Confessions, confusions, confrontations and conclusions

It is a new year and the following are things I want to get off my chest before starting on 2012....
Not everything in life is a pretty picture.

My pesky little sister, Mary, says I am not being completely honest on my blog--so I am here to confess...There are dead bodies splattered all over Halcyon II's walls!  And I am the villain!  It all started on my first night in the Everglades.  The evening was so pleasantly balmy with a slight warm breeze blowing.  I poured a glass of wine, opened the side doors of the RV and settled into the passenger seat to watch the sun go down.  It wasn't til I was preparing dinner that I noticed Sigh Me leaping from bunk to bunk and jerking her head about like a cat possessed  that I knew something was wrong.  Just then I heard the buzzing and my ankles began to itch.  We had been invaded!  By the bazillions! I tried catching them in mid-air.  Sigh Me was much better at it than I was but we were still not making headway.  The voracious little blood-sucking Kamikaze demons were just too quick for me. I really did not want to splatter a blood gorged mosquito on the RV's pristine cloth lining but I was reaching desperation stage.  I had been warned many times to be sure to take insect spray to the Everglades but I was determined to be 'green' and tough it out.  Oh Yeah!  Well I've changed!  Bring on the DDT!

Road rage!   The road from Key West is mostly two lanes with an occasional passing lane.  The truck above had followed me for a while but did not take the opportunity to pass me on a passing lane.  Suddenly, the passing lane was merging into the regular lane and at the last moment he speeded up and came up on my left hand side--but the lanes were back to two by that time and someone was approaching in the oncoming lane! As a result both my RV and the car ended up on the shoulders while the truck took his space from the middle.  I was so shook up I honked at him and I noticed in the rear view mirror that the other car did not move for some time after we passed.  Further down the road I got close enough to take this picture and when we came to a stop light I pulled alongside to see if the company was on the side of the truck--no such luck. I didn't think anymore about it until the next morning when I was pulling out of the RV park in Islamorada and suddenly--there he was!  From a side street he pulled onto the road right ahead of me!  Uh oh!  Was he upset because I had honked and he was waiting for me? Did he know I took his picture?  I let him get far ahead of me and then found an out-of-the-way place to hide the RV while I had lunch.  That incident has given me a piece of education-- a horn might set off road rage and I need to be more prudent when I use it.

A few days later, while in Miami, I stopped for gas and decided to go inside the Circle K for some coffee.  A family of mother (approx 55),  daughter (approx 20), and father (approx 60) were approaching the door ahead of me.  I mentally assigned the roles and ages but there was no evidence of the roles except that the 'daughter' looked very much like her parents.  The mother approached the door first, opened it and stepped through-followed closely by the daughter.  Following the daughter the father pushed forward and grabbed the young girl on her bottom  (!)  The girl's back noticeably stiffened and she quickly pushed through the door and rushed to join her mother.  I verbally gasped when I saw the man grab her and when he heard me he briefly turned and looked at me with a sly smirk on his face.  I realized my mouth was open and I must have looked shocked but I didn't say anything.  Later, while I was getting my coffee I looked to see if the mother was wearing a wedding ring---yes.  The father was, also,  but the daughter was not.  Did that mean anything?  Was I assuming the wrong relationships?  I really don't think so.  The young girl was an adult but I was still uncomfortable about what I saw.  Anyway, something smelled fishy to me about the whole thing. Is there anything I should have done or said?

And finally, I have received wonderful emails from so many of you readers of this crazy but fun blog.  However,  very few comments  are ending up on the blog.  If you send me something personal then I don't want to make the judgment of whether or not to publish it.  Also, some of you have had trouble getting a comment to go through.  There has been a block on the comments that post them first to my email so I can weed out the spam but I think it also hinders the use of the comment feature.  So I had Ron remove the block and now a comment will appear instantly.  I hope you all will use that feature because I really enjoy the observations and would like others to enjoy them too.  So start commenting--today!! I would especially like to know of places in the area that I am traveling in that you have seen and would recommend.  Just keep the dirty jokes to a minimum so I don't have to call Ron again.

I WISH YOU ALL A WONDERFUL, PROSPEROUS, ADVENTUROUS 2012!