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I also have an uncle and aunt that live in a little beach resort called Treasure Island, not far from Tampa.  It had been a couple years since I had talked to them, in fact I had never met his new wife, but I knew if I visited them they would still welcome me with open arms.  My uncle is the most laid-back person I have ever met.
                  Uncle Howard, my father’s brother, is the black sheep of our family.  Most of my family lives within an hour of each other, but from the time my uncle could drive he was hardly ever that close to family again.  My uncle has a way of life that I think more people should adopt.  He’s a permanent vacationer.  He lives in places that most of us only visit once or twice a year and think of as a getaway.  Our getaways are his homes.
                  I can’t recall all the places he has lived but I do know he’s lived on both coasts in Florida, a lot of the coastal cities in California, and even got married to his second wife in Jamaica.  He and his first wife remain friends from what I’ve heard, but the constant moving during the marriage was getting to her, so they agreed, with literally no hard feelings, to separate.
                  His second wife, Gail, is a bit more of a trooper, and seems to enjoy going along for the ride.  Knowing she will never live in an undesirable destination, it’s hard to blame her. 
                  I knew that if I was going to be spending any amount of time with Uncle Howard that the idea I had of trying to eat healthy would be on hold.  The main reason my uncle eats poorly, I suspect, is because he’s a stoner.  I don’t think he does any other drugs, except drinking occasionally, but I was aware he was a stoner before I even knew what being a stoner entailed.  If I had to guess, over the course of my life I have spent maybe 40 to 50 total days in his presence.  Of all those meals we shared I can’t remember a time we ate a home cooked meal together.  Unless toast counts as a home cooked meal – he does put peanut butter on it after all.  He once told me that he doesn’t eat poorly because he’s a stoner.  That’s what rookie stoners do.  He told me he eats the way he does because that’s what he prefers to eat.  I believe him, but you can be the judge on that.
                  In each city he’s lived in he has a favorite sub, pizza, barbeque, Chinese, and Italian place.  What’s remarkable is that my uncle is so friendly that I would suspect he gets about half of these carry-out meals for free.  It could be that he is very generous, especially with money.  Once, when he was living in another beach town in Florida called Vero Beach, I was with him as we went by four of his favorite eateries and dropped a bottle of Patron off to each of their owners. 
                  Because of his generosity, and his never asking for anything in return, the owners all love him and practically throw food at him.  When we arrived back to his house after our Patron run, we could barely stuff ourselves through his doorway, holding two pizzas, a bag of Chinese food, my uncle’s favorite homemade tortilla chips with three kinds of salsa, and a massive heap of spaghetti featuring what must have been ten pounds of meatballs.  It would make sense to expect that my uncle weighs about 500 pounds, but he is actually in pretty good shape because he prefers to live in cities where he can walk everywhere.
                  Once I passed Jacksonville I knew from my GPS I was about three and a half hours to Treasure Island.  I was beginning to get nervous about just showing up unannounced.  Still, I had the strong desire to call my father to let him know I where I was headed, but then I remembered that there is a pretty good chance that nobody even knows Uncle Howard’s phone number, or if he even has a phone.
                  I got into the beach town a