Bob "Sunshine"

It's all about Bob!
Thanks Christiane for this 'untouch' picture.

Feb 7^th
While at home during the last holiday season, my wife and I each went to visit our “old” work place. My wife had a colleague that was her partner in crime. To preserve her identity, let’s call her “Bob”. So Bob asked my wife if she could come and visit us in Florida.  Coming back home, my wife told me about that request. I said sure why not. In my mind, people say things like that but they never mean it. I was wrong! 38 days later, we went to pick up Bob at the Tampa airport.

She had gone to visit her parents in California and on her way; she stopped in Florida for a month (it seemed that long to me… hahaha just kidding Bob!).

So at 30 minutes past midnight we picked her up. Coming back to our trailer, we had a little difficulty getting onto the right highway. We had the GPS with us, but I was not following exactly what she was telling me. We just told Bob that it was on purpose so that she could see Tampa by night… By the time we got back to the trailer and to bed, it was way past our bedtime.

Feb 7^th

Still the same day, however it is not the middle of the night anymore.

We went to Tarpon spring. Early in the previous century, it was a small fishing town where there was a lot of Greek immigrant coming to dive for sponges. This was their main source of income. Today the main source of income is tourist. The main road is populated by shops, Greek restaurants, and boat tour operators. There are a lot of people on the sidewalks hustling for your business… not my type of place, I saw it once, I don’t need a second peek!  

 

The sky is real!

Some tourist just kept popping up!

 

Wipe that smile! You won't give me a spoonge bath soon!
 
 

 

The first sponge shop we went to had a free museum and was presenting a free movie. Being retired, the word “free” is some kind of a magnet, it pulls you so fast, and if you are not careful you might get a whip lash. So André, Bob and I went in to see the movie… my experience in movie reviews is limited, but in my opinion, info commercial should have been the title. I would not return to this free movie even if they paid me to go… well maybe I’m exaggerating there, with the monies they would give me I would buy one of the sponge for sure. After all, one day I might need a sponge bath… right!

For lunch, we went to a Greek restaurant. I am not a big fan of Greek cuisine but folks while in Rome… I ordered a BLT (Bacon, lettuce and tomatoes) on a pita (I guess the pita was for Greek effect). Also to get some energy, I got vegetables (fries). When I ordered the BLT, the waitress looked at me like I was from a different planet! It was on their menu, sorry if I offended her with my non typical Greek dishes.

Everyone seems to have enjoyed their meal, but no one was able to finish their plates. Too bad because the restaurant also has a bakery where we first checked out the desserts to make sure there was something “healthy” for us but we couldn’t eat one more bite...

We then drove to Howard Park. My thought was that we would just check it out so I didn’t pay the $5 fees… we were there only 2 minutes when I noticed someone with a hat walking around my truck… I rushed back just in time… the ranger was about to write up a ticket…

They were going fast!
 
 

 

 

 

 

I fed the parking meter the monies, and then went back to join the others. It was quite busy, the water was cold (to me), and there was a strong wind. We walk the entire island (a good 15 minutes’ walk).  On one side there was a lot of wind/kite surfers enjoying the perfect wind condition.

Howard Park is a small island that is accessible by a causeway. I really enjoyed it and I’m sure we will go back. It is not well known so it is mostly people form the area that goes there. This might be a secret so please keep this to yourself J! If you go, don’t forget to pay the meter!

Depressing in Tampa East

Some people have a level problem!

HI, my name is Richard. I am retired. I am 52 years old… 53 in a week! (I haven’t post for so long, I thought I should introduced myselfL)

I could come up with thousand excuses, (after all I am a man) but I’ll just skip ahead like if nothing happened…

Just a quick recap… We Returned to Florida on January 4th. We were greeted at the airport by André who had volunteered to pick us up on our return. It was past midnight, we just went back to our trailer in Tampa. The trailer was in the overflow and was happy to see us back.

The following day, we moved the trailer to our assigned spot. Now, I am the kind of person who looks at the glass as being half full, but there was nothing in that campground for us...

The noise from the highway was constant and loud (24 hours a day). I souldn’t complain, once in a while we couldn’t hear the noise, it was overtaken by an chopper that was landing very close by.

We were parked under big trees and lets just say, the sun was not shinning on us! Strangely, the tree leaves were falling, for crying loud, can someone tell me since when do trees lose there foliage in the middle of winter? I hate to compare but in Canada, we trained our trees to loose there leaves in the fall.

The ground was dirt with a carpet of leaves, no grass, no cement pad, just a place in the deep dark shade. The back of the trailer was only a few inches off the ground where the front was a few feet.  If you didn't get that description… it means we were parked on a slope!  Nothing levelled  here and as if that was not enough, there were roots running all over the site.  I’m surprised we didn’t trip and break our neck. It seems to me that a stay at a nearby hospital would have been a big improvement.

Do you think that I’m done with the whining… NO! We also had guests, ants that is! Boy those guys can sure walk in a straight line,  I served in the army and I can tell you that we were not that disciplined! Now don’t tell on me, but I poisoned them. Whouhahaha maybe the ants were there just to distract us so we would stop looking at our poor living conditions.

No I’m not done yet… behind us, there was a small ditch with stagnant water, a nice greenish glow was emanating from it, needless to says we stayed away from that ditch!

Almost done but stay tuned… across that ditch, a busy RV store. They had a loud PA system that kept going on all day: “Roger please come to the front desk”, “Jim please flush the toilet”, “Jane please pick  up line 1”… on and on and on. I don’t really know if they were that successful  a business or pretending to be busy but they kept moving thosetrailers with the tractor…

Last comment, location, location, location!  It was not there. To get anywhere we were always stuck in traffic, it was minimum one  hour to go do the groceries.

If you are travelling, and what I described is what you are looking for, just book at Tampa East RV resort, specially to their Palm lot. I don’t know why, but there are people there that keep coming back every year for the winter… just to tell you, they won’t have to over bid me for it, I’ll gladly let them have the whole place. We had payed for 2 months in advance but when I went to the office and told them we were leaving at the end of January, they refunded me.



For the month of January, we didn’t do much (other than complain). Hockey was in lockout but relatively close by, the players from the Tampa’s Lighting were practicing. We were lucky enough to see  Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St-Louis and many more there.

Martin St-Louis
No he is not waving at ME :(
 

A "montreal Fan" watching the enemy practice. Notice the Nordique sign on his purse... maybe he is a "hidden Nordique fan"

At the same level as the players... but we are retired, they have to go to work now... Who is the winner?
 

We also attended the Tampa RV show, I think it is one of the biggest in the state… it’s so big that they have shuttles going around. It was crowded, not only with people, but animals too. Please if you have a pet, leave it at home, it will be much better off than being in an event like that one.

Well that was January, a month that I would like to erase from my memory. We were even thinking that the snow and the cold back home was not that bad after all… but February is a completely different story, you will have to tune in the next few days to find out!

The next picture is to give you a taste of what is coming J
 
P.S. This post happened because of Hugo's begging, who couldn't man up anymore and was on the verge of blog withdrawal.  (Note from Christiane: Actually Hugo, you gave Richard the spark to start on his blog again)

 

Howard Park
I was lucky, I found a free parking spot right by the gulf!