This flower is on a bush right by my mom and dad's back door. It is called a Confederate Rose. I think it is a species of Hibiscus.

Here is a snap of my dad's grapevines.

This view made the drive worthwhile. This is the sunset from my mom and dad's front porch.

This is our trip plan for today.

Interesting Night

While driving through rush hour in Jacksonville we started selecting our landing site for the night. Our campground GIS on a CD rated Hance's First Florida very high. It is in Gross, Florida. Upon entering the campground we were presnted with a clean, well maintained site, with all concrete roadways and roads. Upon setting up, as seen in the previous photos, we settled in only to lose power in the mothership. A short trip to the office and we learned that the plugin for that site, number 13, had had troub le in the past. Switched to the other plugin in the box and all was settled. So, we went to bed nice and cozy listening to the frogs outside and at 2 am were awakened by an extremely noisy and strong electrical storm. Once that passed all was well and the frogs started up again lulling us to sleep. This is a really nice campsite and is on our list for overnighters near Jacksonville. Twenty one dollars for the night and we slept in comfort in our own bedroom. Today, we have a two hundred and fourty mile hop to my parents house where we plan on staying for a few days. Stay tuned for the next transmission from the mothership.

Underway with the mothership and the escape pod.

Is this one of those hanging chads?

Be sure to check the Mobile Blog link in the left side panel for the latest photos. I am using my new Nokia 3650 camera phone to update pictures there using my free picture Blog at http://www.textamerica.com/ . You can subscribe when you go to the link to be notified when new photos are posted.

Illusions

The link below takes you to some neat optiical illusions. I have always loved these things. You know, the stare at them until they change into something else kind of things?

The latest works

Airplane from "Never Cry Wolf"

Testing a front end to allow posting of images to my blog by email.
This is the aircraft used in "Never Cry Wolf."


Looks like I may not need the TypePad account after all if I can use this to add photos while on the road. Pretty neat. The site is called Mfop2. Mfop2 allows you to moblog without setting up any special scripts on your own mail server. To use Mfop2, all you have to do is register some of your blog details and you will be able to post to your blog from your mobile by emailing your blog entry with images attached to mfop2@bastish.net.

Typepad

Picked up a TypePad account last night. 30 day free trial. It is a blogging tool but one neat feature is the ability to update a photo album with a mobile device. Could be a way to share pictures on the road easily when using the Nokia 3650? :-)

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Conflicted

I am completely tomrented and conflicted right now. Why you ask? Well let me tell you. My trusty T-Mobile Sidekick that I love is getting a bit long in the tooth. It works great even though it has some connectivity problems in buildings. But, the camera takes little postage stamp sized pcitures, the IR port does not work at all, but it has that lovely, wonderful keyboard for typing. My conflict is further increased because T-Mobile has a great deal right now on the Nokia 3650 phone that has a super camera, is tri-band (meaning international), plays mp3 files, and is Bluetooth capable. Being Bluetooth capable means it can talk to my laptop on the road which means I could also use the laptop to type messages and then the 3650 to send them. Oh, and did I mention the IR port works so it can communicate with my laptop through that too? The irony is that it has the funkiest keyboard I have ever seen on a phone. Some sort of circular thing designed by a Nokia engineer in a fit of style over function. I will probably call and get one of these babys though because the ability to send pictures that are bigger than postage stamps is very appealing. Oh, and I forgot to mention that on top of all of this an update to the firmware on the Sidekick is due any day now that enhances that device's capability. No, it does not make the tiny pictures any bigger but it supposedly increased the connectivity making that better.

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BBC NEWS | UK | England | Fire destroys motorbike collection

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Fire destroys motorbike collection This is an especially sad story for those who love old motorcycles. Apparently this priceless collection in the UK was lost to a fire.

EAA's Countdown To Kitty Hawk

EAA's Countdown To Kitty Hawk is the web site about the re-enactment of the Wright Brothers historic first flight in December. We plan on attending this event of such significance to the aviation field. Read all about it.

Gallery Upgrade

Upgraded the photo gallery software this morning to version 1.4. The new version allows users to display the gallery in various languages. There are some other features but the typical user will probably notice no change. This is a great software package and is FREE. The homepage for PHP Gallery here.

Bob's Moblog

I started a mobile blog at Bob's Moblog Check it out.

Waterspout

Just drove across Howard Franklin Bridge in Tampa Bay going east to west. As we crossed the Bay we observed a waterspout form off to our right or north of the causeway. Of course our camera was in the other car. We could see the rotary spray on the surface of the water and the a long thin funnel snaked down from the cloud to the spray on the water. For a few minutes we were priveleged to witness a perfect watersput until we drove into the heavy rain of the storm.

Sent from Bob's wireless Sidekick!

Blogging with my Sidekick

This post is using the browser interface with my T-Mobile Sidekick. In some ways this is better than my laptop since the connectivity is more universal and widespread. The WIFI coverage for 802.11 is not as universally available as the Sidekick's GSRM technology. There are some limitations but the ability to update a blog from anywhere at anytime is really useful while maintaining a travel blog. I am typing this from the rear seat of a car while traveling.

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No walk on the beach

This campground is right across from the beach so yesterday I went for an early morning walk. It was beautiful befoe the sun got high. Birds were everywhere. I saw pelicans, Great Blue Herons, Great White Herons, pelicans, and many other species of birds. I walked to within a few feet of a Great Blue Heron who was completely unafraid. I was surprised at the number of people strolling or jogging on the beach at 6:30 in the morning. There is a real family atmosphere on the beach here on the west coast with lots of cottages and public beach access.

This morning I will not go for a walk on the beach as I hear very heavy thunder on the Gulf. I am too aware of the danger of lightning even when the storms are 10 or 15 miles distant. South Florida, and particularly the Tampa area has more lightning activity than any place in the world so I will remain in the safety of the Mothership this morning.

Looks as if the tropical depression that was headed for South Florida had a lot of it's energy taken away by the mountains of Haiti. We have been keeping an eye on it to decide our travel strategy next week. If it strengthens and continues towards West Palm Beach we will add a couple of days to our stay here or perhaps even head north. If the storm strengthens and poses a severe threat my friend and neighbor offered tp put up our storm shutters to save me having to leave the Mothership to drive home for that task.
Sent from Bob's wireless Sidekick!

Sent from Bob's wireless Sidekick!

Report from the Mothership

The Mothership landed in Indian Rocks Beach a few days ago. Our crew has made forays into the local envioronment each day. We visited Ybor City a couple of days ago where we enjoyed the wonderful exhibits of freshwater and marine envioronments. Last night we had a wonderful dinner to celebrate our daughter Kim's birthday. Today we begin to strategize how we will cope with a developing tropical storm down south of Haiti. The forecast track seems to point right at West Palm Beach. Do we keep the Mothership parked here on the Florida's west coast and send the reconnaiscance module to that sector to secure the home base? Time will tell as we watch the storm's progress. Updates will follow.

Sent from Bob's wireless Sidekick!