On the road again\u2026 I have logged over 1,000 ground miles this trip.\u00a0 60 of it backpacking, 100 of it or so riding and the rest driving.\u00a0 I am glad that I upgraded the car to the convertible.\u00a0 It was a fun car.\u00a0 I wish I had more of a chance to play with the rear wheel driveness of it in some sand, but I never got the chance.
\nThe drive up the Keys, was long and slow.\u00a0 I did stop on Bahia Honda State Park.\u00a0 It was pretty,\u00a0 I visited the butterfly garden, and hiked on the nature walk.\u00a0 I took some pictures, left some foot prints\u2026\u00a0 there were a few kite boarders enjoying the beach.\u00a0 Marlo is hot to do that\u2026\u00a0 I have to say that it does not look overly easy\u2026\u00a0 I don\u2019t feel all that motivated to do it\u2026\u00a0 we will see.\u00a0 I would like to dive in Cozumel come May though.
\nAnyway the drive was long and uneventful.\u00a0 ANB kept me on track.\u00a0 I really do like this version way better then the lesser models.\u00a0 I should do the right thing and just keep this one.\u00a0 I think that I will give it to Marlo for her birthday\u2026\u00a0 we will see if she reads this before then\u2026\u00a0 her birthday is coming up.\u00a0 She is a great girl.\u00a0 I stop along the way and fill up with some cheap gas.\u00a0 I cruise though Fort Lauderdale and find the hotel.\u00a0 It is very nice and on the beach.\u00a0 It is after four by the time I arrive.\u00a0 There are lots of volleyball nets on the beach\u2026 I wish I had gotten there early enough to get in on a game\u2026\u00a0 if they were even playing\u2026 it was a Tuesday after all.
\nI get my Starwood preferred treatment and have an ocean front room.\u00a0 It is nice.\u00a0 I head to the bar to get a bit to eat.\u00a0 I am sitting there and a woman sits next to me.\u00a0 She is a about my age and fairly attractive.\u00a0 I say hi.\u00a0 I go through all of the hi stranger things and she is about as talkative as nothing\u2026\u00a0 I order a cob salad and it is excellent.\u00a0 The presentation was very nice.\u00a0 It was arranged with all of the ingredients surrounding the lettuce in the middle.\u00a0 Little miss talkative next to me speaks and comments about the bartenders French braid\u2026 it makes her look up tight and unfriendly.\u00a0 She seems both.\u00a0 The women next to me sells upscale sun glasses to chains.\u00a0 She say that she sells optical solutions\u2026 ok, whatever gets you to sleep at night.\u00a0 She travels a lot and enjoys it.\u00a0 She tells me that she can do this because she is single and has no kids.\u00a0 She tells me this several times.\u00a0 But every time I try to engage her in a conversation she fails to hold up her end\u2026\u00a0 no wonder she is single and has no kids\u2026\u00a0 I think that it may be a personality disorder\u2026 or maybe she was just tired.\u00a0 Now just to make things clear\u2026\u00a0 I was NOT trying to pick this women up\u2026\u00a0 If I had tried I would have :>\u00a0 off to my room for some tv, reading, and sleep.
\nIn the air again\u2026\u00a0 I pack and am on my way.\u00a0 The car is supposed to be back by 11:00 and my flight is not until 4:00.\u00a0 So, what do I do, spend more money and keep the car or hang out in the airport for 5 hours\u2026\u00a0 ok, I am still cheap\u2026 and done with Florida.\u00a0 I spend 5 hours in the airport.\u00a0 That is ok, I finally finish the book that I was reading.\u00a0 The Weight of Light, not very captivating, but I finished it and then abandoned it to the universe that travels through the airport.\u00a0 I bought another one.\u00a0 This is by Robert Parker and I am sure that I will like it.\u00a0 After reading the first part I find that it picks up right after the last Robert Parker book I read.\u00a0 This is good.
\nI look around the airport for a plug so I can run on ac with my laptop.\u00a0 There is one plug where I am waiting and some guy is using it\u2026\u00a0 I wait.\u00a0 I can also watch the USAIR counter for a time when there\u00a0 is no line.\u00a0 The guy leaves and I swoop in on the plug and type away for another hour or so.\u00a0 There is free internet in Fort Lauderdale airport, sweet.\u00a0 I post a blog.\u00a0 I read my book\u2026\u00a0 I eat at Friday\u2019s I think.\u00a0 I check in.\u00a0 I go though security.\u00a0 Even security has lost its angst.\u00a0 I sit, I wait, I plug in. I read, I type I buy a soda.\u00a0 USAIR now charges $2 for soda on the plane\u2026 geeze!
\nWhile at the airport I pay my car insurance, I call Geico and take my ex-wife off of my policy\u2026\u00a0 why after nine years is she still listed on my policy???\u00a0 Well, I could not do it on-line and I never bothered.\u00a0 It turns out that the married status was saving me $50 a year on my insurance!\u00a0 Yup, I saved $450 on car insurance over the last nine years because I could not change it on-line, sweet.\u00a0 I finally needed to get here off because she had some problem with her insurance.\u00a0 This came at a good time because I want to see the kids on a weekend that is not mine, so it helps to have done something for her\u2026.
\nOff to Philly and then onto Hartford\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the road again\u2026 I have logged over 1,000 ground miles this trip.\u00a0 60 of it backpacking, 100 of it or so riding and the rest driving.\u00a0 I am glad that I upgraded the car to the convertible.\u00a0 It was a fun car.\u00a0 I wish I had more of a chance to play with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-florida-2009"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7vq9N-3d","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}