West side of Florida

Well hello!  I've got one more set of photos from early March, and it's probably way past time to post them.  On the other hand, I don't yet have anything to follow it up with (staying put and all that) so it's nice to go back and look at these a couple months later.

So here we have some parts of Florida that we had not seen before, starting with a boat tour in the Everglades.  With Siobhan, Kip, and Rodney too!  I've been wanting to see the Everglades for a while now.  We got off the cruise ship on Sunday morning and had plenty of time to drive out there (and our truck was available for that purpose, for once).

Let's go see what animals we (or our boat captain) can spot.

Not too surprising that a gator showed up first!

This bird was neat, not only for its color but also how it would run across the lily pads.  I believe our guide called it a purple gallinule:

It was fun coasting the airboat through the waterways, and our boat captain seemed to enjoy showing off how it could get up to speed and slide sideways in the wider areas.  For the narrow passages he kept it to a photo-taking velocity instead:

Possibly an anhinga?  There were herons out there too.

Another fun close-up encounter with a purple gallinule:

Gator selfie:

This guy was super chill, just hanging out next to the boat and watching John perhaps just a little too closely...

Back at the ranch, we were treated to an interesting animal show, starting with this handheld scorpion that several people got an up-close look at:

Snacks for the gators who decided it was worth moving a little for:

Adorable!  I wish I could remember this little fella's name:

We had to take our companions to the airport :( then John and I came back to the Everglades to camp overnight and check out more of the park.

I think we saw some wood storks flying around, but never got a good shot of them.  In lieu of that, here's the visitor center display - interesting bird!

Going for a walk on the boardwalk:

Snowy egrets and other birds abounded:

The next day we started driving up the west coast of the state, stopping for some exploring and running in Myakka River State Park.  They have a neat treehouse/viewing stand with elaborate stairs and a bridge through the canopy:

Fun tree shapes and moss and all kinds of different vegetation from what we're used to:

And a wonderful view of the forest from one of the higher spots around:

And more animal watching, this time on our own so I'm sure we missed some things but there was still plenty to see and try to ID.  So, my online image search says this is a limpkin - a what?  Not only are there many interesting birds in Florida, but many of them also have great names!

This was a great spot to hang around for a while, with birds to watch and alligators to track.  Lots going on that morning:

I'm getting better at picking out the great blue heron:

Perhaps a glossy ibis in the foreground, but our attention got pulled to the gator with something in its mouth.  What the heck?

We couldn't get a good angle to see what it might be, but it seemed to be large and hairy.  Maybe a muskrat?  We watched for a while but the gator had more patience than we did.

So we had to move on, continuing north, and spending a few extra miles/minutes searching around Tampa for an open campsite.  We barely found one, happy to spend another quiet night in a peaceful park in the woods instead of having to resort to a hotel room, yay!

We were excited to stop at Crystal River since it sounded like there were manatees around.  Three Sisters Springs did not disappoint - neither did the manatees!  There were plenty moseying around underwater, our first manatee viewings ever.  So cool!

And so not easy to photograph (unless you're underwater with them, that must be amazing).  There were a few in the canal, coming up for air occasionally and reminding us of tiny whales (sort of but not really).  I was just so happy to finally see some.

A better view, a group hanging out in the sunlight:

This one was interesting - it has a tracker buoy following it wherever it goes.  We had seen the buoy bobbing across the way and it was neat to get a closer look at what it was attached to.  Thank you, sweet manatee!

A walking bird - another ibis perhaps (like a juvenile white one)?

We sure got our share of wildlife viewing in Florida, that was great!

One more quick stop on the way back to Alabama, getting a glimpse of the capitol building in Tallahassee:

John caught this one - two TJ's in the same parking lot  :)

That was a fun set of photos to go through again!

Our life since then involved a virtual RV Entrepreneur summit while we stayed at Lake Guntersville campground and joined in via our computers.  We did a bunch of running on the trails there, which was great - quiet, remote, lots of trees, plenty of trails to explore and hills to climb.  Then we drove almost straight to Austin (with one quick overnight in northern Louisiana) where we have been "in place" ever since.  Instead of running in Zion for my birthday, we Zoomed with friends (a very nice substitute).

It might be awhile before we have more travel/running adventures to report on.  Until then, we're focusing on our All Electric Project, so if you're missing my "totally engrossing" reporting, check us out over here:
https://allelectricproject.com/blog/

Hope everyone is safe and well!

STTC (part 2 of 2)

The voyage continues!  Three more days of Star Trek immersion, before being teleported back to reality.  Or more of an altered reality.  Maybe we'll get that spore drive working soon so we can return to our original universe.

Anyway, I'm happily doing more photo perusal and remembering our Luckiest Cruise Ever back at the beginning of March.  On day 5 we docked at St. Thomas, and John and I went for a hike into the hills.

On the way up we found the Texas Embassy:

I love a faraway view of our ship (with plenty of time to get back to it):

Who's boat is this boat?  And why is it at the top of a mountain?  So many questions.

Getting to see another part of St. Thomas.  Go solar!

Back to the ship, where the Star Trek fun continued.  James Mackinnon and his wife (I think?) demonstrated how they transform Mary Chieffo into the Klingon L'Rell.

Mary also demonstrated how she has to try really hard sometimes not to laugh and mess things up during this process - that seems like it could be a challenge!

Such patience with this process, on the part of all three of them.  Then L'Rell got dressed for her photo session in full costume and makeup.  Super cool.

Science Jeopardy!  This version pitted two actual scientists (Erin MacDonald and Dr. Noor) with a Vulcan (Tim Russ/Tuvok), made more interesting because Erin was coming straight from the whiskey tasting session.  Timing was either bad, or good if you consider the comedy that ensued.  Dr. Noor racked up a bunch of points, being the only sober scientist on the panel, and then goodnaturedly bet it all on a late Daily Double (with plenty of audience urging) and got it wrong (on purpose?  you decide).  The win could have gone to any of them at that point, and I don't actually remember who won because it doesn't matter.

(Photo courtesy of Entertainment Cruise Productions)

Lots of fun, especially with JT playing the host and not taking any guff from anyone because as he said "the judges just don't care".  One of my favorite questions of the game:

We finally had a couple minutes to pop into the museum, which was a wonderful and varied collection of artifacts from all different shows.  Fun items from Picard that made me smile (we thoroughly enjoyed this most recent of the Star Trek iterations):

I assume this is the actual painting from the Picard set, super awesome to see it in person:

A Delta Flyer model, in honor of Voyager, love it:

Captain Kirk is now on board!  He did a couple sessions of storytelling and question answering, and he's got a great personality so it's always fun listening to him interact with the fans:

(Photo courtesy of Entertainment Cruise Productions)

The highlight of the night was the "Visit to Original Trek" which seems to get bigger and bolder every year.  "Devil in the Dark", or the pizza monster episode, was an excellent choice, also the casting across the board.  You can't beat Gates as an overacting Kirk, and for this year we had Ethan Peck playing a less-than-serious version of Spock (he's got some improv chops), plus Ethan Phillips doing his best Horta impression, well, I wish this existed on film so I could share it for real.

(Photo courtesy of Entertainment Cruise Productions)

There was some dressing up that evening for Gorn's Intergalactic Gala, including some people who took it quite literally, impressive!

OMG, a highly realistic Orville crossover, can you tell how happy it made me to run into her?  She was so sweet to talk with too.

John and I went to catch a bit of Tim Russ's band before the screening of the next Picard episode, but we were so enthralled by the music and the rhythms that we decided to stay for the whole set.  I've wanted to hear him play for a couple years now and it was totally worth the wait.  Thank you Tim Russ and crew!

After one of many (most) nights of not-nearly-as-much-sleep-as-normal, I joined in with Robb Pearlman's "Body by Starfleet" workout.  A hilarious concept that includes exercises such as tribble twists, Vulcan side planks, and I can't remember what we're doing here but it was a fun thing to do to start the day:

(Photo courtesy of Entertainment Cruise Productions)

Spock vs. Q!  This was a hypothetical conversation (well, obviously, but even more hypothetical than normal) between Mr. Spock and Q that was performed originally many years ago by Leonard Nimoy and John de Lancie.  They discussed the human race from "outsider" points of view and had a debate about whether we are worth saving, if I remember right.  Still relevant after all these years.  And now we have Ethan Peck so ably filling in for Leonard Nimoy, awesome!

Anson Mount did another live taping of "The Well" podcast and his guest this time was Kenneth Mitchell.  Kenneth talked about ALS which has changed all aspects of his life in the past year, his landscape architecture history, and all kinds of in-depth subjects.  Kudos to him for being so open and honest (he is so brave!), and major props again to Anson for being such a good interviewer and listener.

I'm always sad that I can't see everything, as many events overlap and it's always a case of picking and choosing.  The one thing I most wish I had gone to see was Gorn's Gong Show and talent contest.  This one really deserved a video that could be shared with the world, from what I heard.  I'm including my favorite photo from an ECP photographer - the front of Roxann Dawson's shirt says, "Trust me, I'm an engineer", and the sleeve is similar to a version from my alma mater RPI:

(Photo courtesy of Entertainment Cruise Productions)

The evening performer was Edgar Allan Poe, or at least Jeffrey Combs doing a remarkable impersonation.  I believe this is more than just something he compiled for the cruise, that he does this in a professional act.  It wasn't always easy to follow the long, rambling sentences, but the spirit of the words and Poe's descent into madness were quite something to watch.  Thank you sir for this incredible performance!

(Photo courtesy of Entertainment Cruise Productions)

And then there was JT, always coming up with something fun for costume night!

Just a T-Rex lumbering down the Promenade, another normal evening:

Q's costume contest is always fun to watch but difficult to get photos of.  There were some crazy-amazing and creative costumes!  I wandered around afterward and snapped a few random shots:

An alien and a Pokemon:

How do some of these even fit in people's luggage?

One final day!  Hey, we had an extra day this year so this was all even more special.

Dr. Mohamed Noor started doing morning "office hours" at breakfast, which was such an incredibly generous thing to do.  He seems to genuinely enjoy interacting with people who are interested in talking about genetics and evolution, especially as it relates to science fiction.  Once we heard his first talk and started to see where he was coming from (and relearning the science behind it), we were super excited to hear more.  He is patient and friendly and super fun to boot.

Thank you Dr. Noor!

Anson, Kenneth, and Ethan got together to talk about one of the episodes of Discovery, where Kenneth got to play another awesome role (which I didn't even recognize him in when we first saw it).  Always wonderful to hear from the actors about some behind-the-scenes details:

Robert Picardo put together an auction to benefit the Planetary Society, with the highlight being this poster signed by most of the actors on the cruise:

No wait!  An unexpected even bigger highlight was that Ethan Peck was wearing the same T-shirt from our San Juan shore excursion (stickers and all), and he announced that he was auctioning it off right then and there, signed by him and Robert.  Well, if you're going to auction off the shirt on your back, I guess you have to take it off first.  Yep, definitely the highlight for me!

Ethan is simply awesome, I hope he comes back on another Star Trek cruise!

One last evening performance, a conversation between William Shatner and Brent Spiner, and this turned out to be the perfect combination and a fine way to end the voyage.  These two are so quick, interactive and great at poking fun, full of stories, and superbly funny together.

(Photo courtesy of Entertainment Cruise Productions)

I had just a bit of time to travel the hallways and see some of the door decorations - there's never enough time for everything, but not for lack of trying!  Here are a few of my favorites.

Googly eyes are the best:

This is notable because they are actual electronics components including integrated circuits, possibly some older-era ones?  Very clever to label them as Borg Research:

One of our favorite "Easter Eggs" from Star Trek: Picard!

(giggles)

By the power of de Lancie!  This phrase comes from a story that Garrett Wang told in his standup routine, and I suppose you probably had to be there...

Women scientist and astronaut Legos, nice!

And finally, this was down the hall from our room, my favorite tardigrade and something to wave to every time I walked by:

So long Mr. Tardigrade, hope to see you again next year!

Live Long and Prosper, everyone.