Ah, I hear the crowd roar, did I make Steinhatchee? Sure I did, and all the way from Valdosta on the GPS. The useful [GPS] features turned out to be the identification of country crossroads, time to travel, and distance remaining. Three inflexible parameters. The others, which involved city travel, were not so great. Maybe I have not yet learned the commands.
One trade off is that I only know the route I took on a map. It was across the Suwannee River, which claims to be the object of the Steven Foster tune of that name. I’ve heard other theories. The river bridge is a few miles north of Mayo, where I stopped for a sandwich and stayed an hour. Sorry for the poor quality of this extremely long range telephoto shot, but it's as close as I could park.
The two sisters on staff struck up a conversation whereby we covered all from music to real estate. That’s the Old Florida Company coffee house if you pass through. It is worth the while. I mentioned the seeming low prices which they confirmed have dropped to that level for lack of buyers. On the way in I noticed a lot of the land was flooded and the rest was tidewater forest. The place is but inches over sea level.
But what a quiet setting, miles from the freeway. Other than tree farms and fishing, I saw no economic base. Lots of vacant buildings downtown. Very little for night life, which I still must have if only one night a week. The nearest clubs would be a twenty mile round trip. Several times the sisters mentioned I should meet the lady café owner, stay with me here.
[Author’s note: without in any way denigrating the ladies I met, I have something to say. If I was in Mayo a week, I would find out the name of every single lady within fifty miles who is looking for a boyfriend. But I also know from experience the awful impetus for small towns to pretend sex does not exist. Thus, I was not surprised when both these new ladies repeatedly suggested I should meet the café owner. For the life of me, I cannot fathom why they felt a super-eligible bachelor passing through town would be the least interested in socializing with a married woman. But if I dare say anything about it, they’ll rate me a monster. So I'll keep my trap shut.]
[Author’s note 2023 : ten years later, I never did return to Steinhatchee. All I remember is there was nothing to do there. Except fish, which to me rates right up there with playing golf.]
Steinhatchee is your typical dying fishing village. There are some retirement developments along the waterfront are displacing the shacks. The area is low rolling hills resulting from changes in the river course and what's that called, when the river banks get higher. The heavier suspended load gets dropped earliest, making the riverbank higher than the surrounding territory. The modern architecture of the new condos is downright insulting to the old-style fishing shacks of the old town.
The coast roads on the west side are not handy, so I took an easy run back to Highway 19. This is the dreaded four-lane that runs through every town that has unsynchronized traffic lights. Since the early days, these towns let businesses relocate from the central area and string themselves along the freeway. The result is no service roads and countless blocks of stores with doorways that practically swing open into the traffic. These stores face the freeway like it was Main Street, and you get locals pulling in and out of the lanes to do their grocery shopping. A madhouse, I tell you.
Nor will I drive through St. Petersburg again. They are constructing new intersections but don’t wait for it. My impression of St. Petersburg itself is while it is not a dirty industrial city, it is the next worst thing: a distribution center. Nothing is really manufactured here, just lots of trucking and shipping companies. I stopped for libations at a club called “Banana Boat” and that is the first pub I’ve found in the state of Florida that has adequate knee room between the stools and the bar panels. Congratulations.
But the town was not all roses. Consider this scenario. I hunted down that Ural parts from off the Internet. The address was in St. Petersburg, so naturally I stopped, but that was a mistake. Let me fill you in.
First, it is NOT, repeat not a Ural store like the advertising suggests. It is a Harley Davidson distributorship, and Harley with some justification, considers itself the Rolls Royce of motorcycles. Myself, I think that uppity attitude is nonsense. I’m the guy that used to walk into Lexus and Cadillac dealerships to use the pay phone, I’m saying motorcycle shops don’t impress me.
Snobbery is fine on the street, but I don’t need it at a cycle shop. I wanted to see the Ural parts. I know I just got off the road a bit dusty and unshaven, but that’s no call for being snooty. When I asked to see the Ural accessories without a sales pitch, the hefty sales clerk hands me the “parts or clothing” with her nose in the air. Gee, has Ural come out with a line of mukluks in sable? Do you have these felt ear-flaps in taupe?
The reality is they have exactly one Ural tucked in the far northeast corner of the store. I caught the message. They are out to give the fake impression that Urals are expensive European imports, when in fact they are third-rate knockoffs of a 1936 design now assembled out of leftover spare parts from Glasnost-era Ukrainian warehouses. My intention was to price out a cargo carrier which is actually an ammo box. The Harley people have no catalog with photos, just a computer printout price list showing this item priced at $250. That’s a phenomenal nine times the landed cost, so I doubt I’ll be shopping much at 2805 54th Avenue in St. Petersburg. Other memories of that town include the only toll bridge on this trip and possibly the only remaining US freeway motel without WiFi, the Palm Aire.
That’s the end of all the cheery deeds today. Here is a street name, “Follow the Dream”. It cost me a thousand bucks to do so this last week in Savannah.
