Gasparilla Pirate Invasion-2012

Another Tampa activity that Ray and I enjoy is Gasparilla.  Gasparilla is a huge Tampa tradition.  It consist's of the "Pirate Invasion", which involves a huge pirate ship with hundred's of pirates aboard.  The ship sail's into the south end of Hillsborough Bay and dock's at the Tampa Convention Center.

After the pirate ship dock's, the pirates head into town for the Parade.  During the parade the pirates toss bead's to all the people waiting  along Tampa's waterfront.  There is also a Pirate Fest which includes bands, food and lots of fun.

and their off...

Tampa has a neat little race track.  Ray and I try to go at least once or twice while we are here. This year the weather was  just perfect!!  We didn't win big but we did have a great time.

Our Florida Rental-Jan.2012 (inside pictures)

Well, we have been busy...but I promised I would post a few pictures of the inside of our rental.  Our rental this year is a 1950's  typical Florida beach house.

The living room area where we can sit and watch TV.

As you can see from the pictures, it's nothing fancy.. But what is nice about it is, it's all on one level.  This is such a nice feature and makes it so much easier when bringing in the grocery's, going outside for a walk,  taking Cinnamin to go potty. Parking is great too as we just pull in the driveway, instead of having to find a spot as we did in the large condo building's we have rented and  last year the condo we rented had a lot of stairs to go up and down...and after awhile it really was a pain. 

Another nice feature is the location..it is not on the main road which makes it pretty quiet and not too much traffic.  

The kitchen area is small, but has what we need. Stove, fridge, micro...however the two thing's I really miss in the kitchen are a dishwasher and a garbage disposal.

Nope...no dishwasher

This is the the back door which leads out to the back patio and dock which overlooks the bay.  We spend a lot of time outside in the back yard or down at the beach.

Our place...outside pictures

We have been in Florida for over a week, and I figured I better post some pictures of our place this year.  We decided to rent a house.  Well it's actually a duplex, we have the  unit which is in the back of the house, which is nice because we can look out onto the bay. In the front end of the house a couple and their teenage son rent the unit...they live here all year long.

This is the view from our patio as we look out onto the bay.

This is the view from the deck, looking at the little house we rented this year.

We see a lot of wildlife on the bay.  Here we have two pelican's that  stopped by to see if we were going to feed them.

Monday Dinner Special

Another one of our favorite places to eat is The Green Iguana.  The Best thing is, on Monday they have a $5.00 burger special, includes french fries too.  The burgers are really quite yummy!

Today for dinner Ray and I dined at dockside Dave's.  We enjoy eating at the local spots where you get some very yummy food and most offer outside dining.  

Ray had the grouper sandwich which came highly recommended by our landlord..  Ray said it was the best grouper sandwich he ever had.

Johns Pass is one of the local spots here in Madeira Beach that Ray and I enjoy walking around. It has gift shops, restaurants, ice cream and fudge shops etc,  you can also rent jet skies, or go on a dolphin watch boat cruise.  We are close enough this year to walk there...although it is quite a long walk.  But anyways, we decided to walk there with the puppy.

Now this kind of shopping Ray doesn't mind.  He gets to sit outside with a beer (a .99cents beer) and the puppy. While I do my shopping at all the little shops at John's Pass.  What could be better.

There are pelicans and other wildlife to see at John's Pass too.  We have seen dolphin's in years past..but didn't see any while we were there this year.

First sunset for us this year.....1/4/2012

Florida

When we arrived in Florida it was cool(of course...that's my luck).  But as we know from past experiences Florida's temps during the winter can be chilly at times.  We found the little shack we rented for this year. I will be taking some pictures to post. 

On the road again

Well now that the holidays are over, all the decorations are put away. It's time for Ray and I to hit the road.  So we packed up the van and headed south for the rest of the winter.

When we left January 2 at 5:30AM  this is what it looked like. The picture isn't the greatest,but it was cold and the snow was coming down.