Florida is now firmly Florida-like...

I know that should be obvious but we have been physically here for two months and the weather has been almost entirely non Florida like.   No bugs, no sweat, no little lizards scurrying away, no hot sun on the head.  
It has now arrived.  It was 80 today and it is welcome to stay a bit.   (It won't, but it's welcome)..     

We've decided it is time to move early next week.  It's too cold here.  Lol. 

Today we attempted an epic journey on the bikes.   Cortez to Anna Marie Island to Palma Sola to Bradenton to Palmetto and then back .. all via bike paths, sidewalks, back roads or shoreline roads.   Almost 40 miles.  

Anyone who knows me realizes that 80 degrees, sunshine and being outside can only be made perfect with ice cream. 
Success!   Yes, this is the largest ice cream I've had on this trip.   It made me think of Norms.   My wife tried to shame me for it .. then I think she ate half of it (ok, not half - but enough to take a dent out of my joy ..) because 'shes helping look out for my health'.   Maybe my belly but not my mental health. :). 

When one rides almost 20 miles in a single direction one needs a goal so we picked the Manatee County Agricultural Museum.  It's pretty much some old restored buildings, farm equipment and stories.  

Stories about oranges.   Stories about tomatoes.  Stories about eggs, dairy.  Lots of stories about people.   
Tomatoes are actually the largest cash crop in this area of Florida.   I would have figured it was oranges.    But the Juice Train does run through here because Tropicana needs lots of juice.   Long since purchased by PepsiCo, it's definitely a big consumer of agricultural products as well as other things.  It started out cutting sliced fruit and shipping it via train every day to New York City, and the Waldorf Astoria hotel.   Go figure. 

It was interesting to find out the largest business in the area was making crates (from wood) for decades.  Apparently all of the fruit needed crates.  It was a big business until they ran out of wood.  Then they tore down the buildings (and took that wood) to build things for the city and county.   

We didn't read about pigs... So we aren't sure why this room has a pig .. but he's cute so we needed a picture. 
Of course Katie said to include the truck...
Lots of cool old machinery here...
crop sprayer.  Wheels rotate (pulled by horse) and drive the pump cylinders up and down which sprays chemicals on the crops out of the left and right side.  Ingenious for it's day .
I miss the days of milk delivery.  Milk no longer tastes the same...   Still, ice cream can be pretty tasty ....  (Yes, it holds too large a role in my idea of fun ..)

The teacher (Katie) needed to see the old school.   It didn't make her want to go back to work...
That makes two of us ..

We also found it interesting the post master in the post civil war era was female.  We noticed the same thing in Cortez when we toured a museum there.   

We rode through two nature preserves that have bike accessible trails on the way (Pamico and Robinson preserves) - which I had seen before when it was cold.   Lots more people out now ..

but not in this picture..  this is me staying ahead of Katie so she'd have to work a little pedaling.   We got sore.  And tired.  But it's good.  
Life is good here but we are getting anxious to move.  We have enjoyed much time with friends but we feel like we are living in the third world.   It has been three weeks since the pump out system has worked here so we can't use the toilets on our own boat.   If they don't fix it by Monday we will leave and go find a pump out we can use ...  Or resort to drastic measures... (Don't ask, yuck). 

Anyway.   Still alive.  Still not moving, but getting ready to.  I ordered a last few things for the boat that I can fix or finish before we go and we have one last trip out with friends to church and Walmart (to stock up).  Then we will be headed further south!

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