Today is cold (high of 65! ha!) and windy. The remaining two chives and parsley were getting blown around, so I’ve brought them inside. The changes in air pressure have been pushing the back door open a bit and creating a draft that I’m hoping my improvised cardboard pad in the deadbolt hole will eliminate.

On Sunday we bought 3 indoor plants and I put herbs in my strawberry pot. The top is a greek oregano, and the sides, which will be difficult to water, have parsley, thyme and two chives.

Most of the seedlings since repotting have been paling and anemic. We found that the saucers were keeping water from draining properly. We’ve now torn those off, and will see if things improve. The two tomatoes bought as plants, on the other hand, are twice as big as when we first got them. We have baby husky cherry reds now.

The two tomatoes that we bought as plants have been doing well. What we think is the Husky Cherry Red The Bush Goliath has continued to flower and has its first baby tomato.

At least one seed from each of the peat pellets has sprouted now, the peppers and especially the parsley taking the longest. Unless of course the “parsley” is actually a volunteer seed that happened by and took advantage of the frequent watering.

A few days ago something (we blame the squirrels until they can prove their innocence) knocked over some of the seedlings and was digging in the larger pots. Today I saw a (second?) snake in our yard. May it catch lots of squirrel.

It’s rained twice since we arrived in Tampa, with officially 0.06″ of rain thus far in March compared to an average to date of 2.61″. Average for the entire month of March: 3.36″. There are water restrictions in effect, but maybe it’s just the government offices that are expected to heed them, as I’ve seen plenty of fountains running and daytime watering.

Florida is very toll road happy. In addition, maps, both on our GPS and on Google, are decidedly unreliable here. I’m unaccustomed to needing to keep spare change in the car in case I have an unplanned trip or find a misbehaving toll machine, such as the 2nd to the left west bound lane on the Pinellas Bayway (falsely labeled “exact change” in this case), which took about $1.00 of change before deciding we’d paid the 50 cent toll. From their websites it looks like if you don’t pay, they photograph your license plate, ding your driving record, and send you a bill for somewhere around $175, depending on the road.

For those booths that are accepting the correct amounts, here are the charges:

• Tampa-Hillsborough Expressway Authority Toll Calculator for the Selmon Crosstown Expressway (Hwy 618)
• Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise Toll Calculator for everything else

Buying a SunPass transponder (prepayed) saves you a quarter to fifty cents on the larger toll amounts compared to cash.

This is not complete, but here’s a map of some of Tampa Bay’s toll booths:

View Larger Map

On the 12th we planted seeds of: watermelon, yellow squash, tomatoes (red robin, black krim, quarter century and early girl), parsley, thyme, lettuce, sweet pepper, basil (purple and last year’s genovese).  Of those, only the genovese basil, sweet pepper and parsley have not pushed up at least one seedling.  Today we planted chives.  The package says to wait 4 months before harvesting.  That seems like an awful long time.

We also bought two tomatoes from Home Depot, a bush goliath and a husky cherry red.

On tomatoes:

*Note on the Red Robin maturity date: For having such pretty plants, the red robins we tried to grow indoors last fall/winter must have never been that happy. We had them for around 120 days, and not even one successful flower.

We’ve rented a house on the west side of the bay.  We have a yard.  The landlady seems garden friendly.  There are a lot of blue jays, mourning doves, squirrels and little lizards.  There was a frog on the first night, but we haven’t seen him since.  We’re already using the AC.  I haven’t been bitten by any mosquitoes yet.

In less than a week, we will be on our way across the country, with nearly everything we own in our two vehicles.  Mike’s already done a modern day Oregon Trail journey, from NC up to me in WA, but he’s also been hopping across the continents for nearly 15 years, so I think the move is a bigger deal for little me, who has never lived outside of the state.

It’s a great shocker at work when asked how I’m doing, how is the new position going.  They ask why we’re moving, and I list out our reasons (population density, beaches and wildlife, cost of living, climate for Mike), and they appreciate our mobility or say that I’m brave, and then tell me about all of the alligators and hurricanes.  Florida seems a world away to most of them, exotic, a destination fit for vacationing.  But a permanent move?  I may as well be switching hemispheres.

I don’t know yet if I’ll like Florida.  But that’s the point, that it’s not like here, since here is not working for us.  It’s almost taboo it seems to say you don’t like living in Seattle.  But oh, the public transportation! (with the freaks and perverts in your face or worse), and nature at our doorstep! (so popular that it’s a rather long drive before you can find any peace and solitude with your nature), and culture! (with little to no parking to be found, or which costs enough to significantly increase the overall price for your evening).  Not that everything is bad.  I’m going to miss my easy access to Odwallas and the goodness of Trader Joe’s.  And on clear days, the surrounding mountains are really beautiful.  Most of my complaints are around forced interaction with too many people, and in that respect, Tampa will probably still be too big for me.  But perhaps we can find something of the feel of Bellingham in one of the surrounding towns.  Downtown Dunedin looked inviting.  It is a trade off anywhere.  We hope that the mix will be more favorable to us where we are going, and if not, we’ll try somewhere else.