Want to see a Roseate Spoonbill poop?
The bird lets fly at about the 2-second mark, then goes on to preen, search for crawdads or mussels and scare away moorhens who would rather not get spooned. It’s such a pleasure to watch our friend Pinko throughout the day.
Pinko doesn’t wander aimlessly — he or she moves with a sense of purpose, always. But I spent the better part of yesterday wandering, despite starting off with purpose. I was traveling to meet a relative at a new location opened by a sandwich place we used to visit in our college town years ago.
Theoretically, this new location was equidistant between our abodes and closer to both of us than the original location. It didn’t turn out that way for me though because there was a major crash on I-75 that shut down all northbound traffic, so I ended up exiting and taking an alternate route on rural roads.
The destination town is one of those “you can’t get there from here” places — no direct routes because why in the hell would anyone go there? I arrived half an hour late.
It took forever to get back home too. I was unwilling to try the interstate again, so I took a different meandering route home, passing through small towns and driving through vast forests and traversing miles and miles of farmland.
There’s this whole other Florida that most people don’t know exists, and that’s where I was. I’d seen most of it before. At one point, I passed a boat launch on a lake that I remembered visiting with a friend who was a fellow Pizza Hut waitress and lived in a godforsaken town nearby.
Back then, young folks would gather at the boat ramp to drink beer and smoke pot. There wasn’t anything else to do. As I drove past, it looked like there still isn’t anything to do 35 years or so later.
I wondered if my old friend had ever left that town — we lost touch decades ago. My guess is no. I only achieved escape velocity briefly. Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, aimless wandering deposits you back in the place where you started. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
Open thread!