Florida-Chapter 2: Tampa/St.Petersburg Area

By now, you are probably thinking, "Who cares about your Florida trip? That was so last November." Yeah, I know. I apologize for not being timely with it. My goal is to finish my Florida series by the end of the week. Hopefully I can do it. This blogging thing ain't easy, peeps! It takes quality time for for quality results. :) If I didn't have such an active life, it would be easy to blog. All I would have to say for each day is I worked and went home. But I don't do that and it's very time consuming so on with the show...

Monday:

We didn't have much planned for the Tampa area for the 3 days we would be there after game day, so we just winged it and explored a little. One of our excursions was to Fort DeSoto Park. The day was cool and extremely windy. We went to North Beach and there was hardly a person around because it was so cold. I still had to put my feet in the water just to make sure and yes, it was freezing. North Beach was voted the #1 best beach in the country in 2008.

We saw this washed up ashore. This one has a little more shape than the ones we've seen on Fort Myers Beach but we call them chicken breasts because they have the same texture as raw chicken. Does anyone know what this is?

On Fort DeSoto Pier

One of the highlights of the trip was going to the Salvador Dali Musuem in St. Petersburg. Dali has been one, if not my favorite artist of all time. It was amazing to see his work in person. He is considered a surrealist painter but that was only 11 years of his 54 year painting career. One of his most famous works of art is the The Persistence of Memory, which he did in 1931. I can't believe that anyone would have painted that way almost 80 years ago! The symbolism and subliminal aspect of his art is fascinating. Check out his other works of art if you have a chance. Unfortunately, they do not allow cameras in the museum so I could not take any pictures of his art.

A bench outside the museum. He is famous for the melting clock and the "crutch" he uses in so many paintings

We checked into our new hotel in Oldsmar on Monday evening and went to dinner at a place called Cody's Roadhouse. It was delicious but we ate so much. It reminded us of a Famous Dave's type place. They give you a bucket of peanuts to eat and we asked where to put the shells and they said to throw them on the floor.

Here's how you eat at Cody's

Here's how you drink at Cody's--beer served in a brown paper bag

They even had a balloon maker come around to each table. She made us a pair of lovebirds. Awwww.....we put them in the pussywillows in our hotel room

Tuesday:

We drove down to Clearwater and met up with my friend Becky from high school. Becky and I were great friends and hung out a lot from age 19-23. She moved to Florida 4 years ago and I couldn't remember the last time I had seen her before now. All I know it had been a long time! It was really good to see you, Becky! We ate at a place on the water called Crabby Bill's. Again, the food was really good. I had Grouper to eat.

Love you, Becky!

After lunch, we drove up the coast past all of the beaches. There's a beach almost every mile. We stopped at Sand Key Beach and Clearwater Beach.

Again, too cool for many people to be out at the beach. Very windy!

A couple of surfers

On the beach at Honeymoon Island State Park--As you can tell, I'm not in typical Florida clothing. It was cold! You can take a ferry over to Caladesi Island, which beach was also the #1 beach in America in 2007.

We ended up going to a movie in the evening. We thought it was funny that we were the only ones in the theatre.

Wednesday:

We went back down to St. Petersburg to go to the Pier. It's an inverted pyramid that was built in 1973. There are some shops and food places there as well as a great view of the city. Lots of pelicans too!

The Pier

We then drove back up to Tarpon Springs to the Sponge Docks. It's a cute little Greek community with shops and restaurants.

The pigeons flew into my picture

Look at all the sponges!



Sponges!

They start Christmas early here. It wasn't even Thanksgiving yet!

After the Sponge Docks, we met up with Michael's friend Tim for a pitcher of beer. They used to work together. Tim lives in Palm Harbor.

That wraps up the Tampa part of our trip. We journey from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast in the next chapter.