Goodbye September!

It's hard to believe that September is drawing to a close!  This marks the fifth September that I've lived in Florida.  And Autumn in Florida is a LOT different than autumn in New York.  Lots of outdoor events are coming alive, like the Saturday Morning Market which begins again this Saturday and runs thru the end of May.

Folks around here sure do decorate their houses up for fall and Halloween.  We don't get the cool crisp (OK, freezing) evenings like up North, and don't witness the beautiful colors of the changing leaves.  We just have to make do with the year round constancy of flowers in bloom.  But, lucky for me, I will be heading up to New York in two weeks to spend a few days in Albany and more few days in NYC hanging out with Ruby!

I snapped this picture of the bridge to Snell Island on my walk along Coffee Pot Bayou and Tampa Bay tonight.

The Bay, The Bayou and The Beach with the Girls

Adele, Mia and Gina came to visit me in St Pete today! Unfortunately, there was an accident on the Howard Franklin (I-275) Bridge (when isn't there an accident on that bridge???) and they got caught behind a backup for about an hour or so. But...they made it safely to my place!

We had a great time! I gave them a quick tour of my place . . . and then we headed out. First I took them over the path I take on my walks, over to the Bay and then up along Coffee Pot Bayou. Then we headed over to the beach area. We were all hungry so our first stop was Philthy Phil's on St Pete Beach. The weather was overcast, but the sun kept trying to break thru. But it was a comfortable day to be outside.

Then we drove over to Sunset Beach and walked along the water gathering sea shells and walking in the surf.

A wave snuck up on them in this picture!

Then guess where we went???

After a delicious snack...we headed back to my place. One last thing...to go thru their things that I had moved down with my stuff. And, what do you know? In opening one of the boxes, I found my long lost bedroom floor rug! I thought for sure it was MIA!

When the girls left, I told them to drive past this house that has a bizzillion lights and other decorations for Halloween. Watch for a post in the near future on the Halloween decorations done big and right!

Monday is a good day for a long walk . . .

This is actually a post that I had wanted to do on Monday, but got side-tracked. Monday was a beautiful sunny day, very windy, but nonetheless I was enjoying this October day in shorts and a tank top. I decided that I would take a long walk...and do it in sneakers not in flip flops! You know, my feet hurt at first!

I walked east towards Tampa Bay. (The red line on the satellite map.) Once at the Bay, I headed south and walked the sidewalk that went along the bay and the beach. My goal was to walk all the way down and out to The Pier. About halfway, in one area of the park I walked past the North Shore Pool, a municipal Olympic size public pool, which I didn't realize was there. Then thru Vinoy Park and past the new boat docks being built in the North Yacht Basin. What was cool was that all the way down every so often I could see a dolphin or two swimming parallel to the shoreline and fairly close.

Once I reached 2nd Avenue, I headed east again on the strip leading to The Pier. The wind was so strong at some points, that I was struggling to try and place one foot in front of the other. Well, not quite that bad, but I thought for dramatic effect...oh, nevermind. Maybe the sneakers were too heavy?

I hung around the Pier for a while, checking out some of the gift shops there. Got a bite to eat and attempted to sit out on the outside patio, but the wind was a bit too much. And then a couple of the birds hanging around out there hopped up on the table where I was eating. I decided that between the birds and the wind, I was better off inside. On the way in, I noticed a sign near the door, "wild birds can be aggressive". Good decision to eat indoors!

I walked back west heading towards downtown. I then headed north up Beach Drive Northeast. Along the way I noticed a couple of sandwich and dessert shops that looked like they would be worth a future investigation.

I then headed back towards the Bay and headed north along the path that I had come down. I kept walking past my street and up and around, following the sidewalk along Coffee Pot Bayou, staying on that all the way up to the park at 30th Avenue North. That's the yellow-orange line on the satellite map.

So, where are the new pictures? I left my camera safe at home. I figure maybe I'm overdoing it with the pics, so decided to give the batteries a rest. If only...

The Bay, The Bayou and a Trigger Happy Finger

I decided I really need to get myself back to exercising now that all those *%@#!&^ boxes are all gone. (Well, almost!) It was such a beautiful morning and I thought I would actually put on my sneakers (*GASP!*) and take a nice long walk. I walked over to the park on the bay. Didn't have my camera and saw a lot of pelicans. Started walking north along the bay towards Coffee Pot Bayou. Decided to go back to my apartment and pick up my camera and head back out. So, here is today's gallery. And, eventually, I'm going to start running along here, so probably will leave the camera home!

And....back home again!

Coffee Pot Bayou

The other night I had planned on going to the supermarket, a Publix, located a couple minutes from me. I decided to take a new route....heading about 6 blocks due north, to an area along the Coffee Pot Bayou. I was taken with how beautiful it is. I'm thinking that when I start jogging again....there's where I'm going to jog! There's a sidewalk that runs along Coffee Pot Boulevard, right on the Bayou.

I had a job interview in Tampa this afternoon, so I thought that I would take some time this morning to visit the bayou area again and take some shots. There are a lot of For Sale signs up. Any takers?

My Jeep was waiting for me on a side street. That's a circle with a big urn ("One Grecian Urn") in the background.

I'll talk about my job interview in a future post. I guess...depending on how it turns out!

I couldn't pass this shot up!