March 26 - 29, 2014. Baseball, Golf, Biking and Gourmet Vegetarian Dinner.

Our last Spring Training ball game saw the Jays defeat the Yankees in front of a sold out crowd. The atmosphere in the park was electric especially when the Jays made some great defensive plays.

       

There are lots of golf courses in the Dunedin/Palm Harbor/Tarpon Springs area. I looked up some and decided to try a course in Tarpon Springs. We walked nine holes and enjoyed the mostly par 4 and par 5 course on a cool, cloudy, pleasant Florida afternoon.

                                        

We have biked on the southern part of the Pinellas Trail and wanted to check out the northern end. Starting at Well Springs Park we biked the 8 miles to the end. On our way, we passed behind The Suncoast Primate Sanctuary. Hearing some strange sounds, we stopped and watched two apes grooming each other, two  sleeping and some others making screeching sounds. The Suncoast Primate Sanctuary Foundation is a non-profit organization which provides these animals with a safe haven to spend out the rest of their lives in peace and with dignity. Many of the animals are retired from the movie business.The Sanctuary is run entirely by volunteers and relies on the generosity of the community and local businesses.

          

Today was a stormy day. Rain, thunder, lightening and strong winds continued until late this afternoon. Some of the lightening seemed very close. Since we spent the day working on Volunteer Awards stuff, we rewarded ourselves with a gourmet, four course, vegetarian meal at a Dunedin restaurant. It was delicious.

March 21 - 23, 2014. Honeymoon Island, More Baseball and Pink Martini.

Friday's bike ride was intentionally long as we hadn't had a lot of exercise of late. We left Wall Springs Park and pedaled eight miles on the Pinellas Trail to Honeymoon Island State Park, billed as "A barrier island paradise". The Pinellas Trail which extends from Tarpon Springs to St. Pete's Beach is a spectacular biking trail, used by young and old, bikers, walkers, joggers, commuters, school kids. 

After we paid our park entry fee we stopped to look at the map and in front of us was a sign that made me say something a little stronger than Yikes! 

          

 We rode on, stopping at the Nature Center to take a look at the displays and get some information about the trails suitable for biking. We chose the Osprey Trail where we saw many osprey nests and fortunately, no rattlesnakes. We did meet a guy from NJ who had done the trail before and so we ended up riding along with him, finishing up the trail and winding our way through the beach parking lots and finally to the exit.  Another six mile ride took us to the ice cream parlor in Dunedin where we enjoyed much deserved doubles. The return trip was into the wind and so I am sure the ice cream calories were burned off before we arrived back at our site.

Saturday's ball game was the best we had seen so far with good pitching, strong defense and a solid victory over the Detroit Tigers. We met up with Mick (our NJ biking buddy) and instead of the planned gourmet vegetarian meal at Kelly's we headed for the waterfront and the Annual Spring Dunedin Seafood Festival. It was a relief to sit on the grass under a shady tree after the intense heat of the sun at the ball game. I am not sure what kind of fish I ate but I do know that it was delicious. 

Sunday's adventure took us to downtown Tampa. We had tickets for the Pink Martini concert at 8 but decided to go into the city early to get good parking and explore the area. Parking was a breeze and the downtown cultural district along the Hillsborough River Walk was designed for exploring at a leisurely pace. We watched water craft of various sizes cruise along the river, watched and listened to a group of young musicians performing at the amphitheater, and enjoyed people watching. 

          

Pink Martini is a group of about 12 musicians from Oregon who perform an amazing repertoire in many languages. The lead singer, China Forbes along with the rest of the group put on an incredible show to a sold out audience. If you have never heard if them, you should look for them on YouTube. You won't be disappointed.

March 16 - 20, 2014. Spring Training and Tarpon Springs.

We left Oscar Shearer on the 16th and headed for Dunedin, an easy two hour drive. The Jays game at 1:05 was against Baltimore. Many fans were dressed in green, a reminder that St. Patrick's Day is a big deal here. Even Chad, the beer seller was decked out in Blue Jays green. The game was a good one with the Jays pulling off a win in the bottom of the 10th.

         

After checking in at the RV Park we showered, cooked dinner and watched TV. With a storm predicted for St. Patrick's Day, we planned to stay put and hang out at the park. The rain started very early in the morning accompanied by thunder and lightening that lasted for a full 12 hours. It was a great day to enjoy a good book. 

Our second of five Jays games was on Wednesday when the Phillies came to play. We found a great place to enjoy brunch and then walked down the Pinellas Trail to the game. I am always surprised at the number of Maritimers we meet there. On this day we sat in front of two people from New Glasgow and next to a guy from Dartmouth. We watched Bautista hit two homers to lead the Jays to a 11-5 win over the Phillies.

Today we explored Tarpon Springs, the "Sponge Capital of the World". The first Greek immigrants arrived in this city during the 1880s, when they were hired to work as divers in the growing sponge harvesting industry. Today, Tarpon Springs has the highest percentage of Greek Americans of any city in the USA. Hence, in one brochure I read the words, "Visit Greece without leaving Florida".

          

Sponge shops, Greek restaurants and Greek bakeries line the sponge dock area where you can see strings of natural sponges hanging on the decks of working sponge boats. There was much to see in Tarpon Springs. However, I did consult TripAdvisor so as to avoid the tourist traps and find out what to see and do. 

           

Walking around the town, exploring sponge shops, meandering along the docks, visiting a sponge museum, a cathedral, a shrine and eating authentic Greek food filled the day. We learned a lot about sponges, admired stained glass at the cathedral, and thoroughly enjoyed lunch where we learned that authentic Greek salad has potato salad under the lettuce. Exploring Tarpon Springs is a great place to spend a day.

March 10 - 12, 2014. Deep Hole and Oscar Shearer.

Alligators have such a bad reputation. I have been told how to outrun one, informed that they eat pythons and have also seen numerous souvenirs with images of ferocious, jaws open wide gators imprinted on them. And yet, any gators I have seen are lazy slugs. They just lay around all day, either in the water or on the bank. I was hoping that I would see some ferociousness at The Deep Hole, home to an infinite number of alligators. 

Since only 30 people per day are allowed to hike back to the Deep Hole, passes are required. Apparently, there are days when people are lined up at the ranger station at 7:30 am to wait for the office to open at 8. I made sure to bike up before 9 and was able to obtain four passes. Our friends Jan and Bobby joined us for the 2.5 mile trek to The Deep Hole.   

         

When we reached the Hole we counted about 40 gators, all either laying around in the water or languishing on the bank. Usually, there are more in sight, but the people who got to the hole ahead of us came by canoe and the motion on top of the water caused lots of gators to go deep. As we walked closer to the water's edge the gators nearest to us dropped down lower into the water. In short, they wanted nothing to do with us. 

        

We took lots of pictures, hiked back out and enjoyed an ice cream at the Myakka State Park, all very glad that we did the Deep Hole excursion.

The next day it was time for us to leave Myakka and occupy a site at Oscar Shearer State Park for the next five days. This is the third year in a row that we have spent time at this park; a beautiful park just off the highway between Venice and Sarasota. 

        

Since Oscar Shearer is close to Venice we were able to golf at Bird Bay with the our friends at Venice Ranch. Thanks to Janet and Carl, we played a fun 18 holes. A quick tour of the East Venice Yacht club and Dinner at Robbie's Reef where I had freshly caught Margate, rounded out another great day.

March 6, 2014. Four Deer, Seven Turkeys, Twelve Pigs and one Turtle.

Today's forecast called for heavy rain, thunder, lightening and damaging winds. Fortunately, all we got here at a Myakka was rain, a few claps of thunder, and a bolt or two of lightening. It was a great day for reading and napping. I did both. But, the best part of the day was early evening when the park is closed to day traffic and the animals came out to play. 

                                   

                                     There is a pig in the middle of this picture

For days,I had been looking for wildlife other than birds and gators which abound in this park and tonight I was in luck. I got on my bike and started driving on the main park road. First of all, I spotted four deer grazing on the side of the road. As I pedaled slowly and quietly along, seven turkeys crossed the road in front of me. They were sauntering slowly until they spotted me and then they quickly strutted off into the woods, their long gobbler necks leading the way. The animal I was really hoping to see appeared next....big, black pigs...twelve of them so close to me that I startled them when I stopped suddenly to dig my phone out of my pocket so that I could get a picture. I should have put it on video mode, complete with sound because they seemed to warn each other of my presence by loud snorting and grunting. Sadly, they hurriedly trotted off into the woods as I snapped a shot of their disappearing behinds. It was kinda dark so the group shot didn't turn out to be very clear. The turtle picture is very clear.

       

March 3 - 5, 2014. Bike/Hike and Oil Change

Myakka River State Park covers 58 square miles of wetlands, prairies, hammocks and pine lands. I am quite sure that it is the largest and oldest state parks in Florida. There is much to do at this park and with a stay of ten days, we are able to find something different to do each day. 

          

                                        

On Monday we got the trail map out, chose a trail and headed off on our bikes. After about 30 minutes the trail became very difficult due to all the soft, white sand. We changed direction at the next cut, but ran into the same problem...sand so soft that it was very difficult to ride through. We ended up alternately pushing the bikes through the sand and then driving them when the sand was packed hard. After about three hours we ended up at a locked gate, attached to a barbed wire fence. There was no way that we were turning back so scaling the gate and passing the bikes over the barbed wire fence was the only option. From there, riding back to the campsite was a breeze. Fortunately we had lots of water with us as it was a very hot day.

                                   

       Someone is not happy about having to push her bike through the sand

Precious needed an oil change and since there was a speedy, no appointment, oil change lane at the Ford dealer in Nokomis we unhooked on Tuesday morning and drove to Nokomis, only to be told by the Ford folks that they don't "do" vehicles with bathrooms, even if it has a ford engine. Fortunately there is a very large RV dealer, just up the road from Ford. I made an appointment for Wednesday. We spent the rest of the day hanging out with Janet; lunch at Panera, and grocery shopping at Walmart.

On Wednesday morning we joined lots of other campers at coffee hour...coffee, tea, homemade breads and biscuits. A couple of the park rangers entertained, one with a guitar and the other with a harp.

My appointment at the RV place was for early afternoon and since I asked them to do a few jobs as well as the oil change, we had time on our hands. We found a great breakfast/lunch restaurant nearby and were able to kill the afternoon eating and then meandering in and out of the huge selection of RVs for sale on the lot. 

Back at Myakka, we finished off the day with a campfire.

February 27 - March 1, 2014. Big Turkey, A Long Hike and Spring Training Baseball.

Catherine gets up early and likes to start the camping day with a morning fire. Thursday morning was no exception and so we woke up to see Catherine sitting in front of a campfire. With coffee in hand, we joined her. It wasn't long before something else joined us...a very large tom turkey strutted into our campsite, heading straight for us. We sat perfectly still as it approached. I was wishing that a camera was near but unfortunately the picture of that bold bird slowly strutting through our campsite will have to remain in my head.

On Friday, our last day at Lake Kissimmee, we decided to hike one of the longer trails, The North Loop Trail, about 5 miles in length. Hiking here is more like walking as the trails are very flat. Having said that, after walking 5 miles, I did feel like I had been hiking. Hot showers, laundry, dinner, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy rounded out the day.

                                                       

Since we had tickets to the Baltimore vs Toronto ball game in Sarasota, we left  Kissimmee around 9:30 to allow for the heavy Saturday traffic. Although there was a lot of traffic and several areas where traffic crawled in 70 mph zones, we got to the ball park early enough to get a good parking spot. It was a great game for Toronto fans up until the 8th inning when Baltimore rallied to score 8 runs and win the game 9-7. 

After a stop at the grocery store we drove to Myakka State Park and settled in for the night, exhausted after today's drives and from sitting in the hot sun for 9 innings.