My wife likes it when I write these, so I’m going to. The last time I had traveled to St. Petersburg, Florida (where I lived from 2015-2019) was sometime around May or June 2020. Covid of course prevented us from traveling as much as we could have done. My wife had been back October of that year, but I was in California at the time. So it would be interesting to see how things had changed, thanks to the rampant gentrification that had overtaken the city before I left.
The trip there was mostly smoothly; I like to ride shotgun and take on the DJ duties, that is until my son dropped his favorite puppets and I had to reach back to the back seat to grab them and my drink spilled all over my pants and seat, and had to spend the rest of the trip with soggy pants and underwear. So it goes, parenthood.
We got to our hotel, and my favorite thing about it was the TV wasn’t bolted to the wall like it is in some hotels so I could reach the hdmi output and hook up my Nintendo Switch…so the little one could watch his kiddie shows.
He loves the British puppet show Sooty, who his grandmother introduced him to. Kids shows in England have a bit more edge to them I think. That’s probably a whole other blog entry.
Our first outing after we got settled as to Nocturnal. Nocturnal, in the nearby town of Gulf Port, is an art studio operated by two of my good friends, Rachel and Ande. There’s not many establishments you can go to that play black metal over the speakers. Quite a lot of amazing art here.
Jareth was asleep, so we unhooked the car seat and brought him in. Rachel wasn’t in so Deborah went to go pick her up, leaving me to sit around and work on my webcomic in the meantime. But after a while, of course, little Jare Bear began to awaken, and found himself in a horrifying and unfamiliar place. By the time Deborah returned, he was beginning to freak out and scream, so sadly, we had to leave. Fun times trying to socialize when you have a toddler. I don’t know how he came to fear skeletons and such, it’s not like anyone taught him to associate them with death. But I did admire the art while I was there. And the Red Hot Riding Hood mural on the outside was a surprising treat too.
After that we went to one of our favorite old kava bars, Muddy Waters, for some delicious vanilla kratom frappes. That was one thing we really missed about the Tampa Bay area, the kava bars. There have been more springing up near us, but none of them seem to brew their kratom drinks as strongly as around here, where competition has driven them to try to outdo one another. Little Jareth of course wanted to mess with their Christmas tree, and then go outside for an aimless walk in the cold. I wasn’t in the mood for this, so we got in the car and went back to the hotel, calling it a night.
The next day was the funnest of the trip.
After we picked up more kratom (you’ll notice a pattern), we dropped by one of our old favorite thrift stores for some cheap toys to keep Jareth happy. A few days ago my VCR finally stopped working after 23 years (it randomly powers off after playing a tape for about five seconds). I would like to get it repaired, but buying a spare wouldn’t be a bad idea either. I didn’t find one here, but I picked up a couple blank tapes. I’m likely going to record some music videos off YouTube. I like the aesthetic, and they aren’t going to get taken down randomly.
We took Jareth to an indoor playground next. I wrote about this place in my last travelogue where we made this trip (wow, almost two years ago); it’s fun for kids but also full of unfortunate corporate propaganda, where Publix tried to indoctrinate toddlers into lifelong customers and such. I took this time to work on the next page of my webcomic, which will be up this Tuesday.
Next up, I had some video games to trade in at M & M Video Games. You know, in that last travelogue I picked up The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Well I played the game a couple times. And it may be pretty, and have a large world, but that kinda doesn’t make up for repetitive gameplay, a mediocre story, and several frustrating challenges that aren’t really worth it. So I exchanged it, among some other games I was ready to get rid of, including Super Mario Bros. Wii and Shadow the Hedgehog. Games I just didn’t think I was going to play again. I got $90 in store credit, which I still haven’t completely spent because their pickings for Nintendo Switch games are pretty slim. If they’d had an Ever Drive I would have gotten it, but they said they didn’t carry them due to their questionable legality (you do have to pirate the games you put on them). Since they mainly sell old video games I imagine they don’t want Ever Drives eating up their business too. I ended up getting a new 6-button controller for my Sega Genesis, a sensory toy for my son, and South Park: Fractured but Whole. I don’t doubt that I may end up exchanging that game once I’m done with it too. I don’t really cling to my video games anymore. Most of them anyway.
Not long afterwards we went back to the hotel, and Jareth got babysat by his grandparents while Deborah and I went to the Twin Tribes concert, which I wrote about last time. We got back and went to bed almost straight away.
Our time was more limited the next day, as we had to pack up all our things and check out of the hotel before 11am. Never the most fun process. I woke up early, as I did the day before, for breakfast. I forgot to mention how sub-par the breakfasts were. You got bagels or English muffins, with sausage patties and overcooked fried eggs. You could make your own pancakes or waffles, but I didn’t feel like it. It was just Comfort Inn, not a super fancy place. But like I said before, if it were fancy they would probably have their TVs bolted against the wall so you couldn’t hook anything up to it. So there are advantages and disadvantages.
After we left, we went to downtown St. Petersburg to a kratom dispensary to take some home with us (it’s a terrible addiction), and while we walked downtown we stopped at another of our old haunts, Johnny Vapors, for more kratom (yes), and a sushi bar called Pacific Counter where we ordered a sushi bowl. It was interesting how much things had changed in the short time we had been gone. This was a process we had witnessed while we lived there, the process of gentrification. This is the same thing that happened in San Francisco. First a neighborhood that was once poor starts an arts district that attracts all the young hipsters. You get art galleries, kava bars, bars with stages for live bands, hookah lounges, indie record stores, stuff of that nature. Then you get the coffee shops, the organic and vegan restaurants, the parking meters, the clothes and jewelry stores, soon all the artsy places get kicked out, and it becomes a richie rich area for snooty people. I was now able to see the final stage of this process. I was surprised Johnny Vapors was still around, probably the last vestige left from the artsy stage.
The dispensary was the cheapest place to get powdered kratom that you brew yourself. They were highly appreciative of Google reviews too and Deborah and I got some free ounces for doing so. Of course my positive reviews were still honest.
From there we did a quick stop at Trader Joe’s because for some reason they still haven’t put one in our area yet, and we left for Tampa. Deborah had heard of a children’s museum there that she wanted to take Jareth to, but when we went, the traffic was unusually awful even for Tampa. Once we finally found parking somewhere we discovered why. They were doing some sort of Christmas parade. I could care less for parades really, and this just meant the museum wouldn’t be busy. There was plenty of fun stuff for Jareth to do there, and unlike the indoor playground in St. Petersburg it wasn’t completely upfront about its corporate sponsorship. Afterwards he got to play at the splash pad outside, while I did my best to hide from the too-warm-for-December Florida sun.
Having had a full day, after this we hit the road and went home. Unfortunately that sushi bowl we bought earlier didn’t have its lid securely tightened, so when Deborah picked it up the car got covered in fish eggs and corn. My surprise came from the fact that it wasn’t me this happened to this time. That’s usually the sort of bad luck I get. This necessitated giving the car a good cleaning the next day.
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