The Camera is Great!

The new Panasonic DMC-TS1 camera arrived a couple of days ago... Now for a few test pictures.

Our favorite restaurant is Peace River Seafood, about 2 miles East of I-75 on Rt 17 in Punta Gorda. Jim and Kelly, the owners, catch and cook blue crabs, Maryland style. They are as good as any I've had since I was 14, and I've had a lot of crabs. In fact, when I die, if there is any justice in the world, I should be buried at sea; preferably in shallow brackish water. It's only fair.

Beautiful, photogenic, food like this gives me a chance to play with the new camera so here is a snapshot of dinner, no flash, at 12.1 megapixels.

Click on the picture to see it in it's tasty glory. What you can't fully appreciate from the picture are these facts:

1. The Bud Light Draft Beer in the background is just about 32 degrees... perfect!

2. The spice on the crab is authentic J.O. Brand #2 Crab Seasoning from Baltimore, Maryland! See http://www.jospices.com/ for the story on my favorite crab seasoning. To find it in Florida is a real treat.

3. The pictured crab was 9 and 3/8th inches point to point, very heavy, served so hot I couldn't eat it for a few minutes, (hence the photo op), and it was as sweet as crabmeat gets. This is a sublime meal in my book.

There are other things to like about this crab house too. For example, the correct condiments are served, vinegar, real melted butter, delicious boiled new potatoes, and the aformentioned J. O. Spice. They even have a talking parrot on the front porch!

The service is great too! Chris, the best waiter in Florida, either thinks I'm a food critic from Fodor's or a big tipper. Neither are true but his attentive service anticipates my every want. I call ahead to make sure the big crabs are available before driving the 120 mile round trip. Chris never gives me bad information. Crabbing is an unpredictable pursuit. Some days they are big, heavy and plentiful; other days you can't catch much of anything. I appreciate his honest apprasial of the day's catch..

Kelly, the owner, once said, "I'd like to have a dollar for everyone who said they were from Maryland". We accomodate! The walls of the restaurant are becoming papered with dollar bills denoting the origin of the diner's addiction to Callinectes sapidus, (the Beautiful Swimmer), aka Blue Crab.

So there you have it. A day in the life of a carniverous ex-Marylander who found culinary salvation in Punta Gorda, Florida. This last photo says it all best!

Home Sweet Home

Not much to say. We will go back to Houston and mount up for most of the remaining ride on June 24th. Until then it's business as usual. Call me if you have computer needs.

Theresa will make appointments with her doctors to make sure she is really ready to travel before the next attempt.

The blog will will languish until something cool happens to report.

Sprung!

We are out of the hospital! It never felt so good to cut off a wrist band. We will miss the wonderful hospitality of the staff but it sure is nice to be on the road again even if only for a day. We plan to fly home tomorrow.

We had breakfast and headed to Houston to store the bike and trailer in the Rios's garage and we board an AirTran flight Saturday to Miami. Hertz, it turns out, is the cheapest one-way rental from Miami to Naples so by Sunday 1AM we should be home. We bought a round-trip ticket and plan to return to Houston on june 24th to resume the abbreviated ride.

Dr. Scamardo in Texas agreed with the recommendations made by Dr. Scafuri in Naples for Theresa's medications, so our first stop was the CVS Pharmacy to get her prescriptions filled. We spent the day window shopping at a huge outlet mall and exploring Houston. The day was uneventful. We checked into a Holiday Inn Express, jumped into the pool, and began the ordeal of weeding out and condensing our stuff into a smaller space. Theresa and I almost had a tug-o-war over a pair of capri pants and a couple of shirts. I want to pack light; she wants to look good. Maybe a nudist resort is the best solution!

They sure know how to eat around here. Tonight I had the best $10 meal I can remember. They had something like 10 meals under $10 and they all looked good but my enchalada and steak dinner was great. Theresa still has very little appetite so she enjoyed looking at my salad, sniffing her baked potato, and eating a small crust of bread. She did allow herself a couple of small bites of enchalada, or maybe she just licked it. I swear it seems she is not eating much at all. If this keeps up her cost of maintenance may drop to a vanishingly small expense, although a new smaller wardrobe may offset the restaurant savings.

With luck we will both get tuned up by our several doctors, repack, loosing about 2 cubic feet of excess stuff from the trailer, and a leaner, lighter team Hanbury will resume the ride in June.

Good news on the camera front! The Panasonic DMC-TS1 camera I've been lusting for is now in stock and I've ordered it tonight! It still amazes me that you can get 32 Gigabytes of memory in an SD card but 'tis true and so it will also be mine! I spoke to a tech rep at Panasonic to ensure that the card will work and having his go-ahead, should be able to record our saga in High Definition Video as well as 12 megapixel stills. I suspect some scenes at the Sturgis Bike rally will be "R-Rated", so those of you who are faint of heart, or prudish of mind, beware the upcoming posts from August 1st to 9th. I've come to understand that a favorite past time of the ladies there is to flash unsuspecting men who might be holding a new Panasonic Digital Camera. I hope to learn the truth of this and will strive to document such activity to serve as a warning, so others may not fall into such lurid traps. Don't thank me. A life of public service compels me to do this for the benefit of my fellow man.

Decisions Decisions!

Theresa is feeling much better! She is re-hydrated, and feels almost normal again. We got some beautiful flowers from Larry and Jennifer, owners of Live Oak Resort, where we spent much of last week. We can't wait to visit there again.

We are now on the horns of a dilemma. We have been offered the wonderful option of suspending our trip and re-starting again in June. We can park our motorcycle and trailer in the garage of friends, Dr. Rios and his wife Sharon, near Houston, fly home, and return around June 24th to go to the Honda Wing Ding in Tulsa. From there we could still do Colorado, Utah, the Tetons, Yellowstone, and Sturgis. Coming back from Sturgis we can hit the states we are missing to have done 49; we go to Hawaii in March, that will be 50. Still not a bad trip. Theresa could rest for six weeks at home and I could do a little work and save some money for the continuation of our adventure later in the summer. We also save enough money by shortening this trip to pay for the upcoming cruises; October to Fantasy Fest, and March to Hawaii, which we planned a year ago.

The down side is giving up the West Coast and Alaska which was the main focus of this trip.

Our logic runs like this. Theresa’s health trumps all other considerations, period. However, we have had great treatment on the road and if this ordeal is truly past, we can continue and re-assess in a week or so. If she is really better we might press on knowing that if we shorten the trip, we won’t attempt Alaska again. Today we are in a 49/51 position leaning toward going home.

Dr. Scafuri and his wife Fara called today and did a very thorough re-cap of Theresa's condition and options. He has been communicating with all of Theresa's doctors and crafting a game plan for her treatment. If we paid thousands for concierge medicine we could not get better care. We are so grateful to have such a skilled, caring team looking out for us.

We have not seen Dr. Scamardo yet today so we still have to weigh his opinion. If we fly home, we should be there by Sunday.

While passing the time at the hospital I have more time to edit the blog. I can now elaborate on some prior thinking. If you are thinking about packing a trailer like ours for a long trip please consider this. PACK LIGHT! We thought when we left that we were carrying a reasonable amount of stuff but soon learned that we did not need the air mattress and inflation pump, the 2" foam mattress in the camper is adequate. We brought two flat 10" battery/ac fans and a small Coleman overhead fan with LED lights. I recommend you take one 10" fan only. Wash clothes as you go and buy them as you need them. You need riding/hiking boots and crocks, two pair of jeans, one pair of shorts, one T-shirt, (you will get more at events you visit), a hat for your messed up helmet hair, a minimal numbers of sox, etc. LED flashlights are great, bright, compact and light weight; take several. Leave all conventional flashlights and lanterns at home. They are too large, heavy, dim, and unreliable. The compact point and shoot type digital camera is probably best unless your main purpose of traveling is photography. The new Panasonic DMC-TS1 is the best I've seen but they won't be readly available for another week or three. It will also shoot HD TV! Channel 27 on XM Radio is so good, pay whatever it takes to get one on your bike. XM also gives you news, talk and other entertainment when you can't get local radio. It's great!

Expect to be approached every time you stop by someone who likes your bike, wishes they could join you, tells you that you are living their dream, etc. Theresa and I are friendly and enjoy this kind of thing but we were very plesently surprised at the reception we get everywhere we go.

On average, every day has been a good to great day. Even when Theresa was sick, we made friends in the hospital and had wonderful treatment.

Campus Interruptus!

We were having a great time. The camper was set up in a lovely setting. Birds were chirping, bunny rabbits and squirrels hopping but unfortunatly, so was Theresa’s gut. It seems an unlucky combination of antibiotics and prednasone allowed a germ, Clostridium difficile, often called C. difficile or "C. diff, to run wild in her bowels. To say this bacterium is wild is an understatement. In fact it strives to escape it’s containment in a very embarrassing way if you stray more than a few yards from the bathroom. Its unpredictability caused us to pack up the camper and move into a cabin with a real bathroom only three steps from her bed. Even this however, proved to be a step too far so we checked her into a lovely small hospital in Navasota, Texas.

Theresa is being fed by IV while I’m enjoying the hospitality of the staff here.
Texans seem to be a slightly different breed of American. Manners, unlike some northern locations, are still used here. People still open doors for ladies, say please and thank you, no sir, yes mam, and jump to help you out of difficulty. It’s very, very nice.

At the campground, when people learned Theresa was feeling bad, Carmen and Jennifer, delivered yogurt, crackers, and comfort food. Larry, the park owner, insisted that I call him at any hour of day or night if there was anything he could do to help. He even loaned me his Town Car to take Theresa to the hospital when we decided that was appropriate.

They have a small cafeteria here, but it was closed today. I went there looking for lunch and was disappointed to find it was covered dish day for employees only. I must have looked hungry or sad or both because one of the very nice ladies stopped me and said, “Come get something to eat. It won’t cost you nuthin’”. I dined on fried chicken, taco salad, a variety of casserole dishes and soda. One of the nice ladies fixed me a couple of pieces of cake. I was stuffed! We feel like we are surrounded by family.

The medical attention seems to be first rate too. Dr. Scamardo, Theresa’s attending physician, reminds me of Bones in Star Trek. He is empathic, a great listener, and thorough. He explains things clearly and has great bedside manner. The same can be said of the nursing staff. We like everyone we’ve met here. It’s almost like being in Naples where Dr. Scafuri and his wife Fara nurture us.

It’s 8:20PM and Dr. Scamardo just visited. It looks like Theresa may have a few more days until everything gets back to “normal”.

That can’t happen too soon for us.

Camping in Texas

After driving too far on Wednesday we have decided to stay in a beautiful campground Northwest of Houston for a few days. We have been swimming, hot tubbing, and relaxing and will persist until our tans are perfect! Then, we will go through Arkansas to Branson, MO.