Adventures on the Poker Felt

After a few weeks here, I thought I’d post my impressions of a few things I’ve encountered about the area.

It rains a lot.  I’d say it’s rained at least once a day maybe 70% percent of the time.  And it comes out of no where.  Twice we were out shopping and when we were ready to head out to the car, a downpour erupted.  Good fun loading bags in the car when it’s coming down in buckets.  I’m hoping this is the rainy season here and it dries up after a few months, could be wishful thinking.

We can’t use the jacuzzi.  It’s just too fucking hot.  Instead we spend time at the pool after dinner.  The water is still 75-80 degrees but it feels real nice after we get out and towel off.  We’re looking forward to using the spa this winter.

We went down to the beach after having dinner.  Tina insisted on walking down to the water to see what it was like.  Same as the freaking pool, 75-80 degrees.  Is there any relief from the heat you ask?

Well yes, yes there is.

Stay inside where it’s air conditioned.  I also noticed there were absolutely no waves with the exception of the occasional ankle slapper.  It’s like a lake out here.  The sand is white and soft.  Sand at CA beaches is a bit more course and tan.  I like the sand here a lot better.

Bugs!  Fuckin’ hell man, they have flying cockroaches which can run pretty fast as well.  They’re called ”Palmetto bugs”.  Imagine cockroaches on steroids.  I’ve only seen them at night.  And it’s not like there are swarms of them but we see a few just about every time we head to the pool at night.  Tina’s pretty grossed out by them, which I get to enjoy every trip to the pool.

Due to the heat, we run our air conditioning 24/7.  The thermostat is set at 74 degrees and there’s pretty much no way you can’t have it running.  When we were having dinner down at the beach, the hostess asked if we wanted to be seated inside or on the patio.  No joke.  But there were a few families sitting outside.  I’m hoping after some time out here we’ll get used to it.  But Tina’s brother told me “Dude, I’ve been here 15 years and I’m still not used to it”.

The first night we arrived, we ran into a guy at the sports bar across the street that lived in Chula Vista before moving out here.  He gave us a heads up on a few things.  One of which was the driving.  He wasn’t joking.  Just about every time get in the car, we see someone do something stupid.  The worst so far was some guy cutting us off making a right turn in front of us from the left hand lane.  Luckily, we weren’t going too fast and were paying attention.

The good news, we love our gated condominium complex and it’s in close proximity to a sports bar, movie theatre, grocery shopping and liquor store.  Strange they don’t sell liquor in the grocery store but grocery stores can have a liquor store parked right next door to the grocery store.  What’s the point?

And for the first time ever we stumbled across a pizza and martini bar called “Gio’s”.  It’s next door to the movie theatre that’s less than a mile from our place.  Interesting concept so we had to check it out, very nice restaurant and bar.  Definitely a place we’ll be having dinner before we hit the movies next time.

Oh and Snuffy aka (ScottC) directed me to a Sarasota poker room that’s less than 10 miles from our place.