The World's Longest Miracle Cruise Report® (Unaltered! Unadulterated!)
Cruise 4 - Costa Maya | Cruise 5 - Cozumel | Cruise 6 - Belize | Cruise 7 - Day at Sea | Cruise 8 - Disembark | It's a Wrap! | The Photo Gallery
9:00 AM
We were up on our own accord this morning - no wakeup calls, no nasty pre-dawn alarm clocks. The skies over Tampa were foggy, but it looked like it might burn off at any time. We spent a few minutes that morning watching the Weather Channel, where they had poor underpaid announcers outside standing in what they were calling the great blizzard of 2005 ("The Winter Wallop", as their snazzy graphic announced it) that was currently making a mess of things from Chicago east. At that moment there was a foot of snow in Chicago, a foot in New York City, and up to two feet in Boston in Philadelphia. Once again we were very thankful that we'd gotten out of town without having to deal with that mess.
We finally left the hotel at 10:30, and after a quick stop at the nearby drug store for some bottled water (I'd accidently parked in a spot marked as reserved for expectant mothers, so I told Mary to put her hand on her hip and waddle a little bit as we went in), we went off in a search for a late breakfast.
Now, do you remember just a page ago I'd told you how you should avoid eating at national franchise chains while on vacation? Well, I must admit that we broke our own rule, and because we were hungry and in a hurry, we ended up at a local...McDonalds. I know, I know. I'm still ashamed by it.
Anyhow, we had a couple of McBreakfasts, which were McOkay - not McGreat, but what do you McExpect? - and then we hit the road. Oh, yeah - Mary mentioned to me that the young man who took our order had the absolute nicest, most perfectly sculptured eyebrows she'd ever seen. And you know what? He did. They were a work of art, I'm telling you.
We then headed south on I-275 towards St. Petersburg. As we crossed the bridge the rain started. In typical Florida manner, the rain went like this (all of this took place in about two minutes time): Nothing, nothing, sprinkle, MASSIVE DOWNPOUR, nothing, MASSIVE DOWNPOUR, blue skies. By the time we got across the bridge into St. Petersburg the weather was clear, and while the air was heavy with humidity, there didn't seem to be much water on the road.
We spent a good 3 hours in the Salvador Dali museum, which was pretty neat. We took the guided tour, which explained some of the more "abstract" artwork in the collection (the lobster telephone was cool, but the bizarre painting of Shirley Temple? That one I still don't get.), and we enjoyed getting to see some of his giant masterpieces up close and personal. They even had video presentations of some of the TV commercials he did over the years, which were pretty funny, considering how 70-ish they were. (The one for Braniff Airlines was exceptionally funny - "When you've got it, flaunt it!")
But the real highlight for me came at the end of the tour, when we got to see "Destino", the recently completed animated short that Salvador and his buddy Walt Disney had started working on in the 1940's. Dali and Disney never got around to finishing the short, but a couple of years ago Uncle Walt's nephew Roy Disney had it finished, using the original sketches made by Salvador. It was pretty cool; when I was at the Disney Archives a few years ago I got to see some of the original artwork from the 40's, and it was fun to see it all come together. I thought it made a fitting tribute to both Uncle Walt and Weird Cousin Salvador.
After dropping a couple of bucks in the obligatory Dali gift shop, we made our way back outside, where the rain clouds had parted for a while, letting the sun in. It wasn't overly "warm" outside, but compared to the Winter Wallop taking place elsewhere, I wasn't about to gripe about having to wear a sweatshirt.
Towards the end of the pier we stopped to admire all of the pelicans - birds you don't normally see flying around Western Iowa. They were mostly interested in the small stand at the end where you too could drop $5 for the honor of tossing 10 sardines to the pterodactyl-like birds. We watched for a minute, but passed on this opportunity to feed them, since we all know that if the pelicans were really that hungry they could just go out into the bay 5 feet away and find their own lunch. Or, perhaps they could fly up to that McDonalds, where the kid with the perfect eyebrows could toss them a Filet-O-Fish.
Our first stop of the morning would be in downtown St. Petersburg at the Salvador Dali museum. Imagine - an entire museum set up and dedicated to the world's most famous surrealist painter. You expected the walls to melt, didn't you? Well, actually only the park bench out front did...
We then drove down the road in St. Petersburg to The Pier, which is exactly that - a pier that extends into the bay. At the end of the pier is a building that looks like an upside down pyramid which contains restaurants, a small aquarium, shops, and other stuff. So we parked in the far parking lot and walked up the pier to see what was going on. It turns out we'd arrived during the local Tampa area festival 'Gasparilla', and the pier was invaded earlier that morning by hoards of local Buccaneers, who were now leaving their pillaging and captured booty behind in favor of their BMWs parked nearby. There was also a classic auto show going on outside, so there was a lot of people with their heads underneath car hoods saying "oooh" at all that chrome.
Anyway, we wandered around The Pier for a while, checking out the sites and enjoying the view. We didn't stay to eat, as we really weren't hungry yet, and we skipped the aquarium because it was pretty small and seemed to be a little too claustrophobic for my tastes. We then walked back down the pier and got back into the Ford, after of course I accidently set off the alarm and scared the life out of the old folks fishing near us. Sorry about that.
| From there we got back on I-275 and went out to Fort DeSoto, which is located on a small island (key) in the gulf. We crossed a couple of bridges, paid a small toll, and then there we were -- at the park. There's a fort there, all right, and a small beach, but it was so cold and windy that the only ones swimming were the sand pipers. We walked the beach for a while, then made our way back to the car. |  |
We then headed West towards St. Pete Beach, where the world famous, four star, ultra-luxurious, $400 a night Don Cesar Beach Hotel is found. We didn't go in - somehow we figured our wind-blown hair and beach attire wouldn't fit into the style of the millionaires who flock to this property, but I was tempted to at least go peek in the window and see if Paris Hilton was hanging out. 'Cause you never know - she may be drunk enough to willingly pose with the beans and the weasel.
 |
Oh, yeah. Have I mentioned the weasel yet? Along with hauling a can of black beans with me, Mary and I also brought along a stuffed weasel toy from Ikea. This one was named "Freja", and comes to us from the Web site Weaseltrek (www.weasektrek.com). The nice people at Weaseltrek just started their Web site, which is similar to the beans traveling all over, except in this case it's 15 Ikea stuffed weasel toys and not a can of vegetables. I liked the concept of the traveling weasel, so I told Daniel the Weaseltrek Webmaster that I'd be willing to haul a weasel along with me throughout Florida and the Caribbean. So two days before we left home, a package containing Freja showed up on my front porch, and the rest was...well, ermine history. More on the weasel soon. |
We drove up and down the main strip of St. Pete Beach for a while, trying to find something for lunch (a "late" lunch - it was already 4:00 PM), and looking at the shops and hotels - some fancy and exclusive, some not. we finally turned around and pulled into a small 50's style retro diner (sorry, I don't recall the name), where I had a really good chicken sandwich and a chocolate shake and Mary had a salad. The restaurant wasn't very crowded, and we had a nice time chatting with the waitress, who agreed to let us leave our car in the parking lot while we walked the half block to the beach. Thanks!
After eating the four of us (Mary, frijoles, weasel, and I) made our way across the sand to the beach, where the sun was just starting to dip. There were broken clouds in the sky, but it was looking like the sunset was going to be spectacular regardless, so we walked along for a while collecting a few seashells and snapping some photos along the way. There were a lot of people on the beach walking along the shoreline; I heard lots of Italian and German being spoken. I took several bean and/or weasel photos along the way, and of course snapped a few sans-vegetable and rodent-free pics, too, as man does not live by bean/weasel shots alone.
The sun finally sank into the Gulf as Mary and I lounged on a couple of chairs outside one of the beach front hotels. It was a perfect ending to the day - we could hear a guitarist at the hotel's outdoor bar playing, and the sun was so beautiful. It was one of those moments you wish you could have every day of the year.
With the sun gone, there was nothing left to do except make our way back towards the hotel, which we did. We got caught in a major traffic jam on the way back, though - there was a monster truck rally going on that night in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stadium, and it seemed like everyone in the state was attempting to get off I-275 at the Dale Mabry exit. We sat in the traffic for about an hour, and then finally made it past and back to our hotel.
Once we got back we decided it was time to find some "real" dinner, so we cleaned up and headed back out. I'd found online before we left the location of the local Cheesecake Factory restaurant, one of my absolute favorite places to eat, so we headed down there. We had to pass the monster truck rally again, but fortunately they were well in the middle of smashing little cars with big fat tires by the time we got there, so other than the police out front conducting traffic diversions, we didn't have any traffic delays. After making a wrong turn or two in Tampa (hey, not bad for someone who'd only been there once before 15 years earlier!), we finally found the mall where the Cheesecake Factory was located. We had to wait for about an hour for a table, as they had to move everyone indoors that was seated on their patio when the skies opened up again. One woman was leaving and saw the heavy rain, so she put the plastic bag that held her leftovers over her head to protect her hairdo. Clever, no?
We were finally seated at a nice table (indoors, thank goodness), and we had a great dinner. I had my "usual" C.F. order - chicken piccatta (try it - you'll like it!), while Mary had the seafood jambalya. After stuffing ourselves with their great food they naturally offered us cheesecake, and being the diet-conscious people that we are, we politely said, "Heck yeah!" (Okay, so we're back on the wagon now. No more cheesecake for us for a while. But let me remind you once again - it's VACATION!) We each had a slice of their killer cheesecake, then called it a night as we rolled our way out the door and back towards the hotel.
We made it back to the hotel at about midnight, full and happy, and dead tired once again. Who knew having a good time required so much work?
(c) 2005 Kevin C. Burk All rights reserved.