What we came for.

Very little.
That's what we came for. Just to sit back, relax and enjoy the air. And that's what we got.

Jord was feeling lots better, everything was sorted out with the car and the place we ended up in was fantastic. It was nice to be back where I prefer to be, which is out next to some quiet water watching the fish jump.

Jordanna had me stop at the grocery store on the way in so we had all the comforts of home in the well equipped kitchen. We did have to get some charcoal and lighter fluid but other than that it was pure sit-on-your-butt relaxation.

Thanksgiving was celebrated out at The Freezer, a Homosassa tradition for us that Jord found on one of her trips down. As my good friend Terry says;

Good friends,



Good food



and cold beer

...it can't get better.
But hey, we had wifi too :)

The post where everything is better. Lots better.

Last time I posted I was steeling myself in preparation for finishing our drive down to Florida in this;

I suppose a lot of people have them and enjoy them, but I'm not one of them. Sure they're slow, uncomfortable and cheap, but they also have a terrible dash layout and an awful sound system. 

Enough complaining though, in the end we had made it to Savannah and into our hotel, which was pretty nice. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn which was nice, but evidently some Irish wedding party stayed there earlier in the week and drank the place dry. In the end I was able to get a little beer with dinner, the bed was nice and I slept like I was innocent or something. 

 As I said in the last post, rain had been following us forever and Savannah was no exception.  We walked in the rain to B. Matthews Eatery (I recommend the Bay Street Scramble with the home made biscuit) and in spite of, or maybe even because of the rain I think I may come back to Savannah to check it out. It's got that old Southern Gothic groove that you'll also see in some New Orleans neighborhoods.

A funny thing happened on the way our next stop though; the dealership called about the GTI. I was all set to hear that the timing belt broke or that I was in the soup for thousands for some other repair. Wrong! Fuel injector #2 had failed and was replaced under an extended VW warranty. Huh? 75k miles and I still have warranties in place? I'll take it. They also replaced the fuse block under a recall and changed my oil so I was out for a minimal amount of coin. Now, they did find out that clowns that did the previous oil change stripped out my drain plug, but that's a fight for another day. The good news is that were (with only moderate inconvenience) able to return the rental car and be back on our way. Many thanks to Lulu and the other folks at Butler Volkswagen in Macon, Ga. for their kind attention.

Doubling back to Macon and then south we stopped for the night in Gainesville, FL (after a pitstop in Valdosta, GA). This was pretty close to our final destination in Homosassa, FL so the rest of the way was easy, two-lane-blacktop through rural Florida. It was good to be back.

Our check-in time at our rental was later in the day so we had a little lunch at Leon Neon's. Awesome cornbread.

When we did catch up with the owner of the rental, he offered us the option of another location down the road which he thought we might like, and we did.

So we're here and relaxing. I'll post a little more about the Thanksgiving holiday later, but here's a hint about what it was like;

Sing it, Elmore. Sing it.

You know, this song was written as a metaphor but (by account) was inspired by actual weather. What it has to do with this trip back to Florida is just about the same.



It has rained virtually every day on this drive. I won't necessarily die from a lack of sunshine, but I have to say that sitting in this hotel lobby in Savannah, Georgia (listening to the rain) I've started to wonder if it's following us.

Poor Jord did something to her hip Sunday and is limping like a senior citizen and after 1100 miles of driving and rolling into Macon, Georgia, something spaced out in the GTI. Dash lights, rough running and a refusal to restart.

We're now at the mercy of a local VW shop and to add insult to injury, we're now flogging a Toyota drone-mobile the rest of the way to Florida. We'll get the full damage report from the shop this morning but we're moving on. 

Now that the bad news is out of the way, here's the good news;

• Jord thinks her hip is starting to feel a little better.
• The car didn't lobotomize itself in BFE Illinois (fundamentalist farmer country), or in eastern Tennessee coming out of the mountains in the rain, surrounded by meth-stoked truckers and ridge-running locals.
• We were (just) able to to get into a rental car before Macon rolled up the streets for the night and made it to our reservation in Savannah.
• In about 20 minutes I'll be staring down the barrel of a custom-made omelette
• We should be over the last state border and lounging in Florida tonight.

I reckon this will be the first track on the playlist when we head out;

Closure, and GTFO

Looking back, I realize what a total crap job I do as a blogger. Never mind that I never provided closure on this trip to Costa Rica two years ago, I've gone on other domestic trips that would have been fun to describe here.

I've been to Florida and New Orleans a couple times,

 


I've driven to Nevada to pick up an old BMW,,,

Not that I expect massive amounts of readers here but, the Google machine seems to show that folks from all over the world have hit this page.

Anyhow, after I left Jaco, I did make it to San Jose. I stayed at the Balmoral for one night and the Del Rey for another. Yes, Jordanna knows. It's made for a lot of funny stories and the girls working there were a lot of fun to hang out with. Hey, it was a great hotel and the bars/restaurants were really good. I needed that pampering after all those days in the jungle, right? Cough, cough...

So, as part of the whole closure thing, here's the route I took in Costa Rica.

I would do this again in a heartbeat. Outside of a nasty, bitter Chinese guy working at a restaurant in Cartago I found everyone there very cool and friendly.

The End.

Well, almost. Today I leave for Florida for a few days of... well, probably some cooler than normal weather for those folks. Jord has decided on a stop at a spa north of Chicago and a stop in Savannah. The tough thing about not traveling alone is that you end up stopping at extra places. The good thing about not traveling alone is that you get to stop at extra places.

Here's the route we're planning for the trip down;

So hopefully minimal adventures. See you in Illinois.

South Pacific, eastern shore.

Wednesday Dec 12/Thursday Dec 13

Still need to straighten out my Photobucket mess. Here's some unorganized images.

I considered heading back up through the mountains on my way back but the beaches and surf compelled otherwise.

Actually when I was down in Carate I was talking to the guide about the area and mentioned my thoughts that Domincal sure seemed like it would be a good stopping point. He laughed and agreed, saying yeah, "Dominical is exactly what it seems to be." What Dominical seems to be (and is) is an extremely low key surf destination.  I planned on taking my time heading back to Saint Joe and this was my first stop. Not a whole lot else to add about this place other than Dominical has feel of an old school surf camp. Lots of Americans but a lot of local surfers too. The best internet connection I found is at the San Clemente bar.

Next stop along the way was Jaco (pronounced "Hock-oh") Jaco is more of an actual town with a paved center street, businesses, etc. San Hermosa beach (south of there)  was the beach/surf area that I spent time at. No facilities to speak of or anything. Just a long dirt road, some condos and the beach. Surfers too, of course. It still had that completely low key vibe that I had been expecting to find have leaving San Isidro and finding in abundance.



Next stop, San Jose.

End of the Road, End of the World

Well, not really.

Tuesday, Dec 11: Osa Peninsula

Too lazy to fight with Photobucket today. Here's a link to all kinds pictures.

A million years ago when I first moved to Florida, one of the first road trips I went on was to Key West. As destinations go it was pretty much a bust for me. I think I expected something different at the and "end of the road" experience. Many years later I got more of what I expected in northwestern Florida in places like Inglis/Yankeetown and Ozello. In spite of (or maybe because of) there not being much more than a boat launch at the end of these places they felt more or less authentic. Official even.

Carate at the end of the Osa Peninsula has the same kind of groove, although instead of a boat launch there's a paved (but unattended) airstrip. A very official end of the road experience.

I woke up early this morning and had the entire lodge to myself, which was pretty cool. I had scheduled a guided hike and was definitely glad I went that route. There was no way to gauge how far we went but it was a hard push for 4 hours. The guide pointed out a lot of things I would have missed or blown right past and had some pretty interesting factoids to share about the local flora/fauna. Frogs, lizards, crazy birds with birds even crazier calls, the occaisional local mammal... the hike did not disappoint.

The hike ended up at the Pacific ocean where we ran into one of the guide's co-workers who was getting ready to pillage a coconut tree for what it produced. I have to admit, the guy could climb a tree like no one I ever saw. Anyhow the timing was good for us to knock the top off some coconuts and drink the contents (pipa).

<insert shower/lunch/nap>

Later in the day I headed down into the valley to check out some waterfalls. This I did solo and damn near got turned around and well and truly lost. If it weren't for a man made object that I just happened to notice when I hit the stream bed I might still be out there!

One thing that really struck me, at least this time of the year was the total lack of biting insects. That's right. I encountered one single mosquito and that was it. At some point in life I'll definitely return.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'... Though the streams are swollen...

Monday, Dec 10

I got a late start out of San Isidro de El General but hey, I got a few important things laundered and dried and piled on some more of that delicious Gallopinto. Especially with that yummy sauce which they tell me I can get back stateside. The road down from El Sid was a great drive and really easy. More Sodas along the way so that I could nurish my new Fanta grape soda addiction, although I am disappointed that there is no Mountain Dew and there are no Chicharrones. I'm still keeping my eye out for the later.

I've stopped to move my share of turtles out of the road but this was the first time I'm pulled over for a tarantula. This guy was mellow.

I also stopped to give some two legged mammals a ride. The first was a British ex-pat who was walking down the road with some new stove parts. Evidently her current stove crapped out during Tea Time and she was then compelled to do something about it, e.g.; walk several miles to pick up some Victorian era parts to work it out. Some people just have different problems. The others were a couple of local kids who needed a ride further down past Dominical. More smiling and nodding and shoe-horning the combined 25 words of English and Spanish we shared into some kind of conversational aggregate. We all had a good time. This stretch of road between Dominical and Puerto Jiminez was a real snoozer so I'm going to edit that right out and no one but me will have to suffer. What I will mention is that the turn off to go towards Carate was very strange and without the GPS maps from  NavsatCR I never would have made it. I had to twist and turn through some seriously stony roads through a poorer district and eventually wound up bouncing down this crazy, straight, tree lined rocky road with pastures on both sides, though to the east were some bucolic hill scenery and to the west was the Pacific ocean. It felt like driving through a quarry and let me tell you, if something in that kind of a road is a pothole it's not your normal pothole. You negotiated with it.I know I did

The road... Holy crap. The Road. I attempted to collect the slightly scary messages the Garmin was displaying for me for later review;

ALERT: Dangerous bridge ahead
ALERT: River Crossing 4x4 Only
ALERT: X Crossing Ahead, You take all responsibility
These are real. I kept waiting for;
ALERT: Beware, here Be Dragons

In all honesty I hadn't seen roads like this since our place in Lasqueti, BC. At times this was pretty much a logging trail, at other times calling the road a logging trail was a kindness. Really. It turns out that most people take a 4x4 taxi or boat/fly in. I crawled in on four wheels and a prayer.

This video was from a spot where there was some gravel to stop on and watch other crossers.

The one below wasn't the last one either.There was at least one more that twisted down into funky little rapids and a good opportunity to practice avoiding boulders. When I started getting close, the crossings started to get closer together and more steep.

 I finally made it up to the hotel and a bunch of folks came out to greet me. I had been advised before I came out that if I was driving myself up I should make sure I came during the day and I can certainly see why. They were stunned that I made it. I was stunned that I didn't bruise Gordito el Terios. The little 4x4 wasn't really a strong puller but when you're driving a 5 speed at least one of the gears is "first". I spent most of the 32km in 1st & 2nd. There were no less than 6 "river" crossings and more like 8 (I lost count), some were actually pretty impressive although none required a snorkel. Some of the uphill and downhill sections I actually could have used a spotter. Not one big rock bruised the bottom of the Terios and no plastic was injured in the filming of this feature.

At any rate, I made it. I was just in time to shower and sit down for their dinner. A nice wrap up to an awesome drive that was (so far) the high point of the trip.