3/6/26
Hello from Gainesville again! I’ve covered so much ground since I last posted—I need to catch up again! I’m going to start with Pensacola.
When I left off last time, my Host a Sister host Sharon had picked me up after my bike ride to Pensacola. I spent two nights with her, and we visited Fort Pickens, which was a very old and historically rich site. I’m including a few photos of plaques to give a glimpse into the history of the place, but you can dig deeper to read more if you’re interested. The evening light was especially lovely as we explored the grounds.
The next day, we had lunch at Pensacola’s single, long-running vegan restaurant, which put the Traveling Wilburys song in my head. I appreciated the nexus of two of my favorite things: railroad history and vegan BLTs!
After lunch, she showed me the downtown area, some of whose architecture was surprisingly reminiscent of New Orleans, although a huge construction project made it harder to feel the full vibe. Appropriately, we got there just a few hours before the annual Mardi Gras parade was to begin.
The next morning, Sharon generously drove me across two very long bridges to get me to Pensacola Beach as my starting point for the bike ride back to Navarre. Despite the headwind (again! argh!) it was as pleasant a ride as the reverse direction had been. I didn’t take more photos of the white-sand shores, but I enjoyed them in the moment.
I arrived back at Kelly’s house in Navarre, but this time she was off on her travels, so the two kitties, Sombra and Nike, were my greeting party. They were both friendly, and remembered me from a few days prior, and we got along great for the following two weeks.
While I was with them, I decided to get more serious about my longstanding desire to learn interspecies intuitive communication, with the help of a friend who is able to do it. I will plan to continue writing about IIC as that journey unfolds for me, but in Navarre, I made several efforts to communicate telepathically both with Nike and Sombra, and also with a group of at least four brown anole lizards in the backyard.
This home’s location was not well situated for me to spend time outdoors: the bicycle infrastructure was unsafe and unpleasant, and very few natural areas (besides the beach) were near enough to be accessible to me. So, I spent time inside, connecting with the kitties, catching up on phone and video calls with friends and family, and doing my Cambly online English tutoring work.
One cool in-person interaction fell into place, though. I belong to a Facebook group called Full Time Travelers and Nomads, run by a woman (with whom I share a rare November 8 birthday!) named Heather Markel. (I got to meet Heather in Manhattan during my year of travels in 2022, which was really cool!) In that group, there is a weekly post asking where in the world people will be in the next two weeks. I usually add my location, but up until now I had never been in the same place at the same time as another member. I thought it would be especially unlikely in this case, in such a relatively unknown area, but I typed in “Florida panhandle, USA.” Amazingly, another pet sitting US-nomadic woman named Dani happened to be staying about an hour’s drive away, in the panhandle town of Niceville! We connected online, and then she made the drive down to pick me up in Navarre and take me to the (much more scenic) Navarre Beach, a few miles down the road, which I had passed through on my bike rides to and from Pensacola.
We ended up hanging out for a full five hours, talking nonstop about our similar lifestyles. First we stopped at a fun tropical-themed bar, and then went over to walk the pier. We happened to arrive there just as some lifeguard trainees were about to jump from the pier into the water below, and then swim to shore. That was fun to watch.
I’ll leave you with a ridiculous bonanza of Nike (tripod tabby) and Sombra (black beauty) photos, because it’s been a long stretch of posts recently with no cat sits. Hopefully this can tide you over until my next sit, in late March in St. Petersburg.
This last photo is what I saw when I opened my eyes after an attempt at a telepathic communication session. It’s the only time I saw them both looking at me intently like that.
Next up: lots more magic in Tallahassee!
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