Looking out, seeing the clouds below, I wish I had the words to describe what I was seeing, the thoughts that were running through my head. Seeing the gulf, having that little twinge of "what if something went wrong with the plane?" Had to put that thought out of my mind immediately. The water, being so high above it, looked like pebbled vinyl. Then later, some thinner clouds, all stretched out, made me think of a cobbled-stone path. The clouds I saw earlier, at the beginning of the flight, were fluffy, and such a pure white. At the time, I thought about how would I describe this? What words to convey the imagery? Like a field of sheep, like cotton candy, and so on. Then I realized that by dwelling on how I would say it, I was missing the wonder of it all. So what I couldn't come up with some clever, well-turned phrase? I was above the clouds - and it was so beautiful - I needed to just enjoy the view.
After landing in Tampa, I picked up my rental car and headed out to St. Pete. Driving over the bridge (Howard Frankland Bridge, I believe) that crosses over Tampa Bay, once again I was just in awe. I don't know if the water level is always that high, but at the beginning of the bridge, the bridge and the water appear to be at the same level. I'm not used to that. The bridges in Arkansas and Tennessee start elevating long before you even get even with the edge of the water. By the time you are actually crossing the water, you are much higher than the level of the water. But to be able to look out the window of the car, and see the bay, see the choppiness of the water, was something I never experienced. I probably spent equal amounts of time looking off to the side as I did looking ahead at the road as I was driving.
Getting into St Pete, checked into the hotel room, I sat down for a while and read the book I had started while on the plane. But I couldn't stand the thought of this possibly being my only trip to Florida, and not seeing SOMETHING of it. So I drove down to a park by the Bay. Unfortunately for me, I was on the wrong side of Florida to see the Ocean, and I was on the wrong side of the penisula that St Pete is on to even see the Gulf, but seeing the Bay was still cool. I took off my shoes and walked on the little beach by the park, and waded into the bay, and just walked along like that for a while. (On a side note, the Bay smells like rotten eggs. Or the beach did. Whatever it was that I was smelling, it was not pleasant.) While I was walking along the beach, and deciding if I really wanted to wade in something that obviously smelt so bad, a man comes walking onto the beach. He asked me if the water was ok, and I replied that I really didn't know. So, the man takes his socks off, and proceeds to wade out into the bay. I looked back and he had went out to waist deep, and seemed to be having a moment of silent rejoicing. I had my camera with me, and it was such a moving moment to me, that I snapped a picture.
I've cropped and enlarged the pic, so the image is better viewed. I was much further away than this would appear.
Of course, no trip taken by arkie can go smoothly. I normally always take an extra change of clothes, because, well, you just never know. Not this time. I was only going for one night (I had originally planned on staying over until Sunday morning, but family issues came up and dictated a change in plans), so I only packed one outfit. I needed to run by the office before I left for the airport, and decided to stop at Starbucks to get a Pumpkin Spice Latte. I didn't even make it out of the parking lot before I was wearing part of the latte. So... there I am, with coffee stains all over my shirt, and only have one shirt in my bag. So I had to stop at Target and buy another shirt. Luckily, I found one on the clearance rack for under $7. Since I still had quite a bit of the latte left to drink, I waited until I got to the airport to change. After changing my shirt, I got out of the car and caught the shuttle to the terminal. Now, because I can never be on time, either extremely early or running late, I was at the airport with 2 freaking hours to kill. Had I left with just enough time to get to the airport to check in and catch my flight, I would have run into buttloads of traffic and been late and missed the flight. I decide to go to one of the bars and have a drink. I have always said that I don't like Bloody Marys. The truth is, I have never had one. Until now. I was right. I don't like Bloody Marys. Blech! Nasty! I could only force about half of the drink down my throat. And people who know me, know I don't waste alcohol like that. *smile* There was another incident, but it would fall under the category of TMI and is kind of gross, so I won't share it.
The flight back was great, I was lucky enough to get a window seat again. But I messed up and sat too close to the wing to have a great view. I either had to look at half wing, half view or turn my head back and look out the window behind me. But it was still good. Seeing the clouds like that amazes me. The whole concept of flying is amazing. And then coming into Nashville, the sun had already set, and you could see all the city lights. Beautiful, just beautiful.
