soul paintings: January 2007

These first two cj's are both for my CKU-Chicago dorm cj group.

This one asked: What is your passion?

My response, of course, is learning. I always want to know more, do more, learn more. The journaling on the right states...

ways to learn
~ travel
~ take classes
~ read
~ try new things
~ research

topics to learn
~ scrapbooking
~ archaeology
~ photography
~ architecture
~ culture

This next one asked: if you could invite any 10 people, living or deceased, to dinner, who would you invite and why.

My guests would be:
my dad
Thomas Jefferson
Marco Polo
Joan Baez
Oprah
Mozart
Albert Einstein
Cleopatra
Howard Carter
Socrates

The rationale for each is explained earlier in my blog - the threads are: http://marciamiller.blogspot.com/2006/09/fun-blog-challenge.html and http://marciamiller.blogspot.com/2006/10/dinner-party-for-10-ok-11-including-me.html

Now this last cj layout is for my twopeas childfree cj group. The request was for a picture and info about a vintage item, or any other non-living item, that holds significance. I really don't have much for "old" items, or vintage items. So I decided that a LO about my organ would do. My parents gave me this organ when I was maybe 7 years old. The main reason it holds so much sentimental value for me is that my dad loved it so much when I played - I think he was really proud of me, learning to play without any lessons.

Because I had a couple days of vacation left that I had to use (no carrying over unused days at my company!), we decided to head somewhere warm over the holidays. Greg thought it would be good to trailer the bike to Florida, then ride around the perimeter, all the way down to Key West. So Fri the 22nd, we headed out....

The first few days of our trip were pretty miserable.

We left Milwaukee at 10pm Fri night. We actually left the first time at 8pm, but had trailer problems - the trailer was swaying horribly, we couldn't even get up to 50mph without it feeling like the whole car was going to tip over. Greg thought it was because the trailer was imbalanced between front/back (trailer was only 8 foot, bike is longer). We came back to the friends who loaned us the trailer, and Greg and the guy removed a front tire stabilizer, which enabled the bike to move forward 4 inches, and that helped some. So the entire way to Atlanta, we drove around 60 mph, but just about every time we went around a corner or hit a bump, the trailer would sway and we had to slow down. When we got near Atlanta Greg had the inspiration to put more weight on the front of the trailer, so we lashed 240 pounds of bagged dirt on the front - problem solved! ;D No more sway. So anyway, we drove straight thru from Milwaukee to Gainesville, FL, where we left the car/trailer and finally crashed in a hotel. It took about 20 hours to get there, which doesn't sound bad, except for working a full day Fri and then not leaving until so late. We took turns driving, supposedly the other person could sleep. Greg got probably 6.5 hrs of sleep, I got maybe 2. So I was totally exhausted!!

So we crashed pretty hard, then crawled outta bed to head out Sun morn. Think about it... FL is eastern time zone, so I was getting up an hour earlier than it would have been here. ouch! It drizzled most of that day while we drove - I was pretty grumpy. I was still exhausted from not enough sleep, so I totally crashed Sun night too.

Mon - I woke up at about 8am eastern time to Greg saying that there is a tornado watch until 1pm. what??!! In fact, a tornado hit the town where Greg had originally planned on leaving the car/trailer - could have been bad if we'd gotten back from our tour and found our car/trailer damaged! So anyway, of course it's raining/drizzling. The hotel gave us late checkout at 2pm - nice folks. Too bad I woke up from Greg moving around - it would have been nice to sleep in... So even though they later extended the tornado watch until 2:30 we still left at 2pm, wasn't too bad then. So we drove in the rain again, and because we left 5-6 hrs later than expected, it was dark by the time we got to Marco Island and Sanibel Island, (west side of FL). Those were the areas I really wanted to see, because we've been to most of the rest of FL already.

Tues - we had a pretty brutal driving schedule. I think our GPS showed like 9.5 hours or something. So we drove and drove and drove, only stopping once to take a picture (plus fuel stops and quick food of course). We wanted to get down the Keys highway to Key West before dark. It was very cool cruising down the Keys highway on bike, but it was very windy too. I had a death grip on the bike (and Greg's tushie) as I tried to take pics of 7 Mile Bridge without getting blown off the bike! lol Anyway, we also had a tour in Key West at 8pm that was prepaid, so had to get there on time! We made it early enough to get dinner before the tour, but again - exhausted! Our tour was a pub crawl to 5 dif bars - it was ok, but we weren't in the party mode, so we watched other folks get drunk and goofy.
Tues, Wed & Thur nights we spent at Key West in a cute little B&B. Well, ok, B&B minus the B. lol There are 3 guest rooms (all with private baths), but breakfast is not included, and guests do not have access to any indoor public rooms. We could use the front porch and the little garden area out back for relaxing. But it was cute; we ended up with the largest guest room; the hostess is very nice and sociable - very helpful. It was located right off Duval St (the main street), so very convenient. Oh, and the price was WAY less than other places around. So 'twas good.

Wed we walked around Key West. We've already been there, so we didn't do the touristy stuff. We walked around the marina area, which isn't the yucky sterile kind of marina you find here - there are restaurants and cute/quaint shops along the shoreline. It's almost as much of a hot spot for humanity as Duval St. We followed the shore as much as we could, until we got to the military base. :-( That night we watched the sunset from Mallory Square, which is the "thing to do." It's a crazy place, tons of people, vendors, folks doing weird stuff for tips (mimes, trained cats, jugglers, etc). We got a shoreside table at a bar so it was calm by us.

Thur we walked some more, then we laid out poolside. Nope, not our place, our place didn't have a pool. But just a few blocks down, at a different guest house, we paid $5 each, had access to their pool and oceanside and lounge chairs, etc., and got a "free" drink. That worked for us! (fyi - the rooms at that place were going for $550 a night! - I think our room was $160... hmmm.... I think it was worth the "extra" $5 to use their facilities!!)

That night we had booked a sunset cruise on an 80 foot schooner - kinda like a big sailboat but a replica of an old ship. That was the highlight of my trip. Watching the crew haul up the sails and work them was SO cool. And being on the ocean powered only by the wind.... etc.. I LOVED standing on that ship, feeling the rockin' of the ocean, the fresh wind in my face, it's such a freedom somehow. Anyway, we went to a couple bars after that... I had purchased a cigar (orange dream flavored!) from the cigar shop owned by the proprietors of our little guest house. However, I can only consider smoking when I'm drinking, so we "had" to go have a few! ;-o

The weather by this time was much better. Tues en route to the Keys was cold (for there) but only occasional rain. Wed it was clear and warmer. And Thur it was fabulous, not too hot to lay in the sun, but not too cold, lots of sun!

Let's see... part of the fun of going to other places (for me anyway) is the different food. We ate lots of seafood. We tried: mahi mahi sliders (basically little sandwiches), fried 'gator (nummy), conch fritters (you've probably seen conch shells), along with other stuff. Greg had key lime pie twice - it's one of his faves - I had chocolate covered frozen key lime pie. I tried two Cuban items (Key West is only 90 miles from Cuba!): Cuban shredded pork sandwich and a (get this!) red beans and rice omelet - actually QUITE tasty!

We chatted with a lady and her bro on our sunset schooner ride. We did the usual, where ya from, what do ya do, etc. Well... the lady is retired from Merrill Lynch. I commented that for years I've considered going into the financial planning field, but I just didn't want to "start over" with a significantly lower salary and have to find my own clients and stuff. Well, she told me that Merrill Lynch and a couple other big companies don't do it that way anymore - they use teams with one financial guru teamed with salespeople. OMG. That would be like SO awesome! So after we chatted a while, she gave me her email addy, and said that if I was interested in looking into a job with ML, to email her, and she would have her mgr contact a mgr up here. WAY COOL!!

Fri morn we left Key West early. We had a lot of driving planned for the day. We drove up thru the keys, then northeast up and around Miami, hitting the coastline around Miami Beach. We then followed coastal highways and roads northward. Weather was beautiful, 85 and sunny. We stopped at Hard Rock Cafe in Hollywood FL for a shotglass, of course! lol I honestly don't remember where we spent the night.

Sat morning we were up and moving again. Lots more driving along the shoreline. Nice weather again. ;D We continued up the coast... nothing major, nothing real exciting.
We did stop some place where there is a big pier into the ocean, and we watched some folks trying to surf. That was cool! Mid-afternoon I looked at the planned route, and realized that if we did the entire bike route as planned, we wouldn't get to our hotel until really late, so we cut it just a bit short. Good thing, too! We headed back to the very first hotel in Gainesville, loaded the bike onto the trailer, loaded stuff from bike to trailer, etc, and took off. If we had continued our planned route, Greg would have been trying to drive the bike up onto the trailer in the dark - not advisable. So it worked out ok. Anyway, we drove maybe 5 hrs that night in the car, and spent the night south of Atlanta.

Sun we hit the road early again. argh. Greg was driving since I don't like to drive thru big cities, and Atlanta is nasty! Well, it was drizzly, then it became rainy. The tires on my car aren't exactly brand new (not bald, but not real good either!), so Greg really had to pay attention to the driving. We even hydroplaned a few times, which is quite interesting while towing. Greg didn't want me to drive in the rain, which was way ok by me! lol So he did most of the driving - I didn't take over until southern Indiana. And then of course he took over thru Chi - because I won't drive thru that city either (I would take 294, but that takes longer). We got home around 9:45 pm, we unpacked the car/bike, he unloaded the bike and trailer, then we headed over to some friends' house for a NY Eve party. So that's the extent of our big winter vacation. lol It wasn't all that exciting. There were good parts and bad parts. It was nice being away, nice being in warm weather, nice riding the bike. But again, except for our two days in Key West, it was just drive, drive, drive. That's Greg's idea of fun, not mine. I like to stop and see things and do things. So next motorcycle trip - I'M planning!!!