Florida
Spud's New Year's Resolution was to seek out warmer climates during the
winter months. He wasted no time in making good on this promise and in
January of 1998, he packed up the sun screen and headed south to St. Petersburg,
Florida. He booked in to St. Pete's historic pink palace, the Don Cesar
Beach Resort where he hoped to spend time working on his golden lustre
in the sun and potato-surfing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Except for a few hours of blue sky, the warm tropical weather was nowhere to be had. Instead, thanks to the Spanish weather dictator El Nino, the hot spot was turned into a windy and wet hurricane breeding ground. Spud was happy that he refused the travel agent's advice on staying at Typhoon Tony's Mobile Home Trailer Park!
Seeking
indoor activities as an alternative, Spud visited the Florida International
Museum and it's fabulous exhibition on the Titanic (what is it with Floridians
and water disasters?). The museum was crawling with security; physically
accosting anyone trying to take a photograph of a chipped dinner plate
from the ship's galley or any of the other relics.
Never one to have authority stand in his way, Spud smuggled his camera inside his plastic body and passed the metal detector. When the opportunity arose, he jumped onto the bow of a scale model of the ship and snapped away. Immediately security scrambled and chased the plastic potato through the building, but to no avail. Spud used his compact size to his advantage and eluded capture by jumping into an air duct.
Hoping
to flee the 'heat' of his perilous escape, he headed down to St. Petersburg's
famous pier. The local ruffian pelicans situated there didn't take too
kindly to Spud feeling he was muscling in on their feeding grounds. Efforts
to reason with the birds proved fruitless and they resorted to violent
tactics knocking him clear out of his shoes.
Visibly shaken by the incident, Spud stumbled
back to the resort where he promptly packed his body and left town.