It ended up getting delayed a second time as well and finally we left at about 11am. The ride was pleasant and my seat mate did not infringe on personal space. I read my Kindle and looked out the window. Very nice ride.
When I got to Tampa I pretty easily was able to walk downtown and to my hotel without even looking at a map. Kind of proud of that. I checked in and ran upstairs to dump my bag and take a leak then instantly headed out again. I hit up a thrift store about a mile north which had records but all junk. But there were a few homeless shelters and tons of homeless everywhere, sleeping in the streets etc. Never saw so many homeless in one place anywhere.
I got back and stopped at a pizza place next to Pita Pit and got two slices (pepperoni/mushroom and eggplant parm). Really good. Went back to my room and took a nap. Got up at 6:30 and took the hotel shuttle to the arena, tipped the driver a fin.
'Thunder Alley' pregame was awesome, there was a really cool band playing punk ska and the singer was playing an electric 4-string ukelele. They were playing 'Santeria' when I walked up and I thought it was a CD playing. He even transposed the whole guitar solo onto the tiny next and it sounded great. Two saxaphones, a trumpet and a trombone. (I did not take this video - I just searched for 10 minutes to figure out who they were, this is another performance)
It seems like you can just sit out in 'Thunder Alley'all night long....they have a bar out there and the biggest jumbotron I've ever seen. It wasn't even very crowded...I'm half tempted to just do that next year! They lost and my seats were so far in the nosebleeds I knew it would take forever to get out of there once the game ended. Plus I wanted to get to The Hub really bad so I left during the second intermission.
Every year I worry this place will become a shithole or get closed down or something...I love it so much and I just can't accept that it is there waiting for me every year. I had such a good time. Of course had to start with a monsterous glass of bourbon then moved onto Jai Alai cans. I started chatting with a guy named Rich who works for an insurance company. He sold a policy to some kind of investment banking firm who missappropriated funds and got sued by their investors. So he is suing the insurance company because the policy of course doesn't cover criminal acts. So he was in town to testify along with two of his lawyers. We were all chatting about beer and everything under the sun. Such a nice group. However the smoking which has been outlawed in bars for I don't even know how long (5-6 years at least) is so offensive to me now because I am never around it.
There was a couple on the other side of me and they were pretty smashed and kind of doing horseplay in the bar and at one point knocked over a stool. The bartender Jamie told them to bring it down a notch and they did. The guy was pretty obnoxious and wandered off and I had a quick chat with (who I thought was) his girl. She told me that they went and saw a weird foreign horror flick. (just had to research that to figure out what it was as well) and it sounded very distrubing. Just watched this trailer and yeah, it is disturbing alright.
She told me the spoiler which I wont reveal here but I'd still watch it anyway. So anyway her drunken louse 'boyfriend' (so I thought) comes up and grabs her book like an idiot and says 'are you ready to go'. She just laughed and said 'hes my best friend' and she slapped him across the face a few times. Now I am recognizing that they are pretty weird and not understanding what the hell is going on.
They were both wasted (I wasn't far behind) and I watched them split up. The guy was somewhat terrorizing (which is drunkenness) two other girls on the other side of the bar that didn't seem terribly entertainined with him. The girl on the other hand was talking to a thin white guy with a HUGE afro! A real, curly, massive afro! And she was loving it...running her hands through it and the guy seemed either shy or otherwise disinterested. She was all over him and he was kind of keeping to himself. Then I looked away and they were gone.
I think I had 4 Jai Alais plus the bourbon and I was feeling pretty good and knew any more drinks would make me feel like shit so I took off. So this is the third year I took a day trip to Tampa. Year #1 must have been a Friday and Taco Bus is open until 3am or something so I went there. Last year I know I was here on a Wednesday. I got a Pita Pit sandwich and stashed it in my room because like Taco Bus, they close at 10pm on a Wednesday which sucks. Well Pita Pit is open until 4am on Thurs-Sat! So I walked the 1/2 block over there and who do I see but my two odd friends from the bar! Neither paid me any mind. They were with a third person, an older black female. And the girl and the black female were just standing there holding hands. Very odd. The drunken guy was saying to the girl "I think I ripped your pants when I gave you that wedgie". So my guess is that this guy is legitimately gay or just is pulling some 3rd grade antics because he likes his friend but is afraid to breech the subject with her. What a dork!
So they left and the black female was still waiting for her food as they made my falafel. The cook and I started joking that the guy must be gay to be pulling stupid stunts like that. He told me that the girl told her 'friend' "you should sleep over tonight" and he was like "ok...I guess". We just laughed and shook our heads.
So I get my falafel and I walk out and its about a block or two to my hotel. And who approaches me now but the mysterious black female! She kind of snuck up on me and I think I even jumped. She told me how 'those nice people' paid for her food and that now she was trying to get a 'room'. I immediately laughed and said you aren't going to get a room for less than $100 in downtown Tampa and it was about 1am! I must have raised my voice (which I do sober, and surely more when I am drunk) and she literally took a step back like I had lunged at her. She said that she had that worked out and had a place. As a rule of habit I never give anyone money, to borrow or to keep, homeless or not. I don't give a crap. But I was hammered so I gave her all the change I had which was less than $1. Of course she was bummed out at that and gave me a little look. I told her you asked for money and I gave you some. What else do you want now? She said nothing and walked away.
I got back to the hotel and promptly realized I had left my room keys in the room. And the front door was locked because it was late. So I had to ring the bell and the clerk came, I explained my situation like a drunken loser and she gave me a new key. I got upstairs and the falafel sandwich was HUGE and AWESOME, unlike they inferior junk they gave me the other day on I-Drive.
I fell asleep easily and had a decent hangover in the AM. I finally got it together and rather than spend way too much getting breakfast at the hotel, I went back to Pita Pit and was the first customer of the day. What did I get? Another falafel of course!I carried it back to the Amtrak station and ate it outside and relaxed. I drank a big iced tea and brought an apple juice for the bus ride.
The bus ride was very pleasant and quiet and the WiFi worked pretty well. I read my book and looked out the window. It was really nice. I got back to Orlando and it was going to be a while until a SunRail came back to take me to Sand Lake Rd. so I considered my options. I ended up walking to Orange Ave. then waiting for bus 18 to take me to Lynx Central. Bus 11 inexplicably came first so I took that instead. I only had to wait about 15 minutes before I got on 50 which hauled me back home. I was feeling really tired and hungry now so I went into 7-11 on Sea Harbor and waited in a long line to get a Chicken Ceasar wrap which I ate as I walked. I got home and ate some rice and sweet potatoes then finished my 400 page book and took a nap.
I got up a while ago and took a shower and did all my laundry. I am going to run off to the store now and get some more foods for the rest of my trip. I have one more meal of chicken/rice/sweet potatoes/kale/brocolli/asparagus (sounds like a lot) and 2 more hardboiled eggs and I am going to eat all of that before I go on my long ride tomorrow morning. I had a hunch and it paid off. I found ProCycle's facebook page and then found a map for the route of the 35 miler:
I don't totally want to do the whole loop....that's alot of riding. I've been analyzing the map trying to figure out a good place to get off and head back and I can't find one I am happy with, they all end up making the ride too short. So I'll see how I feel as I go and take it from there. One bad part is that when I get back there is nowhere really good to eat at when I recover. So I guess that is more reason to go shop and cook tonight.
No way I want to drink tonight. It would be bad preperation for the ride (though I drank a bunch of beers before I did the metric half century a few months ago and I tore through that ride. However with that ride I was on my own, now I will be riding with a bunch of guys maybe in spandex and riding $2000 bikes. I would like to stop for 5 minutes now and again and I wonder if they are hardcore and want to do 19mph averages or something. I guess they wouldn't advertise it publicly on their facebook if that was the case as not that many people would be interested in such a thing. I guess I am overthinking the whole thing. I also should have brought a wedge to hold my tire levers, spare tube, etc. So I'll have to ride with my messenger bag so I can have all that stuff which kind of pisses me off. But how could I have known?
Either way tomorrow when I am done I have to really soak up the whole experience and enjoy my final day. No reason to hold back tomorrow night, I need to eat and drink like a king as I don't have to leave for the airport until probably 11am. I do regret a bit that I am not drinking as karaoke is going on downstairs and I'd love to get hammered and take part. Tempting to abondon the whole bike ride tomorrow in lieu of beers...usually I check out on Saturday so Friday night karaoke is brutal the next morning. But now that I can enjoy it, I have other plans. Then again I do have my mileage goals (which now I will easily exceed, even if I don't do the whole loop tomorrow).
But I have tomorrow night to have a nice quiet build up of drunkeness and big eats and don't have to worry about getting up at the crack of dawn or any of that. I can pack up my bike at 10pm tomorrow night if I feel like it.
I just heard someone do 'Mack the Knife' and now I think I hear Dean Martin. That's OK - I've sang a million times before. I'm glad I didn't deposit $100 into Marriots cash register at the bar this year or down a big 1/5th of whiskey over the course of the week. Cycling is more important than drinking. And sober karaoke doesn't sound like any fun at all.
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