Trip19

Thursday.

We packed up and pulled out nice and early. Drove north on freeways through Tampa. Crossed a magnificent bridge over Tampa Bay, or the Tampa River, or some large body of water that connects Tampa to the Gulf. It’s called the Skyview Bridge. All the structural support is located between the opposing lanes, so there is nothing between you and the water, which is a long way down, except the usual cement barriers, which look much less significant than usual. It was a little scary from our motorhome perch. Judy’s hands got soaking wet.

As we were driving north, south of Tampa, we happened to look east, and caught the rising plume of the shuttle launch. We got to watch a shuttle launch from only about a hundred miles away. Our closest view yet! We could watch its progress until the main tanks dropped off and there was no visible vapor remaining to describe its path.

We overcame an RV crisis today. Actually, it has been a series of successes, all attributable to Judy. A couple months ago, the 12-volt outlet above the table behind the passenger seat quit working. We didn’t bother to get it fixed. Earlier this trip, the television quit working. This is not a serious problem, the bedroom television in the back works just fine. It’s not always comfortable though. You have to lie on the bed to watch it. Sunday is football Sunday. How are we going to cheer our beloved Raiders on to victory if we have to do it from that crummy back television? My solution to the problem was to think of something else. That approach didn’t produce any results, so Judy went to work on it. She got the 12-volt extension cord and plugged it into the 12-volt outlet on the dash. She plugged the television into the 12-volt extension cord. It worked. Judy had fixed the television. We just had a bad outlet. So for the next two nights, while I wrote, or updated bird lists, or such, Judy watched some television. But the second night, the picture started shrinking. Maybe the television is broken after all. We didn’t solve that problem right away. We just filed it for future reference. This morning, we packed up, I put the key in the ignition, turned it, and nothing happened. I guess those little 12-volt televisions use a lot of electricity. The engine battery was dead. The television wasn’t broken. The picture just started getting smaller when it couldn’t get enough electrons to fill the screen.

The engine battery problem was mine to solve. That was no big deal, because there is that silver override button underneath the left side of the dash. Push that and the house battery is connected to the engine battery circuit and there are suddenly electrons aplenty. The problem of how to watch some television without running down the engine battery again was Judy’s new challenge. It was quiet for a few minutes, then Judy started assembling pieces of her solution. Now we have a 12-volt television, plugged into a 12-volt extension cord, which is plugged into the emergency 12-volt outlet on the jumper battery, which is plugged in to the house current of the motorhome, which is plugged into shore power. It works great. We ran it for a couple hours today, just to make sure. The picture never shrank at all. But tonight, as soon as we turned it back on, the picture started shrinking. It seems the television draws power faster that the jumper battery can recharge. So now, while I’m wasting time writing again, Judy is back in the bedroom watching CSI.

After driving freeways through Tampa/St Petersburg, we got off on a highway to get a closer look than freeways afford. I have heard that there are a lot of small towns along Western Central Florida. What I found is that what used to be a lot of small towns are pretty much all run together now as one continuous town. This was a lot like taking the coast highway through Southern California. Not much coast, and a whole lot of stoplights and stop and go driving.

Two hundred plus miles on the motorhome. West coast of Florida. We stopped in a town whose name I can’t pronounce, but it pronounces itself as the manatee capitol of the world. No birding. No swamping. Cat drugging. Driving. Space shuttling. No new birds. No manatees.

Tomorrow we board a Marine Assault Craft: an outboard powered inflatable, to prowl the river for manatees. Tomorrow. We swim with the manatees.