The Haunted Mansion
We made it out of bed in time to make it over to the Hilton around 11, then chatted in the lobby for awhile while various of us noticed that it was darned chilly outside and changed clothes accordingly. Joining us was Punki’s lovely sister Georgia. Our first stop was the fabled Krispy Kreme, so we set the Neverlost for the address Punki had procured earlier on W. Kennedy. “Lucy,” the voice of Neverlost, gets particularly excited when you enter a street address, reciting numerals in machine-gun rapid-fire as you attempt to navigate the gnarly user interface. Nevertheless, we got there minutes ahead of Punki and Georgia, who took a different route and ran into Gasparilla traffic.
Today happened to be the date of the biggest annual event in Tampa, the Gasparilla parade. It is named after the pirate José Gaspar who landed in Tampa Bay with his booty back in the good old days. Naturally, this event is commemorated with a huge parade and Mardi Gras necklaces thrown from floats to exuberant spectators. We didn’t have a desire to fight the traffic and see the parade, probably because we didn’t want to feel like we had “seen it all” and there would be nothing left to live for. Now we can always come back another day for this auspicious event.
Krispy Kreme did not have the Hot Doughnuts Now light on and the sixteen-year-old girl behind the counter guessed that it would be another hour before it was on, so we decided to just get coffee and come back after brunch. Essxjay asked the girl for advice on places to go for brunch. She told us to just drive down Dale Mabry and all the places are there: Village Inn, IHOP—any place you want. Punki found an adult woman wearing a nice sweater with a boy in tow dressed like a pirate. She gave us an alternative, a place nearby called the Brunchery. We set the Neverlost for the Brunchery.
We had no problems getting a table for six because everybody else in Tampa was off watching the pirate parade. The food at this place was quite good. Hunnybear and I each had the Southwestern Omelet special. Catman picked up the check when no one was looking and Punki told him he was bad. We ate fairly quickly and then left Punki and Georgia to go pick up geo1004 at the airport.
Rather than pay for airport parking, I drove the rental car to the Hertz return and told them I wanted to trade it in because of the jammed seatbelt. So we went up to the US Airways lounge, met geo1004, and returned to a different red Ford Contour with Neverlost to head once more to Krispy Kreme.
Alas, the hot light was still not on, but we ordered a dozen originals anyway ($4.49) plus one creme-filled for me to try. I set up geo1004 with the digital camera to capture my first bite. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a guy like me who’s a couple of pound overweight, so I ate a whole original and almost all of the creme-filled. We demolished all but of couple of the dozen between us then prepared for a sugar crash as we headed off to explore nearby Clearwater.
To get to Clearwater, we took a beautiful 17-mile causeway surrounded by turquoise water full of diving pelicans. They put on quite a show as we approached the town. I wanted to take a look at the headquarters building of the Church of Scientology, located in downtown Clearwater. The religion, founded by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, is famous for recruiting celebrities such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta, and also for mounting vicious campaigns of harassment and unending litigation against its enemies. I knew the Flag building would be easy to spot because I had read on the Internet that the sidewalks were all torn up, ostensibly to renovate them but more likely to deter the frequent protesters from carrying their picket signs on the public sidewalks in front of their building.
Downtown Clearwater is not a big place and we found the HQ building only one block off the main drag. Next door was the brick warehouse-like building that had just been purchased by an anti-Scientology group to headquarter their protest campaign. I explained to geo1004 and Essxjay about the Sea Org, the elite corps of Scientology, who wear blue naval uniforms. Geo1004 said he had just seen a woman dressed like that, but a circuit around the block failed to sight her or one of her cohorts again. With that, we continued down the road to Clearwater Beach.
Clearwater Beach was a beautiful white-sand shore on the Gulf of Mexico. It was much like any beach community with hotels and swimwear shops running up and down the beach road. We braved the chilly wind long enough to say we walked on the beach, then strolled along the beach road. Essxjay and geo1004 popped into a cigar store, and when we joined them we realized just how inexpensive cigars are in Florida. They were selling a plastic-wrapped brick of 25 Dominican Cohibas for $55. In Seattle it would cost four or five times that amount. Must be taxes.
The drive back to Tampa was marked by a stimulating philosophical discussion between Essxjay and myself on the merits of Objectivism while the other passengers either slept or were put to sleep. We dropped the others off at the Hilton, then Hunnybear and I went back to the Sheraton to work out. The gym at the Sheraton Suites Tampa Airport had a couple of very nice step machines, a Lifecycle, and a treadmill along with a universal gym. The equipment looked through a window onto the pool, and during our intense workout we were rewarded by the arrival of a pair of bathing beauties. They looked like they’d be even more beautiful in eight or 10 years when they would graduate from high school. The two girls entertained us by diving for necklaces, which was a far sight better than the constant politics on TV.
It was now time to head for the fabled Bern’s restaurant, the putative point of this trip, so we met dgolds in the lobby. We were about to leave when we got a desperate call from Catman. Apparently the nine of us who were staying at the Hilton could not get a taxi because of the Gasparillo festival. Could we come over and squeeze about half of them into our car? Well sure, we’ll try. But dgolds had talked to the dispatcher of the courtesy van at the Sheraton, who offered to drive over to the Hilton, pick up our friends, and take them to Bern’s! It’s nice to stay at a full-service hotel. We were just about to implement our plan when Catman said the taxis had just arrived, so we called it all off and just drove to Bern’s as originally planned.
Neverlost took us on a weaving course of one-way streets to get to Bern’s. We parked the car in the wrong lot, because Bern’s has a wine store two blocks north of the restaurant, so rather than get back out in the traffic we walked the two blocks. Georgia told us Bern’s reminded her of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. It reminded me more of Caesar’s Magical Empire in Vegas, but PremEx said it best: Bern’s is furnished in early Bordello. We renewed old acquaintances with him, auh20, and kokonutz , and met Scott the Flyer for the first time. The seating arrangement was as follows:
Catman dgolds Punki kokonutz Georgia auh20
Essxjay PremEx Hunnybear QuietLion geo1004 Scott the Flyer
It was an incredibly long, leisurely dinner that seemed to fly by in much less time than was actually consumed. Everybody gets onion soup (or vichyssoise) and salad with dinner. I also ordered one of the 26 caviars Bern’s has on the menu, the “Chattanooga Beluga.” It was much less expensive than regular Beluga and the eggs were smaller, but the taste was similar. We passed it around while we waited for the steak. I recruited forces to share a 30-ounce Chateaubriand with Hunnybear, kokonutz, and auh20. It was unbelievably good, among the best steak I have ever had. They do everything themselves at Bern’s: aging the beef, growing the herbs—they grow their own vegetables, make their own charcoal, machine their own kitchen equipment—I am not kidding. This place is vertical integration at its most ridiculous.
As for wine, auh20 ordered a 1989 St.-Julien. (His original choice had been a Dunn from Californnia, which the sommelier almost cried over when he brought out because it was too young to die in this fashion. So he recommended the St.-Julien.) Essxjay ordered a fabulous wine I’d never heard of called Topolos, an alicante bouschet 1995, Sonoma County. It tasted like chocolate. PremEx ordered a beautiful Estancia meritage. At geo1004’s recommendation, we ordered a 1993 Ridge Geyserville Zinfandel which was wonderful.
They had us settle up the dinner bill before taking us upstairs for dessert. The downstairs bill came to $75 each including a generous 21% tip (they always tack on 12% automatically and make a point of telling you the waiters make no salary). We split in on eight credit cards, all but one a mileage-earning card. I won’t reveal who lost the mileage opportunity for fear of embarrassing her.
Nick, our waiter, took us on an extensive tour of the kitchen and wine cellar (half a million bottles) before taking us upstairs to our private dessert room. There are a seemingly infinite number of oval rooms of different sizes, each with an airline-like control panel (how appropriate!) giving choice of music and a call button for the waiter. Essxjay and Scott the Flyer had Cherries Jubilee and PremEx and dgolds shared a Bananas Foster, both prepared tableside. Hunnybear and I had a chocolate layer cake with a scoop each of vanilla and peppermint ice cream. The list of dessert wines went on for pages and pages. I recommended a Madeira for Essxjay and got a glass for myself too. The coffee was Folger’s crystals. Auh20 picked up the dessert bill and there was nothing anyone could do to dissuade him, except possibly for “here, let me chip in,” which wasn’t tried.
Five and one-half hours after we arrived, we completed this wonderful meal. Earlier, I had offered a toast to the memory of my father, who died of smoking-related cancer almost 20 years ago. Today would have been his 72nd birthday, and I realized he would have been the same age as the King of Thailand, celebrating his doubly auspicious sixth cycle. So we toasted the old man, making the dinner even more special for me. This was truly an evening to remember.