The rearview mirror.

I am turning 65 soon. If I were a car I’d be in a museum. Or the junkyard. I’ve never been one to care much about the vehicles that carry me around in this world. I don’t think I’ve washed my car in over 10 years.

I’ve done much better with the one some would call my body. It gets a somewhat regular washing, but my wife still has to remind me.

To be fair, I have never cared much about the body I drive around in. I know others do. I see them applying paint, making sure their headlights shine, torturing over every curve of their body, and getting their tires rotated regularly after a night of being tanked up on alcohol.

Meh. I’ve never tortured over this body of mine. After all, I didn’t have any say over its features. No say on color, grain, driveline, or power package. I got a stick because no one asked if I wanted an automatic. My parents chose all these options for me the night they decided get a little horny after too many cocktails. Some egg winks as she passes by, I win a swimming competition and viola! – the order has been placed.

Sixty-five years later, that champion swimmer has a body that makes some funny noises under the hood. Time has taken its toll on some of the original manufacturer parts, but it still manages to get me around without giving me too much trouble.

I know this because I took it to the shop recently. The professional I take it to gave it a thorough once over. Sure, there was some additional mileage, and the spare tire around my waist had gained a few more psi, but overall nothing too much out of the ordinary.

Well, there seems to be a small problem with the rear end. I’ve been told that I might have a leaky gasket. So the person I take it to wants to do a closer inspection.

It’s always been a finicky rear end. For instance, it likes to omit really foul smells from the tailpipe at inopportune times.

But now it seems I need a rear-end job. This is a bit of a concern, in part because I’d had so little work done on this thing over the years. Sure, I had the dipstick cover taken off when I was born. A few years ago I had a couple nuts that needed attention, but nothing really major.

I’ve been fortunate in that regard. I’ve never had to have stitches to reconnect my ample upholstery. I did rip it wide open one time with an X-acto knife, but the guy at the shop put some tape on it and called it good.

Small wonder that to this day that I think tape will fix just about anything. Duct tape is by far the best, along with some Super Glue. A little here, a little there. All good.

Miracles of miracles, I’ve never had anything really break. I’ve done some pretty stupid things while moving about the cabin. I did hurt my ankle skydiving. But it wasn’t a break. My guy said I should have broken it; it would have been better if I did. So close, but yet so far. I didn’t get a cast. Just more tape.

Before you call my bluff, I will admit that I have broken my little toes so many times that I can’t even count them on two feet. I had my nose broken by an errant softball in elementary school, but no one did anything about it. To this day I look like an enthusiastic window shopper.

I did manage to break my ring finger in middle school. That was Harley Spaeth’s fault, not mine. He threw a volley-soccer ball – you know, those do-everything-but-not-well balls schools have. It knocked the end of the finger back into the knuckle. That split the bone in two. When I was taken to the shop, the guy snapped it all into place without much ado or warning and slapped a metal splint on it with you guessed it – more tape.

As I said, I have nearly all of my original parts. A few pieces of my grill have had some work done to them, and then there was the cap on the dipstick. The pesky nuts were disconnected by the Celtic Dick Snipper. The nuts are still there but they really have no use anymore.

As I look forward(?) to my rear-end job, I marvel at how lucky I am. I have only stayed in the shop for a week in my entire life. It was all my fault. I had never such headlights before. I have seen a lot since. How was I to know that they weren’t the best, brightest or biggest in the land? I did have those computer resets a time or two over the last couple of years; for some reason my body likes to do that. No one at the shop can tell me why the odometer rolls back an hour or more and then works starts clicking along again.

And I had that pool noodle that was shoved down my radiator hose that one time after it was blocked by an unchewed piece of grisly steak. I tried to do a flush myself with red wine but it really required the touch of a real pro armed with Armorall. Wait, that was Demerol.

I am pretty sure that I won’t enjoy the rear-end work as much as I enjoyed the “go ahead, rip it all out” feeling of the pool noodle drugs. I am told that I won’t be awake, but rather twilighted. I’m not sure what that exactly means and Kat isn’t very forthcoming with details. I did plan to bring my own borescope with me to the appointment. If I can save a dime or two while I’m in the shop, I’m on it.

But they say they have their own diagnostics at the shop. But as a thank you for being so thoughtful, they said they’ll send me a free drink to enjoy the night before. I love free drinks. So thoughtful.

Somewhere north of the Emerald City, kegeling unexpectedly,

–          Robb

The unfriendly skies.

I used to enjoy flying. I took my first big trip in 1984. It was to the Cayman Islands. I was just 24. It was the first time I had ever been on a commercial jetliner.

Since then, I have rarely lost my love of flying. Even in the middle of a hellacious thunderstorm on approach to Minneapolis when we were bouncing around the cabin, I still found a way to enjoy the ride. In the spirit of the moment, I started singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and by the time I had hit the chorus, the rest of my party was singing right along. A chorus of 12 heavenly voices, most drunk, singing our way to the netherworld – Minnesota.

I have been fortunate over the years. I have never lost a piece of luggage. It always showed up magically on the carousel. Sure, planes were late departing or leaving, but I never missed a single connection. All those horror stories on TV about people sleeping in airports for days at a time were unfathomable to me.

With all this in mind, I set off a couple of weeks ago to Key West. I haven’t been on a vacation in two years, thanks to COVID. So I thought, what the hell, let’s make it a memorable trip.

Back in November, I booked our flight. My favorite airline flies straight to Ft. Lauderdale or Miami. But it doesn’t fly to Key West. I guess the Eskimo on the tail of the plane didn’t wasn’t the sun-worshipping type. In normal times (re: Pre-COVID), I would fly into one of these two cities on Alaska and then rent a car to make the three-hour drive south through the Keys.

But this time, we weren’t going to need a car and figuring out what to do with it on the crowded, narrow streets of Key West would have been problematic. Most of the town is fairly walkable, so taking an actual car from Point A to Point B on a three by five mile island is nonsense.

Against my better judgment, I decided to take another airline this time around. Two airlines flew one-stops to Key West – Delta and American. Remembering that Delta killed one Jan’s dog, I opted for American.

One-stop of about 45 minutes in Dallas. Total price: $1099 for the two of us. Feeling a bit largess since I hadn’t gone anywhere in two years, I upgraded the legs to First Class. For those who haven’t traveled recently, that’s the part of the plane that arrives at the scene of a crash shortly before the peasants in steerage do.

I have always wanted to experience the luxury and pampering of First Class. Sitting with the highbrow and hoity-toity, sipping champagne and toasting our good fortune and so much legroom that you could have let two people in Coach sit on the floor and still have enough room to put your feet up.

The outbound flight was a joy. I was a bit concerned about the scant 45 minutes we had to make our way from our Seattle flight through the endless passageways of DFW, but it was a snap.

We had the same layover on the way back, and as a bonus round, the terminals were next to each other, so it would be a quick walk.

Our flight from Key West back home was right on time. We walked out on the tarmac and climbed the stairwell to the door of the plane and settled into our First Class seats. The peasants passed us on the way to steerage and we were off.

Free drinks, food served on plates with silverware, hot towels (I don’t get these at all), a dedicated bathroom and I had finally figured out how to work the Tetris-like seat tray.What could be better?

A lot, it turns out. As we approached Dallas, I started to notice that the flight tracker was getting a bit wonky. Our 45 minutes time to arrival changed to 60, then 75. We circled the airport for so long that we had to leave it and fly to Houston instead. The weather had closed in, and I guess American is famous for canceling flights because of a little crosswind.

Our pilot – a good ol’ boy from Louisiana who had about 33 weeks to go to retirement – was apologetic, but his voice had a slight overtone of unexpressed anger in it. He said that the crosswinds were gusting to 40 mph at DFW. I sensed that he had been through far worse. He seemed like a guy who would put it down on the numbers in a hurricane with both engines on fire.

Even so, we were off to Houston to refuel. Our flight from Dallas to Seattle was delayed too, so no biggy. We were 12th in line for fuel at Houston so it felt like we were taxiing back to Dallas for a while. Finally, we gassed up and took off, flying with reckless abandon back to DFW before they shut it down again.

So far, so good. But we climbed out of Houston, American became American’t. Our homeward leg was canceled, all of Monday’s flights were canceled, and the first we could get out on American was 8:35 p.m. Tuesday night. If we wanted to get home earlier, we had to fly from Dallas over to Miami and then back to Seattle. In Economy.

No biggy. We were in First Class, I thought. American will take care of us. That’s what airlines do with First Class passengers. They’ll already have us rebooked before we land or find us a hotel for the night. We’d hop off the plane and meet a gate agent waiting for us. There wasn’t one.

There was, however, a long line of peasants from previous flights waiting in a line. I figured that line was the Peasants Line because I had been in one before. It couldn’t be for the First Class passengers. But it was a general line, a line Kat took her place in as I called American’ts Customer Service. They were of no help at all.

A hotel room? All we got was a postcard with a QR code to some partner hotels at ripoff rates. That was a non-starter so I switched to Hotels.com where I had some free nights banked. I found a suite at a Sheraton six miles away. By now it was midnight. We should have been back in Seattle four hours ago. Now all that was left was to retrieve our luggage.

Another line. Another disappointment. Our bags were somewhere in the catacombs of the airport. Now I was stuck in my pirate geat in a cowpoke town with nothing to change into and nary a single clean piece of underwear in sight.

Oh well, we’ll get them tomorrow. Let’s just catch the shuttle to the airport. I called the hotel and they said the shuttle was about an hour late. No biggy. We were still trying to find our luggage so we had time. They finally said they had found them and would get them to us.

With nothing left to do, we called the hotel shuttle. They were running an hour behind. No problem. We could wait.

And wait we did. Before we knew it, it was 1:30 a.m. and raining. Another person was waiting for the same missing shuttle. We initially didn’t engage her because she kept mumbling into her phone, like the guy in Office Space. We finally named her Red Stapler Girl.

I shouldn’t throw too much shade on her as it was her idea to get a cab to the hotel. As a travel tip, know that taxis in Dallas seem to head off into some secret cave at night. They are impossible to find. To get one going out of the airport, someone has to be coming into the airport. An airport that was now officially closed.

Finally, we get to the hotel. It turns out the shuttle didn’t come because the hotel was officially full and they were hoping we just wouldn’t show up. They looked pretty surprised when we did. We had outsmarted their little game of “ignore them and they will just go away.” To their credit, they did give us a suite; one an assistant manager had to clean while we waited in the lobby. Kudos to him.

In the morning, I checked again on our bags. American’t had sent them on to Seattle. They were set to arrive at 10:30 Monday morning. We weren’t set to fly out until 6:10 a.m. Tuesday.

By now we had totally abandoned American’t, even though we had an unused leg to go. I booked on Alaska and decided to eat the cost of two one-way rides home. By now, our reservation with American’t had disappeared from their screens, as if we never existed, nor the money they promised to reimburse us for the last leg we never took.

The Eskimo didn’t let us down. Like someone who had been unfaithful, we were welcomed back to our first love – Alaska. We swore never to be swayed again by those fancy promise of First Class on another airline or any trip that used DFW in their itinerary. We won’t even do another one-stop. We’ll stay with direct flights from now on. I don’t care where they go, as long as I don’t have to be expected to fly the American’t Way.

Somewhere north of The Emerald City, thankful that the Eskimo is planning to fly direct to Tahiti in the fall,

• Robb

A Real “Dating” Problem.

Being a pirate isn’t easy, at least if you want to have what some people call a normal relationship. I have written here and there about my many misadventures in pursuit of love, including a book that chronicled all my exploits in often embarrassing detail.

But now that I am in a happy, fulfilling relationship with someone that took the better part of five decades to find, I can reflect on the effect my pirate life has had on relationships, both good and bad.

I only write this because I was recently watching a documentary on the Treasure Island Resort in Vegas. This shouldn’t be more than a footnote, except that I got married there. This would be Marriage #2. This was back in 1994 when I was still so young and immature. But I am getting ahead of myself.

As you may recall in my missive about Diablo, the entire relationship could be described by the titles of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Episodes 3 and 4, At World’s End and On Stranger Tides, mirrored that relationship perfectly, right down to the moment when we struck the reef of romance and Diablo jumped ship, leaving me to go down with it, as any good captain would.

But as I think more about it, the years that end in a 3 and 4, much like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, seem to strange influence on my life.

In 1983, I became a Seafair Pirate. I had gone through my year of candidacy and the crew voted me in unanimously as a member in the fall of that year. I was a full-fledged pirate, in more ways than one.

I was told back then by a fellow pirate that “when you become a pirate, you know it, and so does everyone else.” This, I think, is where the casual pirate player and a pirate diverge. When you become a pirate, your brain changes. You no longer care about your job, your relationship, paying bills or civilian life. That world is a place you visit occasionally, but you no longer live there.

It is a transformative process, going through that year of candidacy, learning all the ropes, doing total shit work that would make the most determined individual quit, and then going through hell week, Seafair, where you stay in a hotel and live and breathe being a pirate 24/7.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that during Seafair 1983 I found my romantic sea legs and lost my “pirate virginity” as it was called. I was now a true pirate. And one of a select few.

Just one problem. I still had a wife in the civilian world. What to do, what to do.

Long story short, she found out I was spending a lot of time in someone else’s harbor and wasn’t thrilled I was visiting that particular port regularly. The following April (1994), I was on the lam, my brothers were trying to kill me, my soon-to-be ex was living with my mother and me, I was navigating a new world.

Not really proud of how it all played out, but hey, that’s life.

Almost 10 years passed before I found true love again. At least she was a wench and singer. She understood where I was coming from more than the civilian. Plus we went everywhere together as part of a crew, so what could possibly happen?

Back to Treasure Island. We started dating in 2003. We got engaged in the winter of that year. Looking for a place to get married, we saw that Treasure Island Resort had just opened. So we set a course for Las Vegas.

We were the first couple to get married in full regalia at Treasure Island. I still remember when the security folks tried to keep us out of the casino after we got hitched. Then someone whispered in their earpiece and we were free to roam about the cabin. Take that, members of the King’s Navy.

This was back when the pirates and navy fought one another in fully rigged ships in front of the casino. It was pretty cool, being in our gear, posing for photos in front of the ship and getting a salute from the crew on our wedding day.

The show went on for 10 years. About midway through it changed to a Sirens of TI show, the pirates becoming half-naked showgirls. It closed in 2003.

This was the same year we went down to Key West to renew our vows. It was the DVD release of the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie, titled appropriately, “Curse of the Black Pearl.”

Feel free to read the details of that misadventure in the Diablo chronicles. Talk about a curse. But let’s cut to the chase. I found myself dropping anchor in a different harbor again.

In April 2004, I was once again offered the chance to leave the wonderful life I had and set course for the stranger tides of Florida. Dumbass.

If I had only known that the Treasure Island Resort had shut down the show the previous October, I may have been able to keep a weather eye out for rough waters ahead in Key West, knowing my “dating” problem. As we know, history repeats itself and mine seems to have a love of Aprils, years ending in 3 or 4, and pirates, whether movies, events, or antics.

So it’s with a bit of trepidation that Kat sees 2023 on the horizon. I keep telling her that I don’t believe in all this nonsense. That’s it just an amusing coincidence or more likely, a writer’s overactive imagination.

I can’t say I blame her. I can take solace that there are no more Pirates of the Caribbean movies coming up and I have lost my taste for unfamiliar harbors. I’m very happy with the anchorage and safe harbor she’s given me.

The years are just years now. It’s 2021 now, next year it will be 2022, then comes 2025, 2026 and 2027. Just dates on a calendar and there’s not a single stitch of superstition left in me.

Somewhere north of Seattle, keeping my tiller in familiar waters,

• Robb

Just Sign On The Bottom Line.

Kat and I have been retirement home shopping lately. The big day is several years still on the horizon, but we decided to get an early start so we could actually plan something in our lives for a change.

This led us to check out the new Latitudes Margaritaville in Daytona Beach, Florida a few weeks ago. If Margaritaville rings a bell, then you know this over-55 retirement community reflects a Parrothead lifestyle, complete with streets named after Jimmy Buffett songs and a bar called Changes in Attitude.

It seems like an idyllic place and it is for the 350 or so homeowners there. We talked to more than two dozen of them and everyone gave glowing reviews of the community, the amenities and activities, and the developers.

We liked it so much that we did what they call a Stay and Play. We stayed for two nights at Latitudes and enjoyed full ownership privileges, right down to a golf cart that we got to drive everywhere, even to the local Publix Supermarket down the street.

We were pretty sure this would be our landing spot in our Golden Years. That is until we thumbed through the 194 pages of homeowner association covenants that guide your use of the property. There were an awful lot of rules, especially for a guy who is pretty rules adverse and prone to mutiny at the slightest provocation.

But it did get me thinking. In some ways, the government operates as a homeowner’s association, giving us all covenants that we must live by. There are local, state and federal laws/covenants about what you can and can’t do as a citizen and as a “homeowner” (property owner). Some of the rules and laws are pretty basic. Others are pretty restrictive and downright invasive.

As “owners,” some of us are good with having even more covenants. We don’t mind having the government telling us what we can and can’t do and we’re attracted to perks like free college and universal healthcare, even if it means Uncle Sam is going to have a bigger say in our lives since he runs the “homeowner’s association.”

In homeowner associations, this is akin to being told what color you can paint your house, what plants you can plant, and even what flag you can fly from your flagpole, if you’re even able to have one.

Other “owners”, however, want fewer covenants. They don’t want to be told what to do and how to do it. They want to be able to add a 20-foot flagpole to their front yard and proudly fly a pirate flag if it amuses them or turn their deck into a pirate ship. They don’t want the homeowner’s association (re: government) telling them what they can and can’t do on their property or in their lives all the time. They want to have that wonderful freedom called choice.

I fall into this latter camp. Historically, I have not played well in an HOA world, either as an occupant of a home or as a citizen of this country. I really don’t like being told what I can and can’t do, at least when the rules at hand seem arbitrary or unduly restrictive.

It’s not that I reject all law and order. I religiously stop at stop signs. I always use my blinker. I have a license to drive my car. I pay my fair share of taxes. And I try to be a thoughtful neighbor, both in my own neighborhood and in the community, state and nation at large.

As such, I don’t try to foist my own views or covenants on others. I don’t expect them to march to the same drummer I’m groovin’ to.

For instance, the same people who want us to embrace Biblical laws say Sharia Law is the work of the devil. Frankly, all religion-based law is the work of the devil in my opinion. I really think the Golden Rule – treat others as you yourself would like to be treated – should be sufficient.

As we approach election time, I can’t help but wonder how the elections will affect our nation’s covenants. As I’ve said, I’m not big on more regulation, more rules and more laws. I can barely remember a small number of them at any one time.

Me? I am coming to find that I am pretty much a laissez-faire type of guy. I don’t want more government control of my life or interference. Hell, even after being on this earth for 62 years and being a government employee, “the man” still doesn’t have my fingerprints. There are job interviews I have turned down over the years because that fingerprints were required. I simply didn’t want “the man” to finger me that easily. If I haven’t done anything wrong, then why should they want to see what I’ve been up to?

As I read through Latitude’s covenants and as I drove through Florida’s more rural parts, it dawned on me that these folks, those with the Trump signs in their yards (and they are plentiful there) weren’t yokels or zealots. They simply want the government to leave them alone.

Quit telling them what to do with the land, quite requiring a permit or inspection for every little thing, quit taxing them to death for programs they didn’t ask for, want and will never use, and stop telling them that they have to live a life that is politically correct and all-inclusive when to them, that is unwarranted overreach into their personal and private lives. They don’t want to sign the covenants. They certainly don’t want to be PC. They just want to live their life without being told how to live it.

After coming so close to signing my life away at the bottom of 194 pages of covenants, I have begun to see their point. If by nature we are mostly good and law-abiding, and in some cases God-fearing, why do we need so much oversight and unwarranted interference?

Can’t we all be a little more laissez-faire in the way we conduct our lives (letting things take their own course, without interference) and a little more laissez les bons temps rouler (let the good times roll) in the way we live it?

Wouldn’t we all be just a little happier if we all lived this way?

Me? I’m back to taking the hands off the wheel again. I’m going to let someone else drive for a while. After all, I have 193 more pages of covenants to pour through before I can dive into the 23,000 pages of federal laws we must obey.

Somewhere north of the Emerald City, anchored serenely next to Buccaneer Creek in Neverland County.

• Robb

The Secrets of the Fire Swamp.

I just returned from Florida. You know, that place I lived almost a decade ago that I often referred to as Hell.

Well, I’ve discovered a few things on this last trip. First, Florida wasn’t really Hell. The relationship I was in was Hell. I got the two confused and blamed Florida for all the ills in my world. Sorry, Florida.

Second, I’ve learned all the secrets of the Fire Swamp. If you don’t know what the Fire Swamp is, you should watch the Princess Bride. In the movie, the Dread Pirate Roberts and his beloved Buttercup escape from the evil clutches of Prince Humperdinck and his henchman, the Six-Fingered Man, by taking refuge in the Fire Swamp. There, they conquer the three dangers of the swamp: flame bursts, lightning sand and rodents of unusual size (R.O.U.S.).

Florida is my Fire Swamp. It has lots of dangers and secrets to learn, from poisonous caterpillars and snakes, no-see-ums and fire ants to muck fires, hurricanes and some crazy-assed drivers of Fort Lauderdale. After eight years of living there and numerous visits since, I have become quite comfortable with the idea of spending my retirement in the Fire Swamp as I have mastered most of its many secrets.

Yes, it’s terribly conservative and Christian down there (I guess that isn’t really a secret). Instead of a Starbucks on every corner, there’s a church. There are Trump signs everywhere. And lots of old people. And you know how much I like old people.

Even with all its Trump Lovers and Bible Beaters, Florida is still filled with really nice people. They don’t talk about politics or religion, at least to strangers. They don’t think it’s appropriate or polite. They’d rather talk about the nuances of the Daytona 500 crash and discourse about the best way to clean lovebug guts off your windshield during mating season.

Of course, none of this would really matter if I was just visiting. But Florida is the top choice for retirement as we look to our Golden Years and where to spend them. If the real estate gods cooperate, we will be selling off our home in the chilly-willy great white north in four years, heading for the sun-filled skies and warm beaches of the Sunshine State.

Yes, I know. Most people on the West Coast move to Arizona when they clock in for the last time. For us, that is a non-starter. First, I don’t know any of the secrets of that particular Fire Swamp. Plus, water is not exactly plentiful in the desert. I would suppose that’s why they call it a desert. Kat and I must be able to at least see water regularly, if not revel in it. And no, water from the tap doesn’t qualify. We need big bodies of water. Think gulfs and oceans.

So Florida it is. And for those questioning my sanity as to why I would once again move all the way across the country to live, I offer up these simple reasons:

1. We don’t hurt. The pain of arthritis has made its presence known a scant 48 hours after returning to the soggy Northwest. In Florida, I made it up 105 circular stairs to the top of the Jupiter Lighthouse. Here, I can’t seem to make it up 13 steps to our bedroom without a lot of pain.
2. People are really nice down there. Maybe it’s an east coast thing. Total strangers strike up conversations with you. The Seattle Freeze seems more real now that I’ve returned from the south. Case in point: Total strangers welcomed us to the retirement community we were considering and gave us a lovely tote bag for our groceries without us even asking or them asking that we return it. They were being nice and neighborly because that’s what you do down there.
3. Depending on where you choose to live, the pace of life is very islandy. Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando and Tampa are all big city nightmares., of course. But out in the coastal communities, life is pretty laid back and chill. There’s not a lot of hurry and scurry.
4. The food is different. I love conch, lobster po’boys, gator bites and Cuban sandwiches. And thanks to Amazon, I can now get Snoqualmie Pancake Mix and Fisher Scone Mix anytime I want, so there will always be a little taste of home. While I will dearly miss Taco Time, I will get to enjoy Checkers and the multiple-choice test of “sides” at Cracker Barrel.
5. There’s a tiki bar nearly everywhere. Kat, it turns out, has a thing for tiki bars. They aren’t very common as you travel north in the state, but once you get below the Orlando area, they start to pop up everywhere. Kat loves a good tiki bar and its laid-back feel, nonstop music and libations. It’s her happy place. Give her a tiki bar with mermaids and manatees and she will probably just move in.
6. It’s new, but familiar. Upon returning to Washington, it’s become very Groundhog’s Day (yes, another movie reference), in that everything predictably repeats year in and year out, so much so that I don’t even need to look at a calendar to know what’s happening on any particular weekend. Over more than a half-century of living here, I’ve pretty much seen it all, done it all and then some.
7. It’s a two-for-one. If I were to sell my house today, I could buy two in Florida for the same price or a lakefront home with a pool for the price I paid for this house four years ago ($389,000) and put a couple hundred grand into the retirement kitty.

Now, we’re onto the question of where. Picking Florida was relatively easy. But it’s a damned big state, so there’s more homework to do. We’ve pretty much ruled out the entire left coast of Florida, from Cedar Key to Fort Myers. Too much hub-bub for us. And quite frankly, the area feels like Oregon and Alabama went on a date and made a baby.

We also ruled out anything north of Daytona Beach. The weather there is too cold and the conveniences of life too far and in between.

Future trips will determine the Goldilocks Zone for us, you know the place that is “just right.” While this trip put 1,900 miles on our rental car (we could have almost driven home), we’ll stay put for a week or so in a single locale next time, maybe even renting a house to get a feel for the area.

Still, it’s a queer feeling, knowing that retirement is a scant four years away for me and that I have to do something as grown-up as figuring out where Kat and I are to live until we aren’t living anymore. But as Jimmy Buffett once warned me many years ago, “changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes, nothing remains quite the same.” And maybe that’s just as it should be.

In the Emerald City, tiki bar to the starboard side and mermaids to port,

– Robb