level theater, we rode the elevator to the 5th floor to get to our showing.  We got in shortly after the previews started and had no problem finding a seat up high in a row by ourselves.  We seemed all ready to have an enjoyable movie experience, until THEY showed up.  They, (a black guy and girl) walked in front of us with their phone light on full force, illuminating the row so they could take a seat on the left side of the theater, maybe 3 rows down from us and a total of maybe 20 feet away.  They were talking as they walked by us and they continued to talk, non-stop, once they sat down.  It was still the previews so I held out hope they had the common sense to shut the fck up.  Of course, they didn’t.

For the first 15 minutes of the movie I just sat there annoyed before I commented to Cindy about it.  She thought that maybe if she asked them “nicely” they would realize they were being inconsiderate.  She asked them to please be quiet.  She told me later she got a look from the girl like she wanted to kill her.  Cindy’s nice request was of course ignored and they continued to talk non-stop.

So now I had to decide how I wanted to handle it.  I could ask them to shut up in a not nice manner, make a scene, and if that didn’t work I would have to track down theater personnel to tell them to either shut up or get out.  But I really just wanted to just watch the damn movie and not miss a big chunk of it dealing with inconsiderate assholes.  Cindy and I looked around the far side of the theater for alternative seating out of earshot of these idiots.  We got up and headed down the steps.  I stopped and told the irritating couple I didn’t appreciate them talking the entire time and it was extremely rude of them.   They said nothing in return, I almost wish they did.  We found lower seating on the opposite side that was at least less irritating.  Nobody around was talking much but the people behind Cindy had a hard time not bumping the seat.  Why are people such assholes….

So finally we could turn our attention back to the movie.  I have to say I thought it was nearly impossible for Star Wars to live up to all the hype.  People have been dying for redemption for the generally shitty prequel trilogy that Lucas made in the 90’s.  Well they finally got it.  I thought the movie was great.  It finally delivered the same feel of movie as the originals.  I thought they did a great job of tying the old characters together with the newcomers in such a way that felt natural and as it should be.  I can hardly wait for the next installment.  Kudos to JJ Abrams for knocking it out of the park.  Hell I would go see it again if I could guarantee to do it without a symphony of morons surrounding me.  A+ all day, see it.

After the movie we found a tiny little place to eat lunch.  I enjoyed my first falafel sandwich while Cindy and I sat by the window, watching NYC happen outside.  We decided to head back to the room to give us a much needed breather.  Once it gets dark out I think we will do our Empire State tour we already paid for to see the high view at night and contrast it with what we saw this morning.

The temps today have been MUCH better than the first two days. It has been 50+ degrees all day, requiring no extensive clothing precautions.  Tomorrow we have a good chunk of the day left to explore before we take public transportation back to JFK, where we fly back tomorrow evening.

This trip has been awesome as we expected but it will also be one of those vacations that a few days to recover from will be a good thing.

Oh I forgot, on one of the video boards they were playing an ad encouraging people to vacation in the Naples area.  It seemed incredibly ironic we stumbled upon it at just the right time.

So our first destination of the morning was the Battery Park area.  My original intent was for us to just take Staten Island Ferry which gives you a pretty solid view of statue.  We prepaid  for the tickets (or so I thought) as part of a New York “Explorer” pass.  When we went to redeem our internet tickets for real ones I realized what we actually paid for was the tourist ferry out to statue island which was fine, I never did it before.

Getting on the ferry required an airport style security scan. The only difference was we got to keep our shoes on.  When we boarded the ferry it felt cold, despite the forecast highs in the 50’s.  As we chugged across the open water Cindy and I were both pretty frozen.

It was cool seeing the statue up close and personal.  We walked the perimeter of the island, taking pictures along the way.  We didn’t spend an extraordinary amount of time walking the island and were anxious to step into the gift shop for a few minutes to warm up.

We hopped back on the return ferry which also made a stop at Ellis Island.  I have to be honest, before today I thought the Statue of Liberty resided on Ellis Island.  Today I realized they are two different locations.  Cindy and I were content to skip the Ellis Island part of the trip and just stayed on the boat to get back to Battery Park.  On the last leg of the ride a nice asian family had their two young boys sitting next to us for most of the ride.  They were both very cute.  The 5 year old was talking to Cindy most of the way.

Once we got on solid ground we decided we would walk up to the 9/11 site.  We discovered an awesome bike/walking lane in the middle of the automotive traffic.  It made the walk up to the site very enjoyable, despite the cold wind that was still annoying us.

The 9/11 Memorial visit was a somber one.  Seeing the massive footprints where the Trade Center buildings once stood seemed a bit surreal.  I personally thought it was in poor taste to see people with selfie sticks happily snapping photos at the spot thousands of people died horrible deaths.  We decided to skip the 911 museum, the line was freaking ridiculous.

We ate lunch at a nearby small deli style place where Cindy and I both had a cup of soup and split a “gozlene”, some Turkish panini looking thing that was quite delicious.

We decided to go check out the incredible church, St John of the Divine.  I suspected Cindy would find it fascinating.  I was right. Even though I had been there once before I was happy to visit again.  The beauty, size and architecture in the church literally takes your breath away.  I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of skill, engineering, and patience involved in building the church.  It is just an amazing testament to what man can do when motivated by higher powers.  We spent a lot of time there, checking out every room we had access to.

Since we were close to the northwest corner of Central Park we decided to walk over there as well.  I had never been in the northern end of the park.

We walked around the park for close to an hour, getting out just as the sun was setting.  We located another subway entrance and mapped out a course to get us to the Times Square area.  The subway cars were ridiculously full, since it was around 5 I assume it was work commuters.  At one point we were shoulder to shoulder with people and had 5 different hands grabbing onto the same pole.  I don’t enjoy those type of situations.  i have no idea how a germaphobe would exist in a place like New York.  I am sure when the next pandemic breaks out NYC will go down very quickly.  The amount of cross contamination that goes on is off the charts.

When we got into the Times Square area it was a freaking mess with rivers of human beings flowing in both directions.  We walked it just long enough for Cindy to see the area where the ball drops and little else.  We ducked down a side street and ate at an Irish restaurant.  Both Cindy and I were hurting big time from the Stonepark workout marathon the day before.  We just wanted to get off our feet for awhile.  We both had fish and chips which were tasty.

We decided to make one last push for the day to see the Rockefeller Center tree.  Although I didn’t think it was possible there were even more people jammed into the streets in that direction.  Both Cindy and I were getting very frustrated and annoyed with dealing with so many people.  It just isn’t what we enjoy.  After a wrong turn we finally found our way to the tree.  My sense of direction in the city is awful since I have no bearing as to what is north or south.  I was using Google Maps on my phone and proceeded to kill the battery in the process from all the gps work.  I was pissed.

Finally we got to the tree and actually got much closer than I expected, within a few feet.  The tree was impressive as hell, looking too big to be real but it was.  We took a few pictures with Cindy’s phone.  Cindy also was excited to be able to stand right outside the Today Show studio and meander in the plaza the show shoots out of all the time.  We grabbed some hot apple cider and a delicious chocolate chip cookie that we split before we headed out.

Before we made the long walk back to the hotel we watched the awesome light show that takes place on the side of the Saks building.  It was worth fighting the crowds for.  The 15 block walk back to the hotel was not fun between the crowds and the overall body soreness we both were feeling.  Finally our hotel came into view.  It felt good to get back into our tiny room so we could unwind for yet another busy day tomorrow.

I hope my typical second day soreness doesn’t kick in like it normally does.  I could be hobbling around the city if it hits hard.

Saturday night was a rough one from a sleep perspective.  It was cold out so we had the in room air conditioner on heat mode.  It ran until the room got up to 75 degrees, providing the white noise I usually need to sleep.  Unfortunately once it hit that temp it’s thermostat would shut it down, removing the white noise.  Once the temp would drop a couple degrees it would cycle back on.  This all night cycle meant I never truly felt like I fell asleep all night long.

In addition to the AC unit I heard a ton of street noise.  Our room at the hotel is only on the 3rd floor, making it susceptible to hearing pretty much everything going on down there.  Cindy also still was having issues with her coughing from illness.  I got up at 7 AM feeling absolutely exhausted.  I had no time to be tired since it was IronLoo day.

We got up and ate breakfast at a place called the Oxford Cafe which was right next to our hotel which was convenient.  They had a great selection of food however I stuck with something simple, ordering oatmeal, not wanting anything that would get in the way of what I knew was going to be a very tough day physically.  For most of our breakfast Cindy and I were the only ones in the cafe which felt odd.

When we got back to the room I tried to map out our plan.  We needed to catch a 10:22 train out of Penn Station which looked to easily be walking distance from our hotel.  I had some instructions from Lou as far as which train to get on.  As we walked I mentioned how it was dumb of me to not have brought a knit beanie for head warmth.  We just happened to be approaching Macy’s so we went inside to try to quickly find one.

Cindy was immediately impressed with the size and grandeur of the store, a throwback to when store shopping was actually a thing.  It was very busy with the holiday decorations looking amazing.  It took some trial and error but eventually we found knit hats on the 4th floor.  I was excited that we got to ride a few sets of the ancient wood escalators that I had told Cindy about in the past.  They are so awesome.  Cindy also found it very interesting that as we were exiting we arrived at floor 1 1/2, the only store I know of that has such a thing.

We found our way out of the store and continued our way towards Penn Station.  We saw a small sidewalk entrance that was labeled as Penn Station so we figured we could get to the train there.  A transit worker informed us that the trains were a block away at the actual station that was inside of Madison Square Garden.

When we got there it was an instant beehive of activity, the station was packed.  We saw a lot of people with Giants jerseys on, presumably heading to the game later in the day.  Cindy and I were very confused as to where exactly to go.  Thanks to some direction from a cop we discovered we needed the LIRR and not Amtrak in order to reach the Oyster Bay line.  We headed downstairs and managed to buy two tickets via the self service kiosk.  We had around 15 minutes to kill so we grabbed ourselves our first NYC DD coffee of the trip, it was much needed.  I didn’t like the feeling of being so clueless in regards to how to get where I wanted to go.  It was frustrating.

So we found the track for our train and found a seat on the nearly empty car.  We had more confusion in regards to if/where we needed to transfer to get to our end destination.  The ticket taker woman told us we needed to get off at the Jamaica station to catch the Oyster Bay line.  The ride out of the city was cool.  It was interesting seeing the landscape transform from skyscrapers to neighborhoods.

Once we got off at Jamaica we only had a short wait until our next train showed up.  It was a bigger train with two levels.  I told Cindy we should head up top where better views were to be had.  The ride to the Seacliff depot was very scenic and calm, the calm before the storm.  When we got off the train we saw a huge white van which we knew was Lou’s work vehicle.  The time had come.

I have known Lou for years but only from a distance.  We met via our shared interest in calisthenics and my involvement with the Bar-barians.  We never had spoken but we have chatted extensively over the years about both things exercise and life related.  As we descended the stairs Lou pulled the van up and got out.  Of course Cindy ran up and gave him a big hug which I did as well.  It was so nice to see Lou in person.

Despite our lack of face to face contact we interacted like we just talked the other day.  Lou is very outgoing and funny.  When teamed up with Cindy and her talkative personality I could just do a lot of listening and laughing which was fine by me.  In the back of Lou’s van were a huge collection of strongman gear including weight plates, farmer carry handles, and a log press.  Every time we would hit a bump they would clang loudly.

Lou drive through a Starbucks to grab us some coffee.  He normally works a night shift and drinks coffee like others drink water.  His ON switch is permanently welded in place.  We then unexpectedly got to meet Lou’s grandfather.  We were picking up an atlas stone Lou had made that was sitting in the backyard.  In the yard were a number of broken tools.  Lou said he broke most of them, he just has a way of doing that.

Lou’s grandfather was actually born in Italy.  When he came out he was giving Lou shit for breaking stuff, especially his garage door.  It was funny how he could switch between yelling and laughing so quickly.  He was very funny, I could see where Lou gets it from.  So the plan was to get the 365 pound atlas stone into the back of the van meaning we had to get it out of the backyard that has a downhill slope to it.  Lou brought out a very old looking handtruck of his grandfathers to use but was worried about breaking it as well.

We used the cart for the first and last part of the transport but I told Lou I would roll the stone up the steep, wet part of the climb.  Sure it was a nearly 400 pound stone ball but I figured rolling it up the short hill shouldn’t be bad.  Well I was wrong.  I barely managed to get the stone to the flat patio above.  It’s weight combined with the wet grass made it very difficult.

When we got to the van we were debating how to get the stone in the back.  At first Lou thought about using the hand truck to pull it in but again fear of breaking it killed that idea.  Lou then decided he would lift it up himself.  That seemed like a really bad idea to me.  He grabbed an old sleeve from a piece of clothing to use as a strap and proceeded to hoist the stone cleanly into the van, resting it inside the wheel of the spare tire.  I couldn’t believe he could lift it.

We all piled back in the van, we had more supplies to grab for the workout.  First we stopped at GNC where Lou grabbed pre-workout drinks which are kind of like supercharged coffee, supposedly to give you more energy.  We then went to a Rite Aid where Lou bought some of that rubberized medical tape normally used to keep large bandaged areas in place.  He uses the tape as arm wraps for lifting atlas stones.  Before we got to Stone Park Lou gave us a quick tour of the some of the areas I had only seen in the past via his numerous exercise videos.  It was cool seeing first hand where all of this stuff went down over the years.

So finally we had made it to the park.  I had seen this park dozens of time on video but being there in person was surreal.  There is the parking lot he has walked bare foot across, there are the monkey bars he has lifted stones over, there is the pull up bar I saw him muscle up over, it was so cool.

Well there was now work to be done to get all of the equipment set up.  Not only did we have to unload the van we had to retrieve items from the park itself.  Lou keeps monster tires and atlas stones there full time.  The tires are kept back in the brush, chained together for safekeeping.  The stones are in a big hole Lou and his friends dug by hand.  It almost looked like a huge dinosaur laid round stone eggs in there.  By the time all of the stuff was set up/rolled out I was already breathing heavy.

Just as we were getting the last stones out a car pulled up.  It was Ray (the inventor of Ray’s Way), another calisthenic friend I met in the same way I knew Lou.  He had come with his girlfriend which was very cool.  He had been to Stonepark once before over a year ago.  It was so great having both Lou and Ray there.  A little later another friend of Lou’s showed up, Patrick.  Patrick actually owns a gym and has been working out with Lou for a little while.  He brought with him a special deadlift bar along with more weights.

So finally the fun could begin.  Lou has a total of 5 atlas stones there of varying weight ranging from 185 pounds to the massive 365 pounder we brought with us.  We alternated between the stones and deadlifting at first.  I have deadlifted before at the gym for awhile.  I was surprised that Lou said my form looked decent as it never has felt great.  I worked all the way up to 375 on the dead lifts with Lou which was the most I have gotten in the last year.  Ray and I were very close strength wise.  Despite not looking it, he only weighed 5 pounds less than me.  Of course everyone there was at least 20 years younger than me.

The atlas stone lifting was much, much harder than I expected.  I figured with my extremely long arms lifting these should not be horrible.  I was able to get the 185 pound stone onto my lap and up without huge difficulty.  I next tried the 205 pound stone that despite being only 20 pounds heavier had a much larger diameter.  This combination made it feel tremendously more difficult.  I barely got it on my lap and when I tried to stand with it I felt a tremendous strain across my abs as I tried to extend upwards.  It felt “you just gave yourself a hernia” bad.  I was officially worried about really hurting myself but I had to continue on.

I had never done real farmer carries before where you have two independent handles loaded down with massive weight that you walk forward with, as fast and as far as you can go.  With my high center of gravity it felt odd trying to balance and move at the same time.  Lou started us off “light” with only 140 pounds of weight in each hand.  Each time we successfully handled a weight that meant it was time to add more.

At my top end Lou threw 230 pounds on each handle which before yesterday I would have told you I had absolutely no shot getting off the ground.   Hell just last week I failed getting 400 pounds off the ground at the gym with a hex bar.  With Lou screaming at me to pump me up I  somehow managed to get 460 pounds up in the air and walk 20-25 feet with it.  It was nuts.

Lou had two monster tires on the lot, a 600 pounder and an 800 pounder.  Early on in the workout I tried getting the 600 flipped a couple times and failed miserably. Later in the workout Ray tried it and failed but then after some form tips from Lou actually got the thing flipped up and over.  Well that convinced me I needed to try again.

I spread out my arms to widen my grip.  I moved my feet further away from the tire, allowing me to get my shoulders lower, pressed against the rubber.  I then just pushed with all I had.  The 600 pound tire moved slowly but it continued to rise upward until it was upright.  I shoved it back down on it’s side triumphantly.  I did it once again a few minutes later to prove it wasn’t a fluke.

At one point Cindy tried to budge the 185 pound stone which I knew wasn’t a great idea.  She couldn’t quite get it off the ground but got close.  Of course her back was feeling all out of whack afterward.  She spent most of the afternoon watching/filming the action.  I felt badly as the day went on because I could tell she was very cold.  She didn’t realize just how long Lou’s workouts go.

Ray and my last major achievement of the day was with the 70 pound log press bar.  After some failures at a higher weight we both managed to get the awkward bar overhead with 35 pound plates on each side.  It was a tough movement.

For most of the afternoon we just cycled between the various lifts. Of course Lou and Patricks lifts were far more impressive.  They both walked around with 600 pounds on the farmer carry with relative ease and Lou lifted the 350 pound atlas stone repeatedly.  I was honestly surprised I was able to keep going that long, especially after the pain I felt with the 205 pound atlas stone early on.  We wrapped things up as darkness was setting in.  Putting all the stuff away was a good workout on it’s on.

We bid farewell to Patrick, Ray and his fiance Natalie.  I really appreciated them making the effort to come out and share the Stonepark experience with us.  Cindy and I got in the van and enjoyed the heat pouring out of the vents.  Even with all the exercise my extremities were feeling quite cold.

Lou was our ride back to the city but we first want to relax and eat.  Lou stopped at his place to change while I changed out of dirt covered sweats and into some spare clothes.  We found a nearby pizza place and had a great time chowing down while enjoying a couple beers.  Lou has had some very interesting life experiences and shared some more of them with us at dinner.

Finally it was time for the drive back to Manhattan.  Despite it being Sunday night the traffic was substantial.  Lou delivers stuff for a living in his extended van.  I just could not stand dealing with that sort of traffic day in and day out.  It was nuts.

Lou got us back to our hotel in one piece and swung to the side of 5th avenue to drop us off, bringing a chorus of horns from annoyed drivers.  Lou answered back with his own prolonged horn symphony.  We both hugged him again, thanking him for a great day.  We told him we hoped to see him in Florida someday.  It was quite a day.

I could already feel the repercussions from the workout settling into my muscles and joints.  After a lengthy shower I collapsed into bed and flipped on the Eagles game.  Thankfully I didn’t even stay awake until halftime, I was so exhausted.  It looks like I avoided watching them get blown out by the Cardinals, reaffirming my feeling the last two wins were an anomaly and not a trend.

I slept better last night and we are now ready to limp around NYC in full tourist mode.  It should be a great day.

So the flight to JFK was annoying to some degree as most flights are to me.  Not only did we have young children behind us but we also had small dogs in the passenger cabin that barked off and on.  The air at times was very rough, throwing the plane around in ways that did not feel reassuring.

Once we got out of the plane we got our first cold blasts of air.  Since at that point I still just had a t-shirt on they felt especially icy.  As has always been the case each time I have flown into JFK the luggage comes out lightning fast.  Our only delay on the way to baggage claim was a quick pee stop.  That was all it took for our bags to be almost the last ones left on the carousel.

Once we got the bags we enjoyed our “dinner” splitting a tuna sandwich and root beer.  We followed the signs until we located the AirTrain.  The first train we got on was the one that simply looped continuously around the airport terminal.  We soon realized our mistake and got on the Howard Beach train that headed towards Manhattan.

The train ride was fine.  Once we got off MTA staff walked me through getting one MTA card to pay for the airport train and then two unlimited 7 day passes for Cindy and I to use to get around the city the next few days.  I dropped 31 bucks for each pass.  I’m not sure if I would have came out ahead just paying as we go instead. Time will tell.

Waiting at the outdoor station waiting for the A train was our first extended exposure to the air temps in the upper 30’s.  It did not feel great.  Cindy and I stood there shivering for 15-20 minutes waiting for the train to show up.  One man tried to deal with the cold by periodically hitting the elevator button and standing inside it for a few moments.

The A train ride was interesting.  It was lengthy, taking something like 17 stops to get to 4th st west where we got off.  There were some interesting individuals on board, including the guy that went car to car giving a lengthy diatribe about his poor situation followed by requests for money.  Most of the people in the car acted like the guy was invisible, not even looking up from their smart phones to acknowledge him.  I listened but did not make eye contact which I figured would identify me as an easy target.  If Cindy wasn’t with me I may have flipped him a few bucks.

Once we got to our transfer point more confusion came our way.  The D train line that the MTA app indicated we should take next was out of commission.  After reading some signs and verifying with a construction worker, we discovered we could take the F train to get to the 34th street area.  Once we exited the station out onto the street we got out first real in your face NYC experience.

People were everywhere, making it difficult to drag 3 rolling luggage bags behind us.  Our path to the hotel took us right past the Empire State Building which was very cool, just like the air temperature.  We spotted our hotel and were very happy to step inside into some warmer air.  The hotel seemed very quaint.  When we traveled to the third floor and snaked down the narrow hall we found our room.

The first adjective that came to our minds was SMALL.  The room was extremely tight, smaller than a cabin on a cruise ship.  It is clean, nicely furnished and modern.  You just have to make sure you watch where you are walking else risk kicking something or knocking something over.  I am typing this at a tiny desk that is wedged behind the air conditioner. We went downstairs briefly to score an apple cider type of drink from the attached Starbucks.  We are winding down, hoping to get a solid night of sleep to fuel us for a very busy Sunday ahead.

It worked out very well having Friday off. Cindy and I basically handled all of the stuff we would normally do on a Saturday morning and then used the rest of the day to pack, make lists, and do the prep for the race we were timing Saturday morning. Cindy’s daughter Katie who is helping us out with chicken care this time around stopped by for a little bit for some last minute training.

We made sure to get to bed early. I think I fell asleep before 9:30. Unfortunately lately on race nights I rarely sleep until the alarm, despite it being set stupidly early, 4:30 AM this time. I was awake at least an hour before that and simply tossed and turned, thinking about all that had to get done today.

The race was down in Marco Island so we had a drive of more than 45 minutes to get there. It was chilly by Florida standards with temps in the upper 50’s with a gusting wind that made it feel significantly colder. For some stupid reason I thought cargo shorts would work out well in these conditions. I paid for my stupidity with shivering for a good portion of the morning.

The race was small with a little over 200 people signed up. There were no major problems during the event other than a few missed reads on the main finish line timing box. Luckily I had a back up box in place which picked up the runners 10 feet later. Cindy and I wasted no time packing up and getting off site. We pulled out around 9:45, great considering the race didn’t start until 8AM and was 5 miles long instead of a 5k.

When we got home the up tempo pace continued. After getting all of the race equipment inside Cindy went out to attend to all of the chicken needs while I was inside working on post race stuff in fast forward mode. We wound up getting it all done and were pretty much ready to go when Katie pulled up about 15 minutes before we planned to leave.

When Katie came in she told us that her work called and asked her to come in an hour early at 3 instead of 4 so now we needed to get going asap so she could make that happen. We wrapped things up, threw the luggage in the Prius and did a quick double check making sure we didn’t forget anything.

Cindy and Katie jumped in the back seat and I drove. I backed down the driveway and looked over my left shoulder to make sure I had plenty of room to back into the turn around. Just before I was about to apply the brakes we hear the sickening sound of impact. I totally forgot Katie had parked her boyfriends car in the turn around and I banged into the middle of the passenger side door with the corner of the Prius.

I was of course instantly furious with myself that I was not paying attention. I pulled forward and we surveyed the damage. Katie was crying because she knew her boyfriend would be pissed. I told her she had nothing to be upset about, it was 100% my fault and I will make sure the damage is taken care of.

The 350Z had a damaged area maybe the size of two footballs along with some paint scratching, most of which would probably buff out with some Scratch X elbow grease. The Prius had paint damage on the corner of the bumper. The impact also popped a top seam of the bumper that I was able to “fix” easily with a few shots of my fist.

Of course I felt terrible that I hit the car and that Katie was so upset about it but we really had no time to dwell on it. During the ride to the airport Cindy called Katie’s boyfriend and told him. I talked to him as well and told him I was sorry and I would get it fixed. He was understanding on the phone but later seemed less so when he was texting with Katie. I do understand, I would be angry and upset as well in that situation but obviously I am not the type that is going to hang him out to dry and not handle it.

I was so spaced out, preoccupied, frustrated with the incident, the lack of sleep, and NYC stuff that I got off the wrong exit for the airport, having to get there via a slower back road. The fun continued when we got to the airport. We got a notice earlier in the day that our 3:16 flight was delayed around 15 minutes, no big deal. When we got to the airport that delay look like it vanished as the flight was once again showing as ON TIME.

Well the flight departure time came and went without so much as a peep from the flight desk which I thought was odd. When they did finally address the delay they said the flight might be delayed 20 minutes. We left terra firma at 4:18 more than hour after we were scheduled.

Hey I understand delays happen in air travel all the time. What I don’t understand is the airlines practice of overpromising and under delivering when it comes to communicating the delay to passengers. If a delay might take 30 minutes, tell people 40 minutes to be safe. If it takes 10 minutes longer than planned people are still happy. If it only takes 30 minutes they are very happy. When you know that the delay only will take 20 minutes if the planets align and absolutely everything goes perfectly don’t give people false expectations based on unlikely scenarios. It isn’t rocket science, geezus.

There was some good news. The flight was not booked solid so the seat in front of me is empty, meaning I don’t have to worry about some idiot smashing into my knees when they decide they need to fully recline, regardless of the height of the passenger behind them. Jet Blue has much nicer amenities than most airlines with FULL cans of soda and generous snacks.

I am punching out this entry on my $150 notebook. Some of their planes offer free wi-fi as well. That is not the case on our Airbus 190 so I am working offline and will dump this to the cloud in NYC. By the time we take public transportation into the city, get to the hotel and eat something for dinner I have a feeling I will be running on fumes.

I need a decent night of rest tonight to prepare for my meet up with IronLoo tomorrow which is going to consist of atlas stones, farmer carries, deadlifting, tire flipping and whatever other crazy stuff he has in mind. It should be quite the day.

Last night we decided to split the difference between Tallahassee and Pensacola by stopping at a town named Bonifey which is almost dead center in between.  We got lucky and found a very nice and new Holiday Inn Express to stay at.  It was right around the best of the places we stayed at during this road trip.

Our dinner on the way in was an extravagant Subway meal. Both Cindy and I have had more than our fill of convenience food during this trip.  After we get back from road trips we normally have a lot of resolve to eat very clean to make up for the dirty road eating.

So like I said the hotel was very nice.  The shower was clean, the bed was comfortable, and everything was well tended to.  Despite these things I got yet another miserable night of sleep.  Why you ask?  Somewhere on the second floor there must have been a smoke detector with a low or dead battery.  The result of that was it beeping every 20 seconds or so the entire night.

I was exhausted when I fell asleep last night so the detector sound couldn’t stop me.  However once I woke up around 3AM it became like Chinese water torture.  I did not feel like going down to the front desk in the middle of the night. Instead I laid in bed trying to ignore the noise and fall back asleep, unsuccessfully.  I then grabbed one of the extra pillows and sandwiched my head in between it, fashioning some makeshift ear muffs.  The thick pillows did a good job of blocking the sound but also was warm and uncomfortable.  Having pillows jammed against my ears also made me hear/feel my pulse which was just another thing to keep me awake.  I basically laid in bed awake until maybe 5am and then was awoken at 5:40 by the alarm.  I am looking very forward to recapturing a more normal sleep schedule starting tonight in my own bed. I let the clerk know about the beeping this morning, I find it impossible that nobody else on the floor would have complained about it prior to me.

When Cindy turned on the tv this morning there was some Alabama public access tv channel tuned in.  The show that was on was called Hobo Pantry.  At first I thought the chubby man seated to the right was a woman as he had a bizarre 1975 haircut and a plaid button down shirt that would have passed for a blouse.  Once he spoke there was no doubt he was a hard core southerner.  To his left was some sort of park ranker type guy.  He sat in a large wooden rocking chair with his hands folded across his lap.  The set looked like it was straight off of a Hee Haw set.

While I watched they covered a variety of topics, including how to not shoot yourself during hunting season, fishing regulations, and how the host was glad to hear someone he knows that supports same sex marriage was moving out of town. It was strangely compelling, enough so that I filmed a few seconds of it.

We were pulling out in the Prius by 7AM and have had an uneventful drive south so far.  Our eta is 4PM but we need to make a grocery store pit stop on the way home so we probably won’t get home until closer to 5.  Once we do a whirlwind of unpacking, laundry, and cleaning will be unleashed, unlike anything the world has ever seen.

Just like all of our road trips, this one has had so many memorable moments it is pretty much impossible to pick them all out.  But let’s run some numbers first.  It looks like out total mileage is going to be just over 6600 miles, making it the farthest road trip I have ever done.  To be honest I think it was a bit too ambitious.  As I mentioned yesterday Cindy and I have both been going a bit nuts being in the car so long.  Just for perspective our trip last year was around 5000 miles.

We spent about $1100 on hotel rooms during the trip, not bad for 12 nights that included Vegas and the Grand Canyon area (most expensive of the trip) Believe it or not to cover all those miles only cost us $375 in gas, I added it myself a second time because I couldn’t believe it.  We averaged a little over 45 mpg for those 6500 miles.  Our best tank average was 54.7 mpg and our worst was 38.7.  The most we paid for gas was $3.29 in the Vegas area, the least we paid was $1.99 in Georgia somewhere.  The lowest price we saw posted anywhere was $1.80 a gallon somewhere in Texas.

So as far as highlights of the trip, every spot we targeted delivered in one way or another. There are 13 days of blog entries you can pour through if you would like them in detail.  There was so much beauty to be seen in many forms from the man created Mount Rushmore, Las Vegas and Hoover Dam contrasted by the natural awesomeness places like Yellowstone, Craters of the Moon, and the Bonneville Salt Flats possess.

I really couldn’t establish a clear leader in the best of those attractions but if I were to pick the worst of the five I would probably choose Vegas for several reasons.  Only spending one full day there made everything seem rushed and when combined with all of those damn people, cigarette smoke, and pricey entertainment I found Vegas to be the only time during the road trip where I really found myself in a foul mood.  I also was not happy that they have torn down so much of the strip and rebuilt it in the span of 10 years that I hardly recognized sections of it.

The bad luck I had with my aerial sorties during the trip were pretty funny in retrospect although they certainly didn’t feel that way at the time.  To crash the Phantom at both Yellowstone and Craters of the Moon after basically never crashing the drone in two years of ownership is pretty nuts.  The feelings I had of embarrassment and anger at myself as I maneuvered the dangerous, restricted lava field area of Craters of Moon trying to find the drone are something I will not soon forget.  I was literally a minute away from just giving up and walking away from $1400 of quadcopter and camera equipment.

Of course road trips are all about the travel as much as the destination.  We saw so many things, met so many different types of people and got to experience a seat of your pants style of life that is such a contrast to our mostly regimented day in and day out existence.

Cindy and I pretty equally split the driving on the trip which made things more bearable. My distraction of choice when I was not driving was either punching out the blog or playing dozens of games of Hearthstone on the iPad.  It helped long periods of time pass by pretty painlessly.

As I have mentioned several times the length of the trip was something that was a bit problematic.  It’s very hard to cover those kind of miles in 13 days and not have any conflicts which there have been a few of.  Luckily Cindy and I are normally pretty good at putting stupid things behind us.  I think our experiences will help us when it comes to planning future ventures out of the state.  Less miles and a more casual driving pace would probably make a road trip less about the grind and more about the great.

Our drive into Dallas was long but mostly uneventful.  We got to our hotel about 7PM, now on central time.  While I was in the passenger seat I was trying to remotely restart our chicken coop dvr which became unreachable remotely.  I was in the middle of trying to find a way to do it when we got a call from our chicken sitter who was at the house.  I just had him unplug the dvr for a few seconds and plug it back in which got us back online.

After a day of nothing but driving neither Cindy or I felt like going out to dinner, we had food delivered to the room.  Speaking of the room, it was actually a suite with a full second room and pretty nice accommodations.  It was sort of a bummer when Cindy saw what she said were baby roaches around one of the sinks this morning.  Once she saw that she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Last night while we ate dinner we caught a good portion of the republican primary debate which was a big tv event.  Mostly thanks to Donald Trump, there is more interest in the 2016 republican primaries than any other time in my life.  People just love seeing Trump throw his weight around, plain and simple.

I found the debate both entertaining and aggravating.  Let me go candidate by candidate and give you my feedback (if I can remember them all)

I felt bad for Rand Paul as Trump repeatedly mocked his current 1% polling rate as not being worthy of being on the stage.  I do agree with a lot of Rand’s ideas and he probably has a better command of the US Constitution than anyone else on the stage.  I also liked that he is not afraid to still characterize the US decision to throw military contractors a bone with the Iraq war as a major mistake and poor judgement.  Rand’s hair is very odd, it almost looks like a hair piece.

Mike Huckabee is a dipshit with his bullshit religious right agenda.  I thought it was laughable when he made a comment about how we should focus on finding the cures for ailments instead of treating the symptoms.  In the list of ailments he wanted “cures” for was diabetes and heart disease.  I laughed out loud that this man who looked to be very obese wanted a cure for these two diseases that are mostly lifestyle related.  Eat a salad you idiot.

Ah Ted Cruz, I can’t stand that guy even a little bit.  He is as smarmy as it gets even with his neck spilling out over his collar.  Every single word he says annoys me as he is the epitome of a tea party zealot.  He seems like he needed to be spanked more as a child.  He has zero shot of winning.

Marco Rubio, who is famous for dry mouth, came off as a mega-hardliner who wants to nuke the world and do nothing about climate change because China won’t.  His thoughts on immigration were interesting because of his background obviously.

Ben Carson who before the debate was polling at number two behind Trump has no shot either.  He seems like a calm, intelligent, logical man, which is why he has no shot.  He doesn’t have the presence or persona most people are going to want in a political candidate.  The fact that he is black dooms him in the republican party no matter what anyone says in public.

Trump was next and he seemed to be quite hot and bothered, literally.  His face looked flush for most of the debate.  I wasn’t sure if it was from the heat of the lights or if he was embarrassed a few times when other candidates called him to the carpet for a few things that he didn’t have real solid answers for.  I am sure he felt he won the debate.  I think it sort of exposed some of the holes in his plan.

Jeb Bush was next to Trump.  I heard the general consensus was he did better because he fought with Trump more, including asking Trump to apologize to Jeb’s wife for making a remark that Jeb was more sympathetic to illegal immigrants because his wife is Mexican.  Personally Jeb didn’t impress me at all and in fact said one of the dumbest things of the night when the moderator asked all of the candidates which woman they would want to see on the new 10 dollar bill.  His answer was Margaret Thatcher.  What the fck Jeb? It was a true George W moment where you could tell for sure they were related.

Jeb also defended W’s time as president, summing up his countless missteps with “at least he kept us safe”.  Huh? What does that mean exactly?  If the definition of keeping us safe is no more buildings falling down I guess that means Obama has kept safe as well? Who knows, to me it was like when you give somebody a very involved and thought out criticism and their response would be “I know you are but what am I”.  Adios Jeb.

I had never seen Carly Forina speak before and after last night I hope I never do again.  I found it amazing that the press was characterizing her performance as great.  I thought she came off terribly.  I don’t know if it is the gallons of botox she has injected into her face but everything she said came out as robotic and sterile.  You have to be somewhat likable to be the president.  She came off as an ice witch to me who repeatedly tried to log jam in her well rehearsed statements when it wasn’t her turn to talk.  She has as much shot as Michelle Bachman.

Ah I forgot about Scott Walker who was in the middle somewhere.  He is another guy with an image problem.  He has a permanent expression on his face like he is wasted.  As another tea party champion I of course spend most of the time he is talking being annoyed.  He of course has no shot either but maybe him and Ted Cruz can hang out and compare checks the Koch brothers wrote them.

The Ohio governor (Kasik?) seemed like a solid guy with a good track record.  He had some weird appearance issues as well.  He talks with constant duck lips, something I found myself concentrating on.  He is in a similar boat with Rand Paul, on the stage but far in the rear of the pack.

Finally there was big Chris Christie that was trying to throw his weight around, coming off as the big burly guy that doesn’t take any shit.  Despite his record of being more of a moderate republican candidate he seemed to be making a clear effort to come off as much more conservative than his past actions would indicate.  His crowing about enforcing the federal marijuana laws if he takes office is an instant turn off and a very stupid thing to hang your hat on.

I thought a lot of things about the debate were dumb as the moderator threw out many questions designed to solely incite conflict and nothing else.  The question about what woman each candidate would want on the 10 dollar bill was pointless and the following question about what secret service call sign they would want for themselves if they become president was even dumber.

Like I said earlier, I couldn’t believe the debate was 3 hours.  I also was surprised there were commercials.  I never recalled a debate having commercial breaks.  Thanks to Trump these debates have become HUGE money making opportunities for the networks, of course they are cashing in.

I was surprised you heard multiple candidates talking about changing the tax code to either the flat or fair tax model. One model imposes a simple flat income tax that is the same for everyone, no infinitely complex tax code and loop hole system.  The other model replaces the current income tax system with a nationwide tax on consumption.  I think either system is better than what is currently in place.  Every election cycle candidates say they like this plan and it never, ever gains any traction once they enter office.  It is one of those things that will simply never change because big business doesn’t want it to.

So this morning after breakfast we were walking up to the room.  Out of my peripheral vision I saw a person walk in the front doors and the clerk  say something like “hi, how can I help you”.  Then within 10 seconds we heard what was an obvious altercation.  Cindy got a better look than I did, she said the clerk was pushing and kicking the guy out the door.  I heard the clerk say “get the FUCK out of my hotel and don’t come back!”  I didn’t get a good look at the other guy but Cindy said he looked like he may have been a vagrant/hitchhiker type as he had a large backpack strapped on.  I wondered what happened in those couple seconds that made the clerk go from 0-60.  How exciting.

I was first to drive today, getting us into Louisiana.  As I mentioned yesterday, on this trip I have been approached by a number of people looking for help and I have repeatedly done so.  Well to my amazement, it happened AGAIN today.

Cindy was inside using the restroom and grabbing water while I was pumping gas.  An average looking guy in a baseball hat and sunglasses came walking over my way.  He asks me if there was anyway I could give him a gallon of gas.  I was caught a little off guard.  I asked him if he had a container or something to put the gas in.  He said his car was parked over there and it was running on fumes but he had enough to drive it over to the pump.  After seeing Cindy was still inside I told him to bring it over.

After I finished dumping 5 gallons into the Prius I dumped another 5 or 6 gallons into his non-descript brown Chevy Malibu.  As I pumped I talked to the guy a bit, asking him if he was trying to get home or to work.  He said “no man, I don’t know where I am going next”  He said he can’t believe he is an position where he has to ask someone for gas.  He said I looked familiar, I told him I am sure he never met me before as I am from Florida. I told the guy I was on a roadtrip and I have seen a lot of people in need during my travels.    I finished up pumping the gas and wished the guy good luck with whatever came next for him.  He thanked me, shook my hand and then asked me if I happened to have any cigarettes.  I told him I didn’t smoke.

He drove away before Cindy was done inside.  When Cindy came out I told her I had another charity situation pop up.  She at first assumed I gave someone else money.  When I told her I instead pumped 5 or 6 gallons of gas into his car she thought that was a better use of compassion.  It is an odd thing how I must throw off an invisible nice guy aura.

We are going to try extending our drive today as far as possible so we have a relatively short shot into Naples tomorrow.  Both Cindy and I are going a little car crazy at this point, after spending 100+ hours in the car, getting on each others nerves from time to time.  Yesterday I found myself randomly poking Cindy for no good reason, just to be irritating.  We both are just looking forward to getting our asses home and back to normalcy.