Porto San Giuseppe

Yesterday, I realized that I am on the last end of my annual Florida vacation. I really love it down here, as I love the surroundings, the area, the pace of life (although sometimes a bit overly slow)and especially the weather. I've never been here during the summer or during a hurricane season, but I'm certain that all things considered, this is a fine place to be.

In the morning, we ventured to Apalachicola's downtown area, where there is a myriad of different places to shop, eat, and see, as the city was founded as a harbor in the early 1800's, and the market place reflects a lot of that old charm. We visited a flower shop by mistake, as it was a former sea sponge warehouse that housed an antique store, that now housed a flower shop. In entering the store, it said that it was a flower shop and gift store. From what we saw however, it was a very, VERY basic flower shop. Wherever the gifts were, they were probably on backorder, for as far as I could tell, there were no "gifty" type things anywhere to be found. As we walked into the store, the owner was very chipper and polite in asking us if we could be helped. When we said we were looking for the antique shop, however, we were quickly shooed out of the store with a flurry of directions. Apparently that woman's been asked the same question more than once.

I am not one for antiques at all. I suspect that it has everything to do with how antique shops smell. They just smell old, musty, and dank. Normally this kind of a shop wouldn't be one that I would seek out. However, this particular shop sells some of the best hand-made soap (made from goat's milk) that I have ever used in my entire life.

Being redirected to "the Hayes House" back in town, we ventured to where this antique store was relocated, and browsed through all of the wares they had to offer.
Upon buying a dozen bars of soap, we headed for our next stop, "The Owl Cafe" Cooking Shop, and proceeded to get some really cool kitchen stuff, a seafood cookbook, some shrimp de-veiners, and spices.

We decided to head back to the beach house, where we'd be able to sit in the sun for a few hours before having to decide what we were going to have for supper.

My mom suggested our dinner destination, "Joe Mama's Wood Oven Pizza" in central Port St. Joe, Florida. When we first arrived, there weren't a lot of cars out front in the street, and in looking from the front of the restaurant (which had dark tinted glass), it didn't look like it was open.

After further review, we did see lights on in the restaurant, and decided to give it a try. We were greeted by a very friendly young woman that understood our confusion when we said we couldn't tell if the restaurant was open or not as it was so dark. We were seated, and our server came over, took our drink order and let us decide on the type of pizza we would like to try.

The great thing we noticed was that almost every table in the restaurant was full of diners, and that it truly did have the wood burning stove in the kitchen, similar to the wood ovens my mom and I experienced when we were in Rome, Florence, and Torino. We were both excited to anticipate having REAL Italian pizza. My mom ordered the pizza margherita, which had garlic, tomato, basil, and mozzarella. I opted for the Quatro, which had fresh mozzarella, basil, cured ham, and tomato.

In a matter of minutes, out came the pizzas from our server, and sure enough, they were identical to the pizzas we had in Italy. After the first taste, we knew one thing: this pizzeria is a complete WINNER. Wood stoves have a different way of cooking, and give pizza crusts (or for that matter, the whole pizza) a more rustic, earthy taste and texture, and the crust was amazing!

It truly was an experience reminiscent of past travels to Italy, and was a great way to end the evening. Next time, I hope to try the pizza with the arugula..it looked really interesting!

Fresher Than Preferred

The weather in Florida has been spectacular all week. No clouds seem to be anywhere nearby, and the temperature has been anywhere from 78-83 degrees. Doesn't get any better than that.

I have had several opportunities to walk along the beach, both around the beach house and nearby where there's a lighthouse. We have seen many types of seabirds, shells, dolphins, and some lizards. We have been able to see fishing boats way off in the horizon, catching fish or shrimp.

Nothing is better than fresh seafood from the Gulf of Mexico. In this area, there are many different restaurants to be able to try tuna, grouper, shrimp, bay scallops, oysters, and any other type of seafood you can imagine. We've tried many over the last several years in coming down to Cape San Blas and Port St. Joe, Florida.

Tonight we were hungry. My mom and I decided that we would venture to a place that we've gone to 2 or three times in the past. It's in the harbor at Port St. Joe, and it's called the Dockside Cafe. I don't think any time we've gone there where the service has been anything to write home about, and some of the servers just do their jobs. This isn't an issue, since the food has been good, and usually comes promptly.

I have no idea if our experience today was an exception or what. Walking into the restaurant, normally someone at least greets you at the door, even if you are asked to seat yourselves. We opted to sit out on the patio, where there was a nice breeze, and wasn't quite so stuffy. As we walked to the table, we passed by about 3 to 4 different workers, none of whom bothered to say hello, or even acknowledge we were there. I have no idea if they were short of help, but from what I saw of the patron to server ratio, this was certainly not the case.

We ordered our beers (which were probably the only things that were served promptly) and ordered the food. I opted for a shrimp basket with fries, and my mom ordered their blackened grouper with steamed vegetables.

After waiting approximately 20 minutes for our food to be served (and by now, our drinks were getting lighter), we finally got the food. While the server was chipper, the food was anything but.

I asked my mom how her food was, and the best part of her meal was the steamed vegetables on her plate, as her blackened grouper was somewhat fishy. I've never had fishy tasting grouper before. This was a first.

I ate about 4 of my 10 fried shrimp, which looked done on the outside, but upon closer examination, realized that they were extremely fresh: fresh off the boat, breaded, and fresh on my plate. While they were de-veined (thank goodness), the remaining shrimp on my plate were all translucent, and not the normal cooked white color that shrimp SHOULD be.

No amount of tartar or cocktail sauce would have improved the freshest food on my plate. I had to check the menu to make sure that we didn't end up in a sushi bar, as opposed to a seafood cafe.

Unfortunately, my criticism of my food to my server fell upon deaf ears, even after showing her my uncooked shrimp and giving her a cooking lesson on what cooked shrimp should look like. The only remedy was for the server to go back and get more shrimp for me. This was not an option for me. I respectfully declined. There was no offer to take the price of my dinner (at an overpriced $10.99) off the bill.

Freshly ingrained in our minds, her lack of empathy or care resulted in a less than stellar tip, which really shouldn't have been her fault. Oh well, our indifference matched what we experienced.

Dockside Cafe and Grill in Port St. Joe, Florida was a severe disappointment both from the quality of the food, and the quality of the service, which is a shame when we've seen many restaurants in the area in previous years that had fantastic food, fantastic service, but went out of business. If they don't pay attention to these types of things in future, this restaurant, too, won't last long either.

We certainly won't be coming back any time soon.

The Birds

I've come to the conclusion that I really like the beach. I like the ocean. I like the sand. I like the sun. I like how warm it is. Yesterday, for the first time since I was like 10 years old, I flew a kite on the beach. I had gotten a really cool kite that I had seen in a magazine, shaped in the outline of a shark. The kite is about 7 feet long, and as you look up at it from the sky, all you can see is the outline of this black shark, with its mouth open displaying a huge set of sharp, pointy teeth.

The seabirds didn't quite know what to think about this new avian friend in the sky. Most of them avoided it, but many of the seabirds that flew by, looked at it, squawked a bit, and then went on their merry way. It was relatively easy to fly, and again, was a perfect way to spend part of the afternoon. After all, yesterday was quite sunny and 81.

Afterward, my mom and I decided that we needed to go into town to get a few things from the grocery store. On the way, the Florida Highway Department must be in the process of doing several different projects, two of which happen to be from where we are staying, into Port St. Joe. At one point there was a flagman directing traffic around a blind curve on the highway. Either he was half-heartedly into his job, or was just slow to react (after all, this is the South), it seemed to take forever to get past the construction area. We ended up getting stuck behind a huge dump truck full of sand and whatnot, and what seemed to be a full load from the onset of his departure, turned out to be significantly less, as most of what he was hauling in the back was either leaking out, or being blown out by the wind.

I was tempted to flip the guy the bird.

Anyhow, we ended up getting the things we needed, toodled around the downtown area of Port St. Joe, and then headed back. Unfortunately for the city's economy, several businesses have closed shop or gone out of business. The economy has hit this area of Florida really hard, only to be exacerbated by new government restrictions on oyster fishing and protection, which is the livelihood of practically EVERYTHING down here.

Anyhow, in the evening, we ventured to Apalachicola to Boss Oyster Company for supper. I had a hankering for bay scallops, and last night's dinner was no disappointment. We were able to sit outside overlooking Apalachicola Bay and the inlet to the river, directly next to the wharf where several shrimping and fishing boats stood anchored, waiting for the next day's catch to commence.

While we were sitting on the patio outside, the menagerie of seabirds was a sight to behold. In two cases, the diners sitting on the patio opted to move inside, as there were several instances where there were hundreds of seagulls swarming around the area. My sister-in-law, who is no ornithologist, would have been as anxious as a cat laying in a room full of rocking chairs.

What was fascinating was how the restaurant had devised an interesting way to keep the birds from landing on the patio, by executing an intricate and random weaving of heavy test fish line in and out of the tables, canopies over the tables, and back overhead to the building. Apparently during the day, these fishing lines are shiny. By dinner time, they aren't, which makes the birds aggressive (seeing everyone eat nearby). By nighttime, birds go home to roost. Seagulls, for some reason don't like shiny fish lines, and therefore stay away, thus preventing unexpected surprises during dinner.

I was convinced I was pooped on twice during dinner.

At one point during dinner, my mom asked the server whether or not she had a B-B gun handy, as my mom informed her that it would be kind of fun to shoot at the seagulls. My mom then asked if there is any law against shooting seabirds. From the look on the server's face, she was taken aback, and then added "not to my knowledge. Wouldn't that be fun!" I am convinced my mother is Annie Oakley reincarnated.

Checking each other out to make sure there was no incendiary damages, my mom and I headed back to the beach house, and ended up enjoying a glass of this stuff called "Coco Vine," which is a libation that combines red wine with Dutch chocolate. It tastes like chocolate milk on ice and was quite tasty. And after thinking about how on earth someone would have thought to put chocolate and wine together, I then realized that this came from Holland. Someone must have had the munchies after smoking the reefer, and thought that such a concoction would be interesting.

Well, it's a winner.

The other thing I thought about after getting back was, all the people in the movie "The Birds" had to do to save themselves was to string a ton of heavy test fish line all over the city and over their homes, and it would have kept any deadly flying reptiles away...except at dinner time.

Apparently they didn't consult Boss Oyster company before making the movie.

A Pilferer Among Us

Today has been a beautiful, sunny, breezy day at the beach house. We had the opportunity to lie out on the beach, on the deck, and take in some beautiful sun. Not wanting to get burned, we decided to get cleaned up and dressed and head into town, as we needed to get some swivel hooks for a kite I have.

The kite is a really cool diamond frame kite that is about 7 feet long, jet black in the form of a shark. I'm very excited to be able to fly it while I'm down here, and hopefully get some pictures of it in action. The swivel hooks we needed were to be able to attach the kite to the line.

So my mom and I decided we would head into Port St. Joe, go to the fishing/sporting store just in town, get the swivel hooks, and then head back, picking up some gulf shrimp on our way home. When we got back, my mom made the observation that some of the sandcastle materials were missing. These materials consisted of two large 5 gallon Blains Farm and Fleet buckets, 4 red rectangular block makers, and several assorted sand toys that my nieces played with while they were here.

I couldn't quite figure out what had happened, since I wasn't that observant when I got here. All afternoon we wondered what had happened to all of the sandcastle tools, and my mom was convinced that someone took them.

Getting back to the beach house, I took it upon myself to look all around the house, and all around outside. The first deduction that I made was that I thought that maybe the wind took the buckets and the things inside them and spilled them over into the neighbor's yard. As I looked along the east side of the neighbors' home at 728 Treasure Drive, Port St. Joe, Florida, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

That is until I looked over at their ground level patio, to see the bottom of some white buckets, and some rectangular red plastic blocks sitting in the shower stall next door, at 278 Treasure Dr., Port St. Joe, Florida.

Whoever lives or stays at the house on 278 Treasure Drive in Port St. Joe Florida, had moved the white buckets, the red rectangular brick makers, and all of my nieces' sand toys, and placed them in their outside shower stall either while we were gone, or while my mom picked me up at the airport yesterday. Apparently they thought that my mom, my brother and sister-in-law, and my nieces had left, and decided to help themselves to our things without asking.

Needless to say, being the shy unassertive person I am, I walked over to the house, unlatched the door to the outdoor shower, collected the buckets, the red brick makers, and my nieces' sand castle toys, and brought them back to where they belonged.

I have no idea if the people staying at 278 Treasure Dr., Port St. Joe, Florida have done this before, or if they have done this to other visitors' things, but one thing's for certain. The owners of the house we're staying in, as well as the rental agency we procured the house through, will be getting a nice note from me, notifying each that there are pilferers in the neighborhood, and that they happen to be staying next door.

Florida 2010

This morning has been an interesting morning. I got up in plenty of time to make it to the plane, by getting up at 3 a.m., which to any normal human being who isn’t still partying at that hour, is just ugly.

I will say one thing however. It was really handy to have the hotel right across the street from terminal 2 at O’Hare. Terminal 2 happens to be the same terminal that houses the airline I took today, which turned out to be a good thing, since it was about 29 degrees this morning. Having to pack lightly (only taking a carry-on bag and not checking any luggage), my wardrobe options were severely limited, and only consisted of shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt. Apparently I didn’t plan ahead very well.

I breezed by ticketing and security, which now that I look back at it today was probably a first. I also made it to the gate with plenty of time to spare, enabling me to be able to get my morning jolt of coffee, and start gawking at people.
Much like the bus depot yesterday, people watching in the airport is a favorite of mine. It’s also, in my honest opinion, has to be any sociologist’s dream.

The first character I ran across today was a man that had to be carted up to the gate in a wheelchair. From where the ticketing counter was, the security gate, and ultimately the final boarding gate, this was quite a hike. On the way, and immediately inside the Delta concourse, the McDonalds restaurant was a beacon to just about everyone passing through security. What didn’t make sense to me was that upon getting to the gate, the man got out of the wheelchair, sat down at the gate, and then immediately got up again and left. I wasn’t paying much attention to him, but several minutes later, this same “disabled” man came back with two coffees and some breakfast food.

I’m usually pretty sympathetic to any poor soul needing additional assistance. But
this man was a complete opportunist.

Speaking of breakfast sandwiches, I also observed one young guy consume more McDonalds’ breakfast food at one sitting than I have ever seen before in my life. As I was sitting near the fake paraplegic, I watched, in amazement and horror, this young 25-ish male consume 3 to 4 breakfast sandwiches, 4 hash browns, and two trays of pancakes and sausage. I could feel my arteries clogging just watching the guy.

After watching the human garbage disposal for a while, and gagging in the process, there was another woman with very curly fake blonde hair prancing around the gate area. For lack of a name, I called her Curly Sue. With severe and dramatic facial makeup, big circular oversized Hollywood sunglasses, and a huge head (attached to a rotund body) of blond curly hair, she passed by where several people were sitting, including me, with her faux-alligator fire engine red roll-along carry on bag. With no regard for the other bags that people had sitting by them, Curly Sue traipsed through a myriad of bags, pulling her red reptilian bag behind her. When she approached a bag jam of bags, she proceeded to keep pulling, bumping, pulling, nudging, and bumping all of the other bags surrounding the path in which she wished her bag to roll through, hoping someone would move their bag to make her job easier.
Of course, after 2 minutes, no one did, which prompted her to finally pick up her bag and carry it with her the rest of the way to her seat.

This wasn’t the only issue Curly Sue had. Much like the Empress that I mentioned in my China travelogue, Curly Sue needed to sit in an exit row on the plane, since she needed space as she was not feeling very well. She also managed to pronounce it to about 25 people that were sitting around her. Unlike the Empress however, once she got what she wanted, she shut up for the rest of the trip.

Well I managed to make it to Atlanta ahead of schedule by about 20 minutes, which gave me about 3.5 hours to figure out what to do while waiting for my connecting flight. I decided that I needed to have some brunch, and figured the smartest thing to do was to get to my appropriate terminal and look for something. The Atlanta airport has about 6 different terminals all lined up parallel to each other, and lettered in order, A, B, C, D, E, and for whatever reason, T. I'm assuming an expansion is in order. Conveniently, they are all interconnected by an underground subway. Of course, my arrival happened to be in terminal A, and my departing flight was in terminal D.

I got to the terminal and where my gate was to be. By this time, it was 10 am (9am CST) and I was hungry. I stopped at a Phillip’s restaurant, and had buffalo butterfly shrimp. I then managed to get on my plane to Panama City, Florida without incident, and arrived a half hour earlier than I had intended.

My mom picked me up, and we headed back to the beach house. Stopping at Toucan’s restaurant for a late lunch/early supper in Mexico Beach, I was able to have awesome bay scallops, deep fried pickles, and Yuengling beer (which I will say IS my favorite).

We got back to the beach house, unloaded what little I had and strolled along the beach, before falling asleep for the evening. Florida’s panhandle is definitely a place I love to come, and am looking forward to the rest of the week ahead.

On the road again....

Seems a befitting title for this next segment in my life. Not that I'm a fan of wailin' Willie, but if you'd ask my co-workers about my vacation, they typically answer with, "aren't you always on vacation," or "what exciting place are you going to this time?"

No, I'm not always on vacation. In fact, I think that the annual allotment of vacation that I have is no different than that of any other worker. It's just that when I take it, I tend to take big chunks at a time which SEEMS like 52 weeks.

Anyhow, I'm venturing to Florida again. Yes, the annual trek to a place where my family loves to go. This time, I'm actually flying down first rather than driving. This was largely determined by how Easter, the school system spring break, and my work schedule all aligned. I AM, however, a bit disappointed by not having the opportunity to stare and gawk at a strange kid playing out "Get Smart" in the middle of a Culvers near Peoria.

Hoping not to disappoint, I hope to have some hardy laughs even if I'm flying down.

Take, for example, the bus depot.

Like Amy Winehouse to recreational drug use, bus depots and people watching go hand in hand. My brief stay was no disappointment. After being dropped off by a wonderful co-worker after work, I arrived at the bus depot about 45 minutes early to find a great menagerie in full swing. I went in the bus terminal to purchase a bus ticket for my ride to O'Hare International, only to be overwhelmed by a funky smell that can only best be described as that of a combo of gardenia and feet. I have no idea if it was eminating from the oily-haired woman sitting alone in the terminal, the guy behind the window selling the tickets, or what. It certainly was unpleasant, causing me to sit outside instead.

There were many different people milling about, but the one situation that caught my eye was an Amish guy getting out of a Toyota Rav4 (not driving it, mind you)to pick up his luggage. I was expecting a very large red and white checked gingham table cloth attached to a stick (a la Huck Finn) to be pulled from the bottom of the bus as it was being unloaded. Alas I was disappointed to see that his black bonneted wife stepped off the bus, and he fetched a normal huge backpack made from synthetic fibers. I was trying to figure out how all of this was allowed without going via horse and buggy, but then I really didn't care. Even more surprising was the African-American driver that seemed to know the guy on a first name basis. Talk about a social juxtaposition...

Anyhow, getting on the full bus, I ended up sitting to a young guy reading one of the Harry Potter books, and in the midst of a myriad of college aged students coming from Madison. And they looked like they were coming from Madison.

Anyhow, I pulled out my Kindle (thinking I was just as hip as the texting, iPod listening, laptop toting 20-somethings on the bus)to commence reading Chelsea Handler's latest book. I think I probably caused a few heads to turn (with the thought that now I must be some strange "differently abled" guy laughing at something for no apparent reason), but I couldn't help myself. After all, I was annoyed by the phone of a young guy sitting in front of me beeping every time he received a text message. So what if I laugh?

I got to terminal 2 at O'Hare International, walked up, over and down to the Hilton Hotel where I am to stay the first night. I didn't know exactly where to go in, but once I did, I was assisted by a young Asian woman who's rapid-fire speaking caused me to miss half of what she said. I'm hoping I didn't agree to some insurance seminar or registered for an Amway convention...

I ordered room service, which I'm certain will cost me several shekels, a carafe of wine, and am watching TV, to await my next leg of my journey tomorrow, at the butt-crack of dawn, which I'm certain...as my niece Sarah would say...isn't gonna be pretty.