Ranting and Raving

Today is Sunday, May 1st, 2011 (in case you don't know what year it is).  Pope John Paul II has been beatified. The cleanup continues in Alabama. President Obama trumped the Donald at the White House Correspondents' Dinner last night.

We have landed again in Fredericksburg, Texas, one of the few spots in Texas we think is very much worth seeing and spending some time in. Now, after having seen most of this Lone Star State, Paul agrees with its dipstick, tea-baggin' Governor Rick Perry. Yes, Texas should secede from the union. Except for Fredericksburg, Johnson City, Luckenbach, UTEP*, San Elizario, Fort Davis, Big Bend National Park and environs, and the quality ethnic markets and our friends in Houston, this state has little if anything to offer. It needs a massive facelift. Of course the Governor had been rejecting all federal help for projects thinking it's some sort of socialist plot but now, just today, has complained that he's not getting enough federal help to fight the state's raging wildfires.  So therein lies the teabagger philosophy/confusion. Something akin to "I upped my salary. Now up yours." Huh? (This is Paul dictating. I only type.)

** University of Texas at El Paso, a great school

 

If the conservatives ever build the wall between Mexico and the U.S., we suggest continuing that wall from Brownsville, all the way around the border of Texas to Galveston. Give Texas back to Mexico. (Again, this is Paul, not Corita. I like Texas.)

Then there's that so-called "The Donald". Only he and the good Lord know what's up with this nut. The man is wackier than Mel Gibson, Orly Taitz, and Jerome Corsi all rolled into one. Our young men and women are dying in combat overseas while this draft-dodger flies around in his private fleet of Trump-labeled transportation with trophy wife #8, condemning everything Obama. And at the same time stating that he and his running mate, the brain-dead Gary Busey, could easily win the White House if he decides to run. Gary Busey maybe. Donald Trump never.

Now here's what I (Corita) think this clown is up to.  He's not running for President but setting us up for yet another faux reality show, this one with a presidential-campaign theme that mirrors the "Apprentice" series. NBC is obviously in on it and the announcement will take place later this month.

We'd like to know what you think. Weigh in with your opinion.

Paul cuts to the chase with Trump, simply calling him an a-hole.

And speaking of Orly Taitz, can anyone explain what this Ruskie emigre is up to? If there was ever a case for immediate deportation, this woman fits the bill. Then there's Jerome Corsi. After swiftboating war hero John Kerry, he's about to come out with another anti-Obama book explaining why Obama's birth certificate is a fraud. And that Obama does not even have a belly button. Obama must be from another world. Come on, folks, get a grip.

Now that we have that off our chests, back to our travels...

This is not Paul marveling at a lapdancer outside the trailer.

But at the Blue Angels performing at the Pensacola, Florida Naval Air Station. And who among you can boast that you flew with the Blue Angels? Well, Paul can. Back in 1980 when they were flying the A-4 Skyhawks.

We stayed just outside the Naval Air Station at an Elks Lodge and the Blue Angels did their morning performance right overhead.

Needless to say, Marine and Naval aviation in general are among the few things that still turn Paul on (I used to but now it's jet fighters like this F-14 on static display outside the Naval Aviation Museum, which Paul also flew on in 1978). 

Inside the museum is quite a bit of history about Paul's old (and I do mean "old") fighter squadron VMF(AW) 451.

And this is the F-8 Crusader, circa 1960s, that Paul worked on in the Marine Corps. Let me add that Paul says he spent many an hour crawling down the intake making sure there was no debris or snakes or what have you inside that could foul the engine. Now, some forty years later, Paul has ballooned up to about twice the size of that opening you see there.

This is my fourth visit to the museum in the last three years. Paul dragged me kicking and screaming but because my dad served in the real Marine Corps in World War Two and Korea, he (Paul) bought me this T-shirt, which I wear with pride.

This is an old fort on the grounds of the NAS (Naval Air Station) that in the 19th century helped protect Pensacola Bay.

And close to where the Apache chief Geronimo and his band, once the Army managed to capture them, were held for a short time.

This is one of his several families. When not killing white people, this guy was busy making babies. He was one prolific dude.

And we were told that somewhere in this cemetery at the NAS, one of Geronimo's 112 wives is buried. Couldn't find her...

But did find the grave of a man who married a woman 24 years his senior. The original "cougar".  She must have been hot. And rich.

The Naval Aviation Museum is free but this is not: the Pensacola NAS Lighthouse. That's why there are no interior shots.

This white sand beach is only steps away from the lighthouse.

This was the only beach we visited on this latest trip to Florida.

If you're lucky enough to be stationed at Pensacola or are visiting military, you have access to miles of pristine coastline, a wonderful waterfront RV park, cheap groceries and gas, and the Blue Angels.

Why can't all of America be like this?

God Bless America. And Trump...

get a life.

In the Eye of the Storm

This blog is directed mostly at my family, most especially my mom who worries about Paul taking me into these storm-ridden places. Well, we thought we beat this latest system moving east up through Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri and so on. But that old fart put me right in the bulls-eye in Natchez, Mississippi. We put down overnight in this historic Mississippi River city and watched the approaching storm. The forecast called for severe conditions with large hail but no tornados in our immediate area. So we thought for sure we found the right place to dodge the bullet.

 Fell asleep and at about 3AM all hell broke loose. Of course, there's not a thing you can do except you hope and pray for the best and that large hail doesn't batter the truck or the RV. Or that one of the RV park's trees or a large limb doesn't come down on top of you, ruining everything. Three weeks ago we met an RVer in Louisiana who was camping in Arkansas when a tornado roared through killing four fellow campers. A falling tree crushed their trailer.

 Our storm turned out to be roaring wind, lightning, thunder, rain and fortunately very small hail. It lasted a couple of hours and moved northeast. Unfortunately, it claimed a number of lives in Arkansas and Missouri. For us, the worst really was poor little Daisy. She came unglued, jumped up on the bed and was literally laying on Paul's face, shaking like a leaf and that went on for about two hours.  Can't understand why Paul likes Daisy on his face. Is that weird, unnatural, or what?

Having grown up in California and now living in Arizona the uncertainty of these kinds of sudden weather outbursts are foreign and really quite frightening to us.  We're not totally new to this kind of weather on the road. In the last few years we've experienced several episodes just like this (including tornados in Ames, Iowa, Birmingham, Alabama and eastern Minnesota) but when you're watching the Weather Channel and you see the violence swirling all around you, it's damned unnerving.

 Some of the parks we've stayed in have emergency shelters for these weather events.  Last summer in Minnesota, emergency personnel evacuated our RV park and herded everyone into a nearby casino. Cha-ching!
But here in Natchez this park is about as slimy as they come. We barely have water and electricity. However, it does have good cable TV with MSNBC, CNBC, and the Weather Channel. All GE/NBC-owned and operated commie stations. But then it's only $80 a night to stay here, about the same price as the Ritz Carlton on the river. Plus it's actually in a mobile home (trailer) park. And you know how much tornados like mobile homes. 

Today we plan to tour historic Natchez. The sky is clear right now but the weather is calling for more violent outbursts this afternoon. At least during the day you're awake, alert and can seek shelter. The frightening part is at night.

The good news: Daisy made it off Paul's face and stopped shaking. And is back to her old ways chowing down and working her way toward her road trip goal weight of 68 pounds.

Can we have hushpuppies with that?

After seven nights in Tampa visiting our friends, we flushed the holding tanks and headed north. That was right before taking a sharp left in the Florida Panhandle and heading west where all the forward thinkers, dreamers and adventurers and mostly smart people migrated a century ago. Call it the "left coast" if you will, but there's no humidity, no mosquitoes, gnats, biting black flies. Just rattlesnakes, scorpions, and great white sharks (if you overshoot your destination). So up the Sunshine Tollway we went, encountering our first major storm on the trip. Near the gulf coast community of Chiefland, a storm cell rolled through, damn near rolling the Lance-A-Less. Two inches of rain in twenty minutes. 

Pulled into the northern Florida town of Perry to stay the night again at the Elks Lodge. First thing you see in town is this bumper sticker which proclaims the political sentiment in these parts. So we knew the cable offerings would have no MSNBC. But not only did it not have the pro-Obama MSNBC, it didn't even have CNBC or NBC. But plenty of Fox stations including Fox News, shopping channels galore and ungodly amounts of TV preachers beggin' for your bucks. We really believe that God is going to get these clowns in the long run. Amen to that.

You park on the Elks' spacious lawn and ain't that exciting.

We were told never to call it a "club".  It's a "lodge". Oh well.

We had dinner at the Elks. You realize these places are sort of stuck in the '50s and '60s. Dark lounges and meeting rooms. Something we feel disuades a younger membership. Paul's an old fart. He's still stuck in the '40s but at 37, I (Corita) like to see what's at that salad bar. Or what's fallen into that salad bar. And of course, as I noted before, I like old Tracy/Hepburn movies, long walks on moonlit beaches, cozy nights by the fire, and lots of cheap red wine.

We wanted to show you our elegant setting at the table. Knife, fork and paper placemat. It's the Elks.

I was grabbing blind at the salad bar because it was so damn dark that I dipped into a bowl filled with ants and didn't notice that I had done so until I got back to the table. Oh quit! It's actually a pretty nice, fresh salad albeit iceberg lettuce with bacon bits. Not ants. It's the Elks.

Here's a shot from our table into the lounge. The only light being from the flash on our camera.

But the dinner was accompanied by plenty of that cheap red wine that I like so much. Go Elks!

And homemade desserts made by the waitress/cook and pastry chef Mary. Let me say the people you meet at the Elks couldn't be nicer, more accommodating and quite frankly, any more interesting. It's a fine organization, does good works, and provides inexpensive RV parking. And when you're paying $4 plus for a gallon of gas, every penny counts.

This is Mary. Mother of....desserts.

We both ordered the seafood platters. Mary asked, "Would you like that grilled or deep-fried?"  "Hell," we told her. "We's in the south. We want it deep-fried." So you get a kind of whitefish, shrimp, scallops, hushpuppies, okra, and Lord knows what else. All of it rolled in pancake batter and dropped into a fryer. Sounds terrible. Tastes great.

Here's yours truly enjoying southern sweet 'tater fries, a vegetable. Mmmm.....

And here's Paul, wrapping up the evening with his to-go box, heading back to the Lance-A-Less with leftovers for Daisy. So went our big night in Perry, Florida.

Next day we took a sharp left and head due west with a stop at the Elks lodges in Pensacola, Florida and Hattiesburg, Mississippi, then went onto Natchez on the mighty Mississippi. And that is where we had one of the wildest nights in a long time. Has nothing to do with what went on under the covers but about a storm system that unfortunately killed at least ten people. That's next.

Gotta go. Peace on 'ya.  

There Goes My Eyeball Into Your Highball

 Before we get to this pic, remember the armadillo that we picked up that got loose in the rig?  Well, we were watching TV the other night and saw a story on tiny Carville, Louisiana and its former leper colony**. And as luck would have it, the biggest carrier of leprosy is the armadillo. An alarming number of the little buggers carry the leprosy virus. That's true. So we rounded the sucker up, gave him the heave-ho, he rolled up like a sow bug and he's probably rolling still. Hope we didn't hurt him. But he nipped Paul as he was getting the bum's rush so as the old song goes, "Leprosy: it's crawling all over me.There goes my eyeball into your highball"... So now we're waiting to see which part of Paul falls off first.

Still have the scorpions and the snakes in the trailer plus damaging hail is expected tonight in northwest Florida.  Now...for the pictures. 

Pulled into our RV park in Tampa--the Bay Bayou Resort. We're sitting outside on a hot, humid evening enjoying a drink and the bbq and here comes the damn bug sprayer.

 He didn't go around the park just once. Oh, hell no. He went around the park about five times. The place looked like the smoking lounge at the Elks Lodge.

 We damn near choked to death on the smoke and we still had mosquitoes. Our drink and dinner were ruined. Paul has leprosy. No ill effects from the rattlesnake bite. Hell, the scorpions don't bother us at all now. We just don't walk around the joint barefoot. In spite of it all, Daisy is hanging in there. Wondering what these two birds have dragged her into.

 So we thought we would rescue the trip with an excursion into Tampa. There's a piece of work for you. More freeways, expressways, tollways, and holes in the highways than you'll find anywhere in L.A..

 It's full of car repair shops...

 Tire shops...

 Accidents...

 Some good restaurants...

 Bikers...

 Hooters wannabees and nudie bars...

 But this place does have its saving grace--in the 'burb of Brandon: our go-to shrine of overindulgence: COSTCO! Where would America be without Costco and WalMart? It wouldn't even be worth getting out of bed in the morning.

 And the best gasoline deals in Tampa can be found here. $6.25 per gallon for unleaded regular. But hell, you're saving so much on toilet paper that you don't care that they're gouging you on gas.

 Bought a Powerball ticket somewhere in Alabama, I think. Got 4 out of the 6 numbers. And you've heard the story of the "dog ate my homework"? You guessed it. We thought about opening her up right then and there but nah.  She's worth more to us than a few grand we were going to use to pay for gas.

 Stopped at a Cuban sandwich shop. Found this suspicious device under our seat. We think Fidel has operatives here in the Tampa area. When I held it up, people scattered like rats leaving a sinking ship.  Police showed up. Said, "Yep. It's a small IED-type thing." Oh, come on. For heaven's sake, it's just a big fried Cuban potato ball packed with meat, not explosives. But Paul exploded that same night and the next morning. His delicate system can't take it. Still, these balls were mighty tasty. Ate 24 of them at lunch. Along with a twelve pack of Libre beer.

 Pretty house on the water. But this is not Tampa. This is St. Petersburg Beach. This is the Florida you come looking for. And it's also where our friends live. Thank you, Jesus. Or Hay-soos. Or whatever that Cuban's name is. It's also close to where Paul's good Marine buddy is in rehab. (Forgive me, Jesus. Especially during Holy Week.)

And this is Paul's Marine buddy Willie who is slowly but surely recovering from a stroke-like event. His lovely wife Gail holds our soon-to-be twenty-two-pound overweight Daisy and you know the clown on the right. Oh, Paul went on to become Commandant of the Marine Corps while Willie remained a lowly lance corporal. It's  been difficult for Paul to fraternize with the troops but he perseveres...and here's that other clown.

 The first clown's girlfriend, celebrating her 27th birthday.

 And we can never put enough shots of Daisy in. Here she is rolling in the grass. She can barely roll over since she's so fat.

 Daisy poolside at Willie's house. While he's in rehab we took over the place. Here's Chub-olicious about to take a leap...

 ...to retrieve her tennis ball.

 Yay! Good girl. She has the ball.  Ain't this the most insufferable blog you've read all day? We're running out of material...

And, of course, no takeover of someone's house can possibly be complete unless the woman of the house (Gail) fixes one fine dinner. Man, can this woman cook. So we had fried chicken, baked beans, corn on the cob, coleslaw, mac and cheese, and apple pie.

While we were enjoying dinner, by the way, Daisy encountered a possum in the backyard. Tried bringing Daisy into the house but Willie and Gail have four cats. What a circus that almost became. Where this dog developed her aversion to cats we'll never know. She liked the armadillo. Oh. Daisy's tail just fell off. You don't suppose?...

Anyway, we're going to the Perry, Florida Elks for dinner. Didn't expect anything special but were astounded at the results. That'll be in our next blog.

Gotta go. Sue ya, Daisy

** The documentary on the Hansen's Disease colony in Carville was produced by Louisiana Public Broadcasting in 2005. Very well done. A real eye-opener since I hadn't heard of it. And I've heard about everything. Well, almost everything. The Sisters of Charity-run hospital and community of 400 lepers (Hansen's Disease victims) closed awhile ago but there is a museum on the premises. We may stop by on our way back to Arizona. And yes, political pundit and former Marine James Carville and his family hail from this part of the state.