A Trolley Ride in Tampa

We have been averaging one or two days per week when the weather has cooperated for us to be out and about.  The weather has been either wet, or windy and quite cool.  On Monday the weather forecast was for a sunny day and the temperature in the low 60s.  And it was a day to spend with Melissa and Nathan, which meant we had to keep our touring simple, and get it all done before his nap time.  A trolley ride through downtown Tampa seemed the ideal activity for the day.

All the trolley stops are marked by a decorated small trolley car, pictured in the foreground above.  The one titled above is "Encore Tampa!".  It has musical notes and instruments painted on the trolley.  Also notice in the upper left hand corner an object on the ground in front of the car.  That is a homeless person sleeping on a concrete divider between the trolley tracks and the street.  A warm spot, but to my mind a bit dangerous!  Also notice in the right side of the picture our daughter and her son Nathan.  While waiting for the trolley he kept quite busy looking for any kind of box with buttons to push- like newspaper stands, atms, or parking meters.   A young man on a mission!  Fortunately for us the trolley eventually came.

Nathan thoroughly enjoyed the ride.  He kept saying "going" when the trolley stopped to pick passengers up.  In his vernacular that meant "do not stop I am enjoying this too much".  Our ride took us along Port Tampa where we saw a couple of very large cruise ships docked.  It was certainly one interesting means of seeing the downtown area of Tampa.

Our ride took us to the end of the line, which is Ybor City.  I mentioned this town before in another posting when I referred to a Cuban area of Tampa.  You may remember it because I wrote of chickens roaming the streets.  When we got off the trolley what a surprise- our first sight in Ybor was a rooster strolling down the street!  The city has, besides chickens, some very old buildings dating to the turn of the twentieth century.

Pictured above is Vicente Martinez Ybor- pioneer of the cigar industry in Florida as well as founder of the city of Ybor.  He was born in Spain in 1818 and later his family immigrated to Cuba.  During the Cuban revolution in 1889 he fled that country and settled in Florida where he bought some scrub land outside of Tampa.  He founded the city of Ybor at the age of 77 years and died in 1898.  Other cigar manufacturers joined him and Ybor city became the cigar capitol of the world.  Walking down the main street of the town we saw a few cigar shops, with women rolling cigars in store front windows.  Other than those shops, there is not much more to see of the Cuban influence in Ybor today.  Some of the restaurants advertise Cuban as well as Spanish fare.  Quite popular here and in most eating places in southern Florida is the Cuban sandwich, which is ham (including or instead of there maybe other variations of meat) and cheese between slices of Cuban bread.   It was a popular food of the Cuban immigrants in the last century.  We did find a nice sandwich shop for lunch, which had grilled cheese quesadillas for Nathan.  After that it was a hurried walk to catch a trolley which would take us back to our car parked in Tampa.  In the foreground of the picture below is another trolley sculpture, this one looked like a trolley with wings.

 

Heritage Village of Pinellas County

This 21-acre living museum is located next to the Florida Botanical Gardens.  Thirty-one historical structures have been moved to this park from various areas in the county.   We knew that only a few of the buildings were furnished and docents were available to give tours in those buildings so out first stop was at one of them, the seven-gable, thirteen room Victorian house pictured below.

The interior of the building was constructed in loblolly pine, also called heart pine as the inner core of the tree is used for construction.  The wood hardens as it ages and is quite resistant to termites.  However, it does make the interior quite dark in appearance.  Pictured below is the front parlor, where the heart pine can be seen around the fireplace.

The furnishing are not original to the home, however the Pinellas County Historical Society has done a wonderful job in decorating it in period antiques.   This home built in 1896,  was once located on a bluff in Clearwater.  It was the winter residence of a wealthy business man and his family from Rockford, Illinois.

We had our grandson Nathan with us.  He was not about to tour the old buildings where he was forbidden to touch the valuable artifacts.  He enjoyed so much more the winding trails through the pine flat woods which surround the buildings.  At least on those paths he could throw pine cones!   However, I did convince him to enter the church pictured above because there was a cross to look at-  crosses seem to be his latest interest. The Methodist church was active until 1960 when the congregation moved to another sanctuary.  In 1921 a hurricane lifted it up from the ground and deposited it elsewhere on the property, facing a different direction.  It was left there.  Another hurricane ripped off most of the roof in 1935.   Amazingly it still has the original pulpit and altar rail.

The house above is the oldest continuously lived in building in the village, and is described as a "Florida cracker-style plus" home (rooms were added over the years).  The McMullen family moved to Pinellas Peninsula in the 1850s and left it during the early 1860s.  During the Civil War Daniel and his brother joined the Cow Calvary to bring beef to the Confederate troops.  In 1868 Daniel returned and built this home for his family.  I enjoyed the history which came with all of the structures in this village.  It is impossible mention all of the other interesting buildings, of which there is a sponge warehouse, barn with old tools and carriages, smokehouse, sugar cane mill, as well as a boat shop.  We do have every intention of visiting this place again, so there may be another posting on it in the future.

Florida Botanical Gardens

El Nino has chilling us a bit down here in Florida.  Today there is a cold stiff wind blowing, we will be lucky to reach 60 degrees.  I know, for you people further north, that still is a enviable temperature!
John and I did get out yesterday, to the botanical gardens. 

We were at the gardens last month to look at the holiday lights.  Yesterday, while we were there, the garden staff were taking down those lights.  Not sure when the poinsettia displays will come down, they are still decorating up the gardens quite nicely, as you can see in the above picture.

 

There are a large number of plants in the gardens which are not blooming now due to the fact that it is winter time.  However, the tropical plants are still faring quite well, as the Chinese rain bell, pictured above.  We found that plant in the Vinery.  That is quite a beautiful section with plants vining down in a rich profusion of greenery.  An example of that is pictured below,  that is bleeding heart plant is in the foreground.

 

There is a variety of palm trees all through the gardens, and in addition there is also a Palm Tree area just 

devoted to them.  Many of them are from places all over the world, and vary in height.

 

We also returned to the Wedding Garden where we discovered a Jazz section.

There is a creek flowing through the garden, where John happened to see a turtle sticking his head above the water, and also an alligator swimming nearby.  One ibis was feeding in the grass by the shoreline.  Finally, as we were leaving the garden, I happened to glance up and see a golden trumpet tree full of yellow flowers.  Not many leaves left on the tree, but lots of yellow blooms!  It may get cool down here in Florida, but still there is lots of green around and flowering plants can be found.

Manatee Viewing Center, Apollo Beach, Florida

This state and federal manatee sanctuary is located on land owned by the Tampa Electric Company.

It was a cool over-cast day when we were there, so we were surprised to find the parking lot almost completely filled.  It was probably one of the better days to view the manatees.  Beyond the power station is Tampa Bay, where the water is a bit cooler at this time of the year.  In the clean warm (like about 82 degrees) water of the reservoir pictured above, is currently numerous manatees.  We could easily make out the shapes of their bodies in the cloudy water.

And we could also perceive that there was a great number of them by the many swirls in the water.

As the manatee submerges he makes a series of half-moon swirls.  After viewing the manatees from a boardwalk and observation platforms, we spent some time in the environmental education building.  Here there is plenty of information regarding the manatees, as well as about the Big Bend Power Station located near the center.  One interesting piece of information regarding manatees is that they have no natural predators.  They are harmed or killed by watercraft collisions, ingestion of marine debris, cold stress, red tide and natural causes.  Florida is considering taking them off their protection list since their numbers are starting to rise.  Pictured below is a life-size model of a manatee.

By the way, they are herbivores.  To my thinking they are just sweet gentle giants of the deep seas!
One other note here, while we were observing the manatees we noticed fish jumping out of the water.  A staff member of the center informed us that those were a type of shark which has its mouth underneath its head and feeds by turning upside down to catch the fish above them.  That was an interesting sight, as well as the manatees!

Sunken Gardens of St.Petersburg

These botanical gardens have been a landmark of St.Petersburg since 1935.  In 1903 it was the property of George Turner,Sr.,a plumber and avid gardener.  He drained a shallow lake, which had filled an ancient sinkhole and dropped 15 feet below street level to provide a rich soil to grow fruits and exotic plants from all over the world.  By 1924 his garden was attracting visitors from around the world and Turner began charging 25 cents for a stroll through them.  In 1999 it was purchased by the city of St.Petersburg.

 

I was at first struck by the sight of the magnificent Royal Palms, but there are many other different kinds of palms in the gardens which are equally beautiful.  Meandering walkways also took us past many tropical displays with vibrant flowering plants.  There is also a section of the garden with a few orchids currently in bloom, and a cactus garden. 

Not surprising,  since 1935 it has been the favorite site for many weddings.

The gardens have 100 varieties of the croton plant, pictured above.  According to a garden sign this plant once originated in the islands of Indonesia, and is a "genetically unstable tropical plant".  It has a propensity to sport, or branch off from its parent plant.  It is also pollinated by ants (and later by man), so its evolutionary process has brought about endless varieties in cultivation today. 

The gardens are a wonderful place for toddlers to wander.  Our grandson Nathan enjoyed reading the signs to us ( or at least pointing out the letters he does know).  I think that at one time there were more exotic wildlife than there are presently.  All we saw was one alligator snapping turtle, two flamingos, and the ponds have fat koi fish swimming in them.  Nathan certainly enjoyed adding to their obesity!

Museum of Fine Arts- St.Petersburg, Fl.

Our impetus for seeing this museum was an article in the paper concerning a current exhibit.  One of the greatest living practitioners of sand mandalas, a Buddhist monk Losang Samten, is at the museum until Jan.16.  Samten once served as the Dalai Lama's personal attendant.

We found him working on a sand mandala in the lobby of the museum.  The picture above shows how he delicately lays down grains of colored sand with two tapered tubes.  The bottom one contains sand, the one above it vibrates the lower one as it slowly drops down sand onto the picture.

You may notice lines outside of the picture above.  That is what Samten has to fill in by Jan. 16 when the picture will be destroyed.  There is information available regarding this sand mandala, which is best explained by quoting from that material.  Mandalas are "healing for an individual's body, speech, mind, environment". "They are used to enhance the spiritual practice environment through image and meditation to overcome suffering."   In the center of the above picture is a Medicine Buddha, and  there is a blue light of healing radiating from him in all directions.  The creation of the mandala, as well as its design, is a ritualistic process.  While the Buddhist monk works there is soft Tibetan flute music playing and if there is any speaking at all it is done in whispers.  There are chairs for people to sit, watch and meditate as long as they wished to do so, but John and I moved on to check out other exhibits of the museum.

After such a serious note, it almost seems wrong to post the above picture.  Another current exhibit of the museum is titled Marks Made: Prints by American Women from the 1960s to the Present".  It is a celebration of the printmaking medium and the many women who have contributed to its development.  In this exhibit I learned about the Guerrilla Girls, an organization which tries to get the word out that "less than 5% of artists in modern art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are females".  That latter fact has especially bothered me when I have toured art galleries!

Another very interesting but sobering current exhibit is titled "I Remember Birmingham".  Seven glass blocks and prints done by John Scott are a memorial to the race-related bombing of a Baptist church in 1963 when 4 African American girls attending Sunday school were killed.  On the glass block above is written the words: "I am closed out of my dreams by someone who didn't know me- why?"
Another interesting current exhibit is by Carrie Schneider on "Reading Women".  She did a 4 hour video on women reading women's books, of course we only took a few minutes to watch that!  We probably should have dedicated a whole day to St. Petersburg's art museum because we certainly did not see it all in the 4 hours we were there!  As we have learned in touring art museums all over the nation, we never know what we will see in those museums.  Most often, as we discovered at the St. Petersburg art museum, it was a most pleasant and enjoyable surprise!  We felt that we had learned and seen so much regarding different forms of art.

Alligators, Elephants, and Roosters

The weather has hampered us a bit in getting out and about- that and a young toddler who has not been feeling well.  Around Christmas time we had 80 degrees weather and spent a lot of time on the beach and in the swimming pool.  After the New Year the weather turned cooler, with some rainy days.
We were fortunate to discover Sawgrass Park, which is next door to our rv park.  What encouraged us to explore that park is that it has a boardwalk, which is very convenient in containing a toddler who wants to be independent and explore everything on his own!

Sawgrass Park is primarily a large swamp, noted for its alligators, large turtles, and bird life.

It was surprising for John and I to learn that we have alligators located close to where we are parked!

And the circus has arrived in Tampa, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey, that is!  We learned from the paper that their train was arriving early Tuesday morning.  Despite the very cool weather we were at the train station, on time, with Melissa and our grandson.  No trains came in, but instead a fleet of large trucks arrived on the parade route.  They proceeded to unload horses and three elephants for the parade through the streets of downtown Tampa.  We learned that the circus train had arrived earlier than planned, like at midnight the night before!  We were disappointed, but it still was all right for Nathan who enjoyed the horses and elephants.  By the way, it's one of the last years to see the elephants in action.  In 2015 the producer of the circus announced that after 145 years of featuring elephants in acts, the 13 Asian elephants still traveling with the circus would be moved to a conservation center in Florida by 2018.
 After the small parade we drove over to the Cuban area of town looking for a sandwich shop.  After parking we heard roosters crowing- that was a bit of surprise as we thought we were in the heart of the city.  Soon we saw a few roosters and chickens roaming around between the shops and houses.  More excitement for little Nathan!  I think John and I will have to do some sight-seeing on our own to make my postings of this area a bit more interesting!

 

Our Past Three Weeks

The time has flown, and it has been a most unusual December for us!  As I may have mentioned, we made a trip north to help our daughter and her husband move to Florida.  On our way there we made a stop in Atlanta, Georgia to visit my sister Linda.  After a day sitting in the car, John and I were up for a hike.  As it has been many years since I have seen Stone Mountain, we decided to see it once again, as well as climb it.

Not a good picture, seems the figures have faded on the rock surface since I last had viewed them.  First man is Jefferson Davis, the second is Robert E. Lee and the last is of Stonewall Jackson.  Gutzon Borglum was commissioned to do the carving but abandoned the project in 1925 (and later went on to do Mount Rushmore).  Carving on Stone Mountain was completed by Roy Faulkner in 1975.  After viewing the carving we drove over to the other side of the mountain to hike the Walk Up Trail.  The path is 1.3 miles, ascending 78 feet in elevation to a height of 1,686 feet.  It was an unusually warm day for Atlanta in December, but the lower slopes of the mountain are forested and shady.  The top of the mountain is a landscape of bare rock, and at that height the atmosphere was a bit cool.   We made it to the top!

 

 From this height we could see downtown Atlanta, as well as the park spread out below us.  In the background is Stone Mountain Lake.

Three days later we arrived in Carbondale to assist our daughter and her husband pack for their move to Florida.  And on December 19th our son-in-law Spencer graduated from law school.  The past three years has not been easy for him and Melissa, but those years did bring the joy of the birth of their son Nathan.  I must say that graduation day was a very happy one for all of us!

We are now back at our home in St.Petersburg.  We made it home in time for the arrival of our son Dan and wife Amanda from D.C., who spent Christmas with us.  And we now have another cat residing with us, Zelda.  She belongs to Spencer and Melissa who at present cannot have her with them.  When things settle down there will probably be more postings, as we have a lot to see and do in the Tampa-St.Petersburg area.

Christmas Events in Pinellas County

For clarification here, Pinellas encompasses the peninsula we are residing in.  In extends from Clearwater to St.Petersburg, and down to the De Soto National Memorial.   This will probably be my last posting until after the holidays, so it seems appropriate at this point to end with a Christmas theme.  On Sunday we drove back to downtown St.Petersburg and Christ United Methodist Church.  The church, as well as St.Petersburg College, had their 25th annual Winter Choral Festival that afternoon.   Two highlights of that concert were musicals selections played on the AEolian-Skinner pipe organ, and the Hallelujah Chorus sung by not only choir members but other people from the audience who were familiar with it.  The rafters were certainly raised when that was sung, Handel would have been proud!
 
In the picture above the audience was standing for the Hallelujah Chorus.  We heard it again that evening when we attended the full rendition of Handel's Messiah in Clearwater.   The Florida Orchestra, Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, and University of South Florida Chamber Singers performed it.  There were four guest singers for the solo parts, and it was one very fantastic concert!  It is hard to believe that Handel wrote the complete musical score in 24 days.  He commented to a servant that "I did think I did see Heaven before me and the great God Himself".  It has been about 25 years since we have heard it live, and I think that from now on it will be a more frequent occurrence for us.
 
The above picture may seem a bit strange.  It was taken at the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo, Fl.  Currently the gardens are open in the evening for the Holiday Lights display.  For us it was interesting to not only look at the lights but to search out the plants around which the lights are strung.  In the picture above is an angel trumpet tree, its blooms hang over flamingos as well as one duck.  Other Christmas lights of the garden are in the background of the picture.

While we strolled around the topiary/ wedding section of the garden we were entertained by a small band playing Christmas carols.  Pictured below is one of the topiaries located in this area, in case you might be wondering who is standing there with his arrow ready to fly, it is cupid!

What we were able to see of the garden at night makes us desire to see it during the day.  It is a 150- acre garden with native plants as well as exotic specimens suited to the local climate.   I will sign this off now with a Merry Christmas to all of our loyal readers!  May it be a blessed and safe holiday for all.

Our first days in St.Petersburg, Florida

Our first days here have been a bit different, and we are still settling in.  The weather is a bit strange, it can be breezy and cool with a wind off the ocean (bear in mind that we are on a peninsula).   However, one never knows when the sun may pop out and then the shorts need to come on.
We also are doing the more normal things that home owners do.  For some strange reason John got into the spirit of the season and draped Christmas lights over our home and on the tree next to us.  That is a first ever for us since we started traveling!  And for the first time we have a patch of sod to take care of.  We complained at the park office about a dirt patch around our home (should we have a good rain we would be in a big mud puddle).  They were so kind to place sod around our home, and then said it was up to us to keep it watered to get the grass growing.  We have a hose for the former, but unfortunately do not have a mower should that sod decide to grow!  I guess maybe a sharp scissors would work.
Today, Saturday, we had great plans to do a walking tour of downtown St.Petersburg, visit the farmer's market, and the  Chihuly Collection.  We encountered a massive traffic jam once we drove into the downtown area.  For some strange reason a boat show, Christmas parade. Snow Fest, and Holiday Magic events, including the farmer's market were all planned on the same day.

 There is nothing so wonderful as a big white bird just dropping down and taking ones mind off of traffic frustrations, which was what happened to us.  He acted like he had not one care in the world!
John and I decided to get out of the area fast and just find the Chihuly Collection.  We asked a policeman how to skirt the downtown area, and he gave us the name of several streets which, by making right turns, would take us to the museum.  Unfortunately those turns nearly got us killed, he put us on streets which were one-way and not the way we were expecting to go!  We figured that the policeman was a newbie and may never have driven on downtown streets.
We finally arrived at the museum, only to find parking was at a premium.  One policeman advised another motorist to park and walk- which we did, and which was about 10 blocks.  We finally make it to the museum.  We have seen a lot of Chihuly glass exhibits during our travels, and most of his work here was not new to us.  However,  there was a special exhibit by other artists which we enjoyed.
 
 The glass art pictured above is titled Sunshine and Rain- artist is Jason Christian.
Our admission ticket to the Chihuly allowed us to watch artists at work in the Hot Shop later in the afternoon.  We had a couple of hours to check out the Snow Fest across the street along Tampa Bay.  What a surprise, as we were standing in a food line we had an opportunity to watch part of the Christmas Parade. 

We had to move our car and drive to another area of town to get to the Hot Shop.  It was quite fascinating to watch a working artist create a magnificent glass dish.  It also helped that the artist (Pauli Maiville), explained every step of the process.  We talked to him after the show and he said that he had been working with glass for 31 years.  Most of his learning about glass blowing had come by observing other artists and working closely with them.
 
That was our first day in St.Petersburg,  it had not turned out as we expected,  but we got a good walk in and saw quite a bit of the downtown area.

Butterfly Rainforest

We are now parked about 40 miles north of Gainesville.  The park we are staying at is quite the lovely place with lots of open green space complete with tropical birds and farmyard animals.  The birds sometimes set up quite a din with their squawking and the donkeys get to braying at night, but I will take that noise any day to the roar of motorcycles and trucks!
Yesterday we drove into Gainesville to the Museum of Natural History, which is on the University of Florida campus.  Part of the museum is the Butterfly Rainforest and the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity.  Here there is everything you may want to know about butterflies and moth biology.



 As we entered the section of the museum devoted to the study of butterflies we immediately saw the Wall of Wings, a section of which is pictured above.  Mounted for display are butterflies from 5 major geographic regions of the world.  The wall is nearly 3 stories high and has 13,000 butterfly and moth specimens and photographs.  Butterflies and moths are the second largest animal group in the world, there are more than 165,000 described and 100,000 yet more to be described.  Along the Wall of Wings are laboratories where we were able to watch scientists at work.  The lab pictured below is the conservation lab, where scientists are searching for reasons why certain butterflies become endangered.


There is also a rearing lab, where butterflies in the chrysalis stage arrive from around the world and held until they emerge as butterflies.   Instead of cutting down forests to grow crops, butterfly farms make money by breeding butterflies in their natural environment.  It saves natural habitats as well as boasting small farming economies. There is also a lab in this area for DNA testing of moths and butterflies.


 One thing I learned about butterflies in the exhibit is that the designs on their wings, as well as their coloring  serve a variety of purposes, from attracting mates to warning off predators.  In the picture above about 6 butterflies are feeding on a banana.  Notice the one butterfly with large spots on his wings.  That eye spot intimidates predators as small birds.  To them the eye spot looks like the eye of a larger bird who may harm them.
 
The butterfly rainforest has an average of 60 to 80 butterfly species.  They are the ones that come in chrysalis stage from butterfly farms.  One method the center uses to prevent them from reproducing and getting out into the wild is by not providing the right plant on which to lay their eggs.  Among the wildflowers in the rainforest there is, however, many host plants for Florida's native butterflies.  It is quite the beautiful place with  the many colorful butterflies flitting around the plants.
 
I am posting this from St.Petersburg, where we are now parked for the winter.  The postings from here may not be as frequent, at least for awhile.  Next week we will make a trip to Illinois to attend the graduation of Spencer from law school, as well as to help him, Melissa and Nathan move down to Florida.