Late this afternoon, after a fun but hot hot hot day in Pine Island the Ski Boy and I departed the Suze Manse and headed back to Sarasota. We took a few extra goodies with us - a piece of homemade cake for the Ski Boy and an icy cold Corona (with a slice of lime, of course) for me to surreptiously sip on whilst we motored our way North.
We decided to take a small detour in Port Charlotte to do a geocache located on the outskirts of FEMA-ville, the very large temporary encampment of white trailers set up by FEMA following Hurricane Charlie. FEMA-ville is huge - it really gets your attention. For temporary housing, it's been there for a long time - over a year and is still very much occupied by evacuees.
Anyhoo, our little geocache was setup on the outside of the FEMA-ville fence - actually across a small road, right in the parking lot of the county sheriff's headquarters. Fortunately, the cache was a very easy find - literally a drive by. The Ski Boy then suggested that I take a picture of FEMA-ville. So, I walked across the street and took two shots. As I walked back to car, I commented to the Ski Boy, that here we were, in the sheriff's parking lot, geocaching, taking pictures - all very suspicious and with an open container in the car. Not the best of the situations. However, we made it back to car without any trouble and drove off.
But....
We had gone no more than 150 yards when Peter said "uh oh". I looked in the rear view mirror and there were two sherrif's vehicles with their lights on. "Uh Oh" indeed.
While Peter pulled over, I immediately took the beer bottle and tucked it under the dash and buried it in Peter's shirt. As the sheriffs walked up, Peter rolled down window and greeted them. The shorter sheriff was friendly but firm - he said, "You were taking pictures over at headquarters."
We immediately explained that we were geocaching and of course, we had to explain what geocaching was. The sheriff listened and then stated, that he was going to run Peter's driver's license. He also commented that, "These days, with terrorists and all, one can't be too careful". I laughed at that one - afterall the Ski Boy and I would be the world's most inept terrorists.
We made small talk while waiting for Peter's license check - I gave the sheriff the geocache print out so that he could see that geocaching really existed. And because Peter was wearing his Red Sox t-shirt, I also commented that I hoped he (the sheriff) wasn't a Yankees fan. And of course, the sheriff was a Yankees fan. But at least he laughed.
Finally, Peter's license cleared and we promised that we would never again take pictures at sheriff headquarters. And they let us go on our way.
Big Time Whew!!!!!!!! That was a close one. Peter and I had visions of prison stripes. Neither one of us would look good in stripes!
Here's my hard earned FEMA-ville shot. Note the sheriff's car in the background on the right.
6:40:45 PM 
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