Unfinished Business

Year Two of snowbirding in Tampa begins tomorrow.

There’s a bit of unfinished business from last year: carpet samples. Last time my vacation from my vacation was an out-of-character experience: a cruise. There are posts about this, but I never got around to the carpets. The carpets on board the Norwegian Sun, giant swaths covering the floors of stairways, halls, dining rooms, the casino, etc. etc., gave me delight.

It must be terribly expensive to replace acres of carpet. Every day a ship isn’t at sea with drinking gambling guests is a day of lots of lost money. Cruise companies must want these carpets to really go the distance. Designed, no doubt, to hide drink and food spills and take a pounding from feet, sun, and salt without looking shabby, they were riots of colours and shapes.

I really liked them.

This year my ideas (read: preposterous daydreams) for a vacation from my vacation include getting to the Dry Tortugas or Alajuela. Both of which are beyond me in so many ways, and yet, if a year ago you had told me I would be on a cruise ship…

Last year I arrived in Tampa for my first time ever in Florida and everything was unknown, except for what I had learned from nights of internet wandering. I am the kind of person happy to stay up all night plotting where the bus stops are. Google Maps Street View is the best thing ever for this.

Last year I had no idea of what to expect of myself in Tampa, so I didn’t expect much, and everything was good enough or great. Best of all: all new. Even if something was crap, it was brand new crap.

This year I go back with expectations of myself. I have to get back to Oxford Exchange. I have to get to the manatee viewing centre. I have to put 10,00 steps on my pedometer every single day. I have to check out St. Petersburg. If I don’t do this, that, and many other things I will have failed to fulfill the promise of this time in this place. Etc. This is a piece of emotional luggage that I have packed for myself. I hope to leave it abandoned on the carousel at the airport and take Tampa as it comes.

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