Gallivanting

Travels, van living, music, thoughts, etc..

Raccoons

We spent a couple of nights at Ft. DeSoto Park in Tierra Verde, Fl, and I can honestly say that this is one of the nicest parks I've ever been to. We ended up getting a waterfront campsite that looks out on the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway. We got in around 11am on Monday and tooled around the area little bit, taking in the awesome views and eventually making some dinner. 

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By nightfall a slightly Hitchcock-esque experience unfolded as raccoons began to have the run of the place. These guys were not afraid of humans, and were perfectly happy to almost take food right off of your plate. We actually caught one stealing cheese out of our cooler. I kneeled down by the edge of the woods to wash some dishes after dinner and I swear one hissed at me from the brush. I looked up with my headlamp on and I could see it's little beady, glowing eyes. We'd walk to the bathroom and they would, literally, be criss-crossing the path ahead of us. 

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Before we turned in for the night, we decided to put any leftovers in the van rather than cooler. We awoke the next morning to see paw prints on the side of the van. The little bastards were trying to claw their way in. 

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I see now why the park's wildlife museum had some of the displays that it did.

Sky Lanterns

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We played a show at The Swamp Shack last night. It's basically just a small shack next to a swamp out on 30 acres of land in Sarasota. There was lots of music and food. We continued a tradition of lighting sky lanterns that started at Ed Powell's house concert back in January...this time on a bigger scale.

Whitey's

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We had our gig at Whitey's Fish Camp last night under cloudy and drizzly weather.  It was dead as a door nail when we got there at 4pm so we were afraid it is was going to be a dud. However, by the time we started at 5 it was pretty packed. We proceeded to make it through a rare 4-hour gig. It was one of the more interesting experiences as some drunk guy showed up and walked around with a tambourine. It wouldn't have been so bad except he was way off rhythm. He, of course, stopped and started everytime we did.

Whitey's doubles as an RV park and we were given a free spot to park Blue Bell and sleep in overnight. It was near the parking lot so we fell asleep to the jovial sounds of drunken revelers meandering out of the bar at 2am.