Saturday, March 12, Day 8, St. Petersburg, Florida, 75 miles – 1,790 miles

The start of the day was a walk on the Pinellas trail, 35 miles if we took it all in; it was right behind the hotel.

We took a 30 minute walk, turned around and walked back to the center of town.

The railroad influence.

It was a fun place to look at some local art, paintings, clay and jewelry. The town is a Celtic influenced location. A nice stop to look around.

We took the roads we could closest to the water, beautiful homes? Mansions. We soon found ourselves hungry and did not find anything. We travelled south on 19 alt, we got into Largo on

2441 West Bay Drive

at Venus Restaurant, a Greek restaurant. As we said, you can’t go wrong in a Greek restaurant. Even though it was 1pm they served breakfast, saw the table next to us. We both ordered eggs and fried potatoes, Shirleen a link sausage I a thick slice of ham. We continued down the busy seashore, it was school break. I stopped at a Doubletree to check on a room, $349 was the least expensive and the hotel next door was more. She said we would have to get downtown St. Pete to get in the hundreds. Well we went down and saw the sights, bright blue sky and nice sun and around 70.

Well head out towards St. Pete and find a place. Spotted a Comfort Suites, it fit our expenses. Got a good tip on a place to eat a good number of miles away,

4^th St.

Shrimp Store.

Good tip, many cars, no beaters. It was happy hour for wine, ordered 2 crab cakes, a little spice to them. Shirleen ordered the jumbo shrimp scampi, I cracker breaded deep fried oysters. Those oysters were some of the best I have ever tasted.

Look at the door handle of the restaurant.

We then drove down to the heart of St. Pete. It was bustling with young people. We also ran into some tire barriers for the Indy racing League race in two weeks.

In the dark we found our way back. jerr

Friday, March 11, Day 7, Dunedin FL

A slow morning. Some did their crossword puzzle, some find the word in a maze of letters and of course Sudoku and my write up of yesterday. We tried to eat the left over breakfast and fruit if yesterday. Then before we left we had liquid refreshment, some had orange juice and one tomato (Bloody Mary mix). Time to say our goodbyes till later, hope to meet up in Winter Haven for an art show. We ate at Brooksville at the Golden Corral. They had the biggest drumsticks I have ever seen. Again too much food.

We drove down the Gulf side towards Tarpon Springs; it’s a busy Friday afternoon. Luckily I saw the name of the street on the material Steve had given us. It turned out to be the right street. We meander down the heavily touristy street.

Pass a statue of  a deep sea divers suit, the original way that spong were found were with a barrell with a glass bottom or just dove down and removed the sponge from the ocean floor.

Tied alongside are many small boats with sponges strung on the rigging of the boat. We visited the Sponge Museum, a 15 minute video, describing where and how they are harvested. In the Gulf there are 9,000 square miles of water from a couple feet to 130 feet, one mile offshore to 150 miles. Each boat theoretically carries a small alter to St. Nicholas, he is to protect and aid the boat during its hunt.

We saw where there are 6 different sponges, the best cannot be found here but in the Mediterranean Sea.

I was tempted to buy a full nautilus shell to match Shirleen’s necklace. These looked suspect, not real good markings of the shell. There is a lot of Florida to look for these again.

We travelled down hwy 19A and looked a place t campout. We drive by a Holiday Inn Express I Dunedin Florida. A couple blocks up from there was a nice town square so we went back to it. As we pulled in there was a big sign that said welcome back Jay’s. I asked here who the Jay’s were, the Toronto Bluejay baseball team, spring train a couple blocks away. I asked for price, I asked if there was any out on 19 that were less cost, she said let me check something. She came out grinning and wrote down the cost, $20 less, Okayed by the manager. I guess acting dumb about the Jay’s may have helped – well not dumb just didn’t think of it. Went to a close-by restaurant, Jolli Mon’s Grill. This has the look of an eclectic, southern Florida look, a brightly decorated bar and grill. It had red fans on the overhead fans, tulip lights with three different colored shades, 2 foot long cloth fish tucked between the roof and fluorescents lights. Memorabilia on every other square inch ft all six sides of the room. Even a post with dollar bills tacked on them. Louis Martini cab and I a Bells Oberon Ale – supposed to me a wheat beer – nice flavor. Shirleen’s sloppy Joe and my catfish taco were just fine. The taco used lettuce not cabbage but had a fine mango sauce and their own home grown hot sauce, habanero chili with citrus and spices, neat bit to it.

jerr