April 3, Day 30, Sunday, Port Richey to Mount Dora

We attended mass at St. Michael the Archangel.

What an immense church. It is a round church with the main church on one half the round building, the other half is not as deep (the one you see here) but directly behind the main alter (the big structure behind the little one with the windows which are stained glass). Again looks like over a thousand attend one mass.

As in Europe and big cities, art and design can be found in church's.

Police direct traffic before and after masses, two squads. Well on a scale of 0 to 10 a weak 4. I will say, he said something I would agree with, the priest is a guide. I feel attending guides me into trying to be/do better with people, places and things. Enough.

We head to central Florida for a drive through the heartland. Many cattle in pasture settings, horse’s in nice looking farm yards. There is some evidence of the wind damage of earlier thus week, a number of trees were blown over, not many but you see some long the way. You barely think you are in Florida.

A couple thoughts. It is quite noticeable in the transportation vehicles of people from deep southern Florida Marco/Sanibel with their sporty cars and SUV’s, to Venice where you have standard vehicles and a couple pickup’s, to this area with small cars, vans and big pickup’s; stratifying of the monies. In each area, people are in a hurry. Followed a C6 silver Vette for a while around Disney, he was between 85 and 90, I backed down to 70 and got passed by most.

It was said that the people from the Chicago area winter on the gulf side and the New Yorkers on the Atlantic side. Wonder if there is any statistics on this? Surprising, today we saw four cars with license plates from Nova Scotia in the church parking lot.

We stopped at Logan’s Roadhouse for late afternoon lunch/dinner. A couple beers for us to wet the thirst. A bucket of peanuts are on each table and a basket of warm yeast rolls.  Shirleen jumped in with a big burger with tomato, lettuce, bacon and onions on it with chips; I found two thin pork chops, really tasty, with brewski onions Michelob AmberBock beer-braised onions, with a sweet potato.

Tomorrow we stop by Mary Ann and Steve’s to pick up my shirt and pants I left there a month ago. jerr

April 2, Day 29, Saturday Tampa to Port Richey

We head to Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. For a Saturday the roads are filled with vehicles.

We approach the area, next to the bay and the remnants of the Indy Racing league race of last weekend.

The concrete barriers and fencing are along the streets and skid marks evident around the corners. Someday I’ll make one of these races.



Dali Museum Entrance



This museum has just opened January 1; two years ago we visited the old museum, this is an impressive building.

One of his works, the Rolls Royce with the deep sea diver driving the lady in the back seat with seashells and seaweed sprinkled on the car, sits in the middle of the entry area.

The gallery is on the third floor, you can take an elevator or the spiral staircase to it. The reason will unveil itself later.

We hookup with a male docent, he sure enjoys his second calling. He points out the many hidden meanings about his brother that died at birth, given the name of Salvador Dali, which was given to the one we know now. His companion Gala shows up in many of his pictures. Another person who shows up frequently is his father. I will not try to explain why there are better google sites to tell you that. It is amazing to me how he can detail paint on a 6 inch square painting and also show the many details of all quadrants of his massive paintings, looking like 14 foot tall and 10 foot wide. Colors, shape – circles, curves, straight line, pictures within pictures, what a mind. We did buy the book that explains the meaning behind them if anyone wants to learn more orhttp://thedali.org/collection/collection_highlights.html. The docent loved to explain the sexual comments Dali made in his painting, of course he was a psychoanalyst.

Every 30 minutes a new docent takes a group, we see that she, ah, somewhat different. Not sure if she knew the shoe should be on the foot?

She gave a somewhat but some same explanation of the paintings. Later she told me that if she is not asked to have her picture taken 10 during the day that it is a failed day. She had been doing this for 14 years and has had no special training but a lot of reading and conversation with other docents.



Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man

Here is my favorite -

As we are looking at one of the large pictures she points to the double helix in one of the pictures and two of them in another. The GALACIDALACIDEOXYRIBONUCLEICACID (Homage to Crick and Watson), was inspiring. And why is the staircase to the third floor spiral?

We thought to eat at the Café Gala, we split a Serranitas – roast pork, Serrano ham, olive oil, tomato manchego, pimento aioli on Focaccia, I a bowl of tasty, reminded me of Mom’s, Caldo Gallego (her bean soup) – Spanish ham with white bean, yummy.

We go outside to walk the maze (to right) but when viewed from the third floor you can see why we couldn’t, the storm of two days ago blew down three palm trees in the area.

We stopped at the Florida Botanical Garden in the Tampa north. It was a nice place to walk. Not sure we were not here once before but will check this picture out against our last trip.



Lily Pad design



None the less a nice walk and a spot we sat in the sun watching the gentle breeze blowing the lily pads in the water.

Now travel north ton Belleair Shores to Clearwater and a lot of people on these fine white sand beaches. We stop at a Marriot for dinner; we first were going to have an appetizer but decided for dinner looking into the bay between the island and the mainland. A basket of assorted warm breads came out with a pad of butter but I opted for the olive oil, look at the container, inside is the balsamic vinegar in a grape shaped vessel surrounded by a tasty virgin olive oil, pour what you want.

Shirleen had a Hess cabernet with her Petit Filet with a blend of mushrooms and black olives on it with a spinach salad;


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My Cesar salad with slices of parmesan cheese on it,

 I the pan fried grouper, look at plate shape.

we split some hash browns. They were fried crisp on the outside succulent on the inside with shallots, small amount of white cheese and bathed in Olive Oil. Back on the road for the night in Port Richey. jerr