Forty years ago in July, Tom and I honeymooned in this area. When we ditched a trip to Wisconsin in February, we thought sunny Florida would do just fine. The week did not disappoint. Our flight (graced with upgrades both in and out of TPA, so about $140 RT each) that first night was a late one, so we bunked at a hotel near the airport after picking up our rental car.
Our first stop the next day was a nature park in St. Petersburg. Our walking route changed when we crossed paths with an alligator.
After our walk we ate at Urban Brew and BBQ, an excellent choice with pleasant outdoor seating. We also discovered Cigar City’s Maduro Brown Ale brewed in Ybor City. (We were happily surprised to find this delicious beer on tap recently at Bluffview Growler in Dallas.)
That afternoon we checked into one of the best AirBnB offerings I can recall. This Fully Updated Bungalow in Tarpon Springs was perfect in every way. She’d even gifted us with a couple of bottles of wine. The outdoor area was so great, there were really good knives!, and she had a couple of bikes that we used. I’d contacted the owner through the portal to see if she’d take a lower rate per night as there were three nights open in an otherwise well-booked property. She agreed. Remember that with vacation rentals, cleaning and a service fee are in addition to your rate for the night.
AirBnB is really wonderful, unless it isn’t. That’s a quick way of saying that most usually things work out as you’d hoped, and the property is as represented, but every now and then you don’t exactly get what you’d expected. In what feels like another lifetime ago, I hosted for a few months at a duplex I owned in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee. Talk about work! I certainly understand everything a host must consider and am probably harsher than I should be when something isn’t right. Come to think of it, how to find a vacation rental should probably be a separate post soon.
After we unpacked we headed to the sponge docks in search of beer. (Don’t look so surprised.) We had a laugh when explaining the alligator encounter to our bartender at 5 Branches Brewing. She explained that they don’t eat until after they’ve dragged you into the water and rolled you to kill you. That change of walking path seemed like a darn good idea halfway into our first brew.
The brewery was an excellent choice, and as often happens, we were there more than once. Since we had a great kitchen at the rental, we ate breakfast and dinner in, but lunches were out. Bayou Bistro & Tiki had great fish tacos, but stayed very busy. Katarina’s Taverna and Grill had an excellent Gyro sandwich, octopus, and a pleasant outdoor seating area. National Bakery made the wonderful bread for dinner and breakfast toast.
The house was very near the Saint Michael Shrine. It is intimate and beautiful. I didn’t take photos inside, though. It seemed rude as others were also discovering the small chapel.
Even though it was cooler than usual, we did take an afternoon and visit Howard Beach for a couple of hours. It is a pristine beach, and exactly why you visit the Florida Gulf.
We left that perfect little bungalow to spend a night near Orlando. No, we weren’t headed to a theme park. We made the drive to look for a house. It was news to us a few months ago that one of our children might be heading that direction for work in a year or so, and would we consider looking in a 55+ area near where he thought he might want to be? Yep. That answer is easy. And so we drove to a planned community near the parks and spent an afternoon looking at houses and lots. In the end we decided to wait for a bit, but the location is chosen should the need arise, and it has the potential to be an absolute blast. What isn’t so great is the Florida traffic. Unless you are on foot, you are stuck in a parking lot of cars sometimes called a state highway. The growth has really outpaced the infrastructure in that state.
The last two nights were back to the west at New Port Richey and an unremarkable Homewood Suites. The second room does make it easier should one of us choose to roam around in the night, but the hotel was tired. Fortunately, we still had plenty of energy. We headed to Werner-Boyce Salt Springs State Park for hiking. The wildness of the landscape and the history of the salt production made the visit interesting. There were a great variety of birds to watch, too.
If you think you might like to learn a bit about old Florida, I’ll recommend A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith. I grew up trekking to this part of Florida every other summer as a great-grandmother lived near Clearwater Beach. (Try as I might, I can’t find the house. I think it’s long gone.) Having a memory of the beaches and tourist areas in the late 60s and 70s means a lot to me as I discover Florida again. For the most part, it reminds me of the things Florida must keep as the state grows in population. Those memories are why we ended up back in Tarpon Springs much of the last two days. It was only a few miles away, and there was still so much to do.
First up, back to the sponge docks. I remembered vividly a sponge boat tour from my childhood. It still runs, although we had to time it for a Saturday during this off season. Since we were driving this time parking was a bit of a challenge but we managed. We watched Frank dive. To my great delight, it was exactly as I’d remembered. (Here’s a short video. He moves his head across the valve of his brass and glass helmet to sink. Gosh that’s still fun to watch!)
Having thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon, we shopped for a few sponges then headed to Anclote Brew to cap the day, and later Costa’s for dinner. Costa’s is next door to 5 Branches Brewing, but it was their brew day, and so we substituted Anclote’s tap room. Dinner, for me at least: mussels and bread. I bought that glass as a souvenir.
We’d saved the best for last. One of our first stops had been to a park in Tarpon Springs near our rental to watch the manatees play. They tuck into this protected area every winter. We were rewarded that first day with several sightings. On our last day, since kayaks were not available at the Salt Springs State Park, we rented a couple from a local purveyor (who totally messed up and kept us waiting for a couple of hours, so no link for you!), but eventually resulted in three hours on the bay. We paddled over to the viewing area and watched these very large water mammals watch us. Then we paddled over to the sponge docks, and past the restaurant on the water where we’d had our first lunch, and then back to the very small area where the sea cows and their babies romp. It was such a remarkable thing to be so close. They’d float alongside the kayak. They’d swim off and breach and roll back under you. I even had the good luck to be near a couple of very young calves as they played just barely under the surface of the water, but pushing up now and then to the delight of the dozen or so people gathered on the bank, and of course, us. It was a wonderful way to end the trip. That night dinner was leftovers in our suite. We were tired.
The weather changed as we were leaving. Double hoodie days are never fun in a warm location, but we had a plane to catch, and so home we flew.
It’s still strange, even after five years, to think of home as two places. But, we’re doing it. It’s even more strange to be on an airplane so often after a couple of years of being locked down from the pandemic, but we’re doing that, too. A couple of days after settling back in, though, I let it be known that I wasn’t about to head to Chile, our next trip on the books three weeks later, as they still had very stringent mask requirements including wearing masks outdoors. It didn’t exactly go over well. But then, Tom found round-trip flights to Greece that would allow him to utilize system-wide upgrades, and it was instantly better.
Turns out all that Greek food and culture in Tarpon Springs was just a warm up. Greece, here we come. For a preview, here’s our first rental on the Plaka in Athens. A friend, who I had met on a trip to Ireland many years ago, stayed there recently.
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