Bombax and Road Rage

I came across this jungly scene while driving through Bradenton yesterday with my brother. Doesn't it look like something from "Tarzan," or maybe one of those "Road" movies from the '40s -- "Road to Zanzibar" or "Road to Bali"? That tree with the red blossoms is what grabbed my attention. It's a kapok, more appropriately called a Bombax, and it has huge, rubbery, prehistoric-looking flowers that fall in profusion at this time of year.

I was happy to see one blooming.

We also passed this magnificent pink Tabebuia, a relative of the yellow one I posted a couple of days ago. (My brother took this photo at my request, and I can hear him now: "STOP TALKING ABOUT PLANTS!")

Yesterday was the day to go visit Dave's family. My brother and I got into his low-slung shiny blue Subaru -- it's so low that it makes me groan when I get in and out of it -- and drove down to Bradenton over the Sunshine Skyway bridge. We met up with Dave's sister Dawn at the family mobile home in Cortez, and then took his parents to lunch at the Anna Maria Oyster Bar. (Or actually, they took us, since his dad paid as usual.) I had fish tacos with mango, which were delicious, and we said hi to Pearl, the robot waitress, who has lost her coconut bra since the last time I saw her.

We all video-chatted with Dave in London via Facebook, and then my brother and I headed back to Tampa. My brother has loved cars since he was a tiny kid, and he loves to drive and spends a lot of time on the road, and he has lots of opinions about the proper ways to drive. Those opinions emerge in his hilarious habit of psycho-analyzing all the drivers around us. Most of us see someone driving crazy and say, "Wow, that guy is a jerk." My brother sees them and says, "That guy is a frustrated slave to the manosphere who's boiling with rage and fears he's an incel." He will judge someone's character based on whether their truck has racing stripes from Amazon or a certain style of hubcap. About 35 years ago I sold him my own car, a Honda, and he still holds it against me that I had spilled coffee on the center console and it had sticky spots. To hear him tell it, I replicated a Jackson Pollock painting inside that car.

He has an eagle eye for any kind of highway oddity. He spotted one pickup truck with a sagging back end that looked so scary and unworthy of the road that I couldn't believe it was legal to drive. Once he pointed it out I was astonished, but I know if I'd been in the car by myself I'd have breezed past without a glance.

Today I'll be helping my stepsister and her husband tidy up the house after all their hosting this weekend, and then I'm off to the airport in the afternoon for the journey back to London. I'll let you know tomorrow whether the wildlife cam picked up anything interesting in my stepmother's yard. (I'm sure you can't wait!)