Departing Tampa

We are parked at the now-familiar Wal-Mart on Dale Mabry just north of I-275 (map). We're here because it is just five minutes from the Centre Club, where we ate last night -- or at least it should have been.

We left the airport economy parking lot just after 5pm, and rolled over to the spot I had picked out across the street from the club. It was just 5:30, and our dinner reservations were for 8pm, chosen because we had a conference call at 7:00 that we thought might go nearly an hour. So we got parked and squared away, and found a friendly Wi-Fi signal so we could leave the dish stowed for more stealth. Around 6 or so, we poured ourselves a glass of wine, knowing it would be four hours before we had to move the bus; besides, we'd otherwise have a second glass at dinner for $8 or so.

Our call ended right on time and we had a very nice dinner. We headed back to the bus around quarter till ten, and packed up to leave. Somewhere in all of this, though, we forgot about the pair of wine glasses sitting on the table between our seats. At the first left turn, one of those glasses leapt off the table, bounced, then launched itself over the edge of the penthouse floor and crashed down onto the tile-covered stairs, sending shards of glass everywhere. I pulled over at the next opportunity, where we carried the dog up to her house, then spent the next ten minutes cleaning up. We both got hit by flying pieces, and the explosion sent glass in every direction, including back up the stairs into the living room. Oddly, the other glass was still sitting calmly on the table. We buy these glasses at Wal-Mart, $4 for a set of four, and we are now on our third box of four due to various mishaps over five years. Before we had our securement all figured out, they would sometimes leap out of the cabinet and onto the granite counter when we opened the door.

We need to make it all the way to Stuart today, so after picking up a couple items in the store, and returning some project leftovers to Home Depot across the street, we will get rolling. It's a four and a half hour drive, which is a long day for us nowadays.

Photo by trieu88, used under a Creative Commons license.