Day 227: from Motel 6, Ft.Meyers

Ben is...guess what...editing again, this time it is the Oregon videopod.Mark is...i think...outside making a phone call.I am sitting on the bed nearest the bathroom as I am the one who always needs it most and in the middle of the night.We are on our way to Miami, hopefully to talk to some oceanographers about Florida's particular environmental challenges. We have several calls and emails out and now we wait to hear back. Maybe if we don't hear anything by tomorrow I will go to the beach, lol.We just spent the last 2 dys in Tampa with the nicest folks! - It took us all a bit of time to figure out how we even got connected, as people we know generously send out emails when we are looking for a place to stay, and I had assumed these guys were friends of my friend...but they actually were another friend removed, even. Regardless, it was uncanny how lined up we all were in our thinking - even down to having read the exact same books and feeling very similarly about the presidential candidates. It was refreshing and wonderful and we were so glad that we got to meet and hang out with them.They had lived in Oregon for 28 yrs so they definitely had something to compare Florida to, environmentally, but they also said that there has been much change in Florida in the last 7 yrs, enough to make them feel hopeful that Floridians are getting on the green bandwagon, too.We spoke to Christine, of Keep Hillsborough County Beautiful, who said that there is a little less garbage on the beach clean up days than the previous year. After we left her, we stopped at a tiny beach along the Causeway to watch the sun set for Valentines, but Ben and I did not walk 10 ft and we were picking up trash. We only walked i think 50 paces and then returned to Mark with our arms FULL of garbage and debris, from water bottles to McDonalds cups to plastic bags to pieces of rope to a huge piece of styrofoam as big as a car bumper. And there was so much more but we had to go back bc our arms were full.Aaack! Happy Valentines Day!