Phlox Season

Pink was the color of the day yesterday.

You may remember from my previous trips to Florida that I'm always trying to get some good pictures of a roseate spoonbill. Spoonbills aren't uncommon but they're not an everyday bird, either. It seems they're never around when I want to photograph them. But yesterday morning, while walking near my stepmother's house, what should I see feeding in a nearby pond but a spoonbill -- and my big camera is, of course, in London!

I took a video on my phone but the bird, unfortunately, was on the opposite side of the pond from me and came out looking like a fuzzy pink bird-shaped blob. I'll spare you that.

Maybe the color was foreshadowing the rest of the day, though, because when I got on the road to drive to Jacksonville I was thrilled to discover that it's phlox season. The roadsides are awash in swathes of pink, like a landscape by an impressionist painter (if the impressionists painted Interstate highways). I stopped somewhere just south of Ocala to enjoy a particularly colorful field.

That's my homage to phlox. As you can see, they look especially brilliant through my fancy tinted sunglasses! (Which I found on Hampstead Heath some years ago.)

I had a good drive, accompanied by satellite radio's '60s channel, which introduced me to a song called "Mr. Dieingly Sad" by the Critters. I don't ever recall hearing this tune before but I've become a fan. On the downside, Richard Harris's warbled version of "Macarthur Park" was inflicted upon my eardrums once again.

I checked in to the Ramada, where I'm staying for a couple of nights. Is it my imagination or is this place looking a little more downmarket than the last time I was here? The clerk asked me if I preferred upstairs or down, a pool view or parking lot view. I said I didn't care, and as a result I'm overlooking the I-295 off-ramp. Perhaps I should have cared.

It doesn't matter, though, because I'm not going to be in this room much. It's just a place to sleep, and the bed is great. I got my first good night's sleep since my flight -- at least until someone called me from an unknown number at 4:53 a.m. and woke me up. Argh! I wonder if it was the washing machine repairman back in London? Dave's dealing with that situation today.

My brother and I went to see my mom last night. She and her pals were watching a movie ("Begin Again," with Kiera Knightly and Mark Ruffalo) but I don't think anyone was paying particularly close attention. (They have enough trouble following what's happening in real life, much less the plot of a movie.) We made her laugh but we didn't stay long. We'll go back today when she's less distracted.