Happy Halloween!

 Happy Halloween!

A few yeas ago Donna made Francis a Lion Costume for Halloween.  

If you missed yesterday's post you can find it here. 

The Collector of Nothing

 Somewhere USA

Cheers to your collection!

Collecting, but not things

Right now there is a State Tracking website that is going viral and a few of my friends (Sergey and Mile L. to name drop two) have sent it to me to see where I stand. We are currently on an indefinite cross country, nomadic living trip.  We started in April of this year and have no plans to stop.  If you want to read about it from the beginning you can start here.  Warning, there is a lot to read.  The state tracking site is interesting because it allows people to track where they have been and it even gives them a score so they can compare themselves to other fellow travelers.  As I filled it out it caused me to think about how I collect these days.  Over the years I have collected many things including coin banks, shells, stamps, coins, and video games.  At times those collections have taken up a lot of space and even monthly storage units.  They took up much more space than we have in our 2017 Dodge Grand Caravan.  Thankfully I have gotten rid of these collections over time and even gotten some of my investments back by selling them off.  Now I collect nothing, well nothing tangable.  I collect lists of experiences that I keep in various tracking docs and sites much like the state tracking site mentioned above.  

Here is my current score but it will increase in the next few days as we pass through AL and MS and settle into LA for 2 months.

Some of my collection

The above image is interesting but my tracking is much more granular than by state. 

I track by county! Something my friend Lyle introduced me to. I keep track by year. Purple is 2022 when we really started moving around after retirement.

While we travel from city to city and county to county I also collect quite a few other things.  I have a Google Sheet that I use to track some of these.

Counties visited by month

Breweries Visited

Transit ridden

Places I have played pinball

Tiki Bars I have been to

Birds I have seen and where I saw them

Even beers that I have tasted and where I tasted them (many of these are samples or sips from Donna's beer)

Stretches of highway traveled.

And places I have spent the night (Thanks to my friend Jeff for this idea)

These are just some of the more interesting things I track.  I also track all kinds of other things.  It fulfills the need to collect without the baggage of having things.  

If you missed yesterday's post you can find it here.  I was probably collecting something of some sort.

Wikee Wachee State Park and Mermaids!

Spring Hill, FL

The Mermaids of Wikee Wachee

Wikee Wachee State Park isn't your normal Florida State Park.  It opened as a tourist attraction in 1947.  Newt Perry created an underwater show using underwater breathing hoses.  Over the years the show adapted and grew and in 2008 The Florida State Parks system took over the grounds and they continue to provide a great tourist experience.  Today the mermaid show is based on Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid and there are ranger talks and nature boat rides all for $13 per person.  Dogs aren't allowed in but the lady at the front convinced us that Francis was a service dog.  It wasn't very crowded so we went along with it.  It was an incredible experience and you should really go.

Mermaids everywhere!

Everywhere!

The Mermaids appeared in a Jimmy Buffet video

Francis' first boat ride

It was better than expected.  There is a lot of great info out there about this place and a simple Google search will get you hours of info.

If you missed yesterday's post you can find it here.

Downtown St. Petersburg Florida

 St. Petersburg, FL

The suspension Bridge in Hillsborough River State Park 

New Counties and St Pete!

This morning we woke up in Hillsborough State Park and packed up.  On the way out we stopped by the suspension bridge.  The State Park had a lot of work down by the Civilian Conservation Corp in 1936 including this suspension bridge.  Also the picnic area seems like it was frozen in time.  It's a very cool place to visit and has a 50s vibe even if it was built earlier.

The view from this toilet is amazing!

Imagine taking a wee here!

After our stop off in the state park we went on to finish the peninsula of Florida by visiting Manatee and Sarasota Counties.  Once we hit Sarasota we turned around and crossed the Sunshine Skyway Bridge into Tampa and then went on to St. Petersburgh.  We are staying the night at Tru by Hilton in Downtown St. Pete.  St. Pete is a great pedestrian friendly place in Florida.

We ended up at Green Bench Brewing for drinks and we got dinner and brought it back.

The Beer was great

Kitty at the brewery!

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and did laundry and all sorts of other chores.  We are on the road camping until Nov 5th.  

If you missed yesterday's post you can find it here.