Friday 12/15/2017
No Boat Travel
10 Miles Bike Ride
Despite the clouds and rain that we experienced first thing in the morning, today turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day with a light breeze and cool temperatures -- ideal for a bike ride!
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| Cloudy skies to start the day |
Having walked west multiple times, we decided to head out on our bikes in a northerly direction. We followed the sidewalks / bike trails near and by the water's edge to see what we might see.
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| Cute Motorcycle Buddies |
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| Grampa Biking Bear |
We actually noticed the bears on the bikes because we biked over to take a closer look at the gorgeous sailboat shown below. From 3:00 to 5:00 daily, this sailboat takes folks out sailing at $55 per head. We decided to just admire it from afar.
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| Lynx Sailboat from Portsmouth, New Hampshire |
Our trip took us past the St. Petersburg's History Museum. We opted to continue on our ride instead of taking a museum tour today.
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| Display in front of History Museum |
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Headline reads:
"The Independent Free Every Day the Sun Does Not Shine" |
Along the way we passed a decorated Christmas Tree hanging out among all the palm trees!
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| St. Pete Christmas Tree |
All told, our bike ride north ended up being approximately 6 miles long. Other scenes included ...
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Crane busy fishing at dock
Right after Clark took this picture the black dog coming
down the sidewalk scared the crane away with a lot of
loud squawking on the crane's part. |
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| Two bold Ibis who thought we had come to feed them |
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| View of Park |
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| Bike Trail |
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| Palm Trees at Water's Edge |
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| Small Beach |
We saw all sorts of activity including other bikers and joggers, a woman on roller blades, a beach volleyball game in progress, a woman doing yoga with her dog standing guard, a man lifting weights in the sand, lots of fishermen, and many folks just hanging out on benches or in hammocks soaking up the sun and the cool breeze. Our tour took us across a bridge over Coffeepot Bayou to Snell Island. I noticed a street sign for one street we traveled was called Coffee Pot Blvd.
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| Bridge to Snell Island |
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| Snell Island |
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| Rhino Statue decorated for Christmas |
We found an area on Snell Island where the streets were all cobblestones. That looked interesting to explore, but neither Clark nor I thought that the bouncing would be good for my upper body to sustain for any long period of time. We passed on that and took a different route.
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| Some cobblestone streets |
On our way back to the boat to get lunch, Clark stopped and suggested we take a selfie picture. He planned on taking it with our bike helmets on, but I opted for sans helmet for the photo!
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| Short photo stop on bike ride |
Our lunch break at the boat turned into a three-hour opportunity to work on the blog (Ev) and take care of some important phone calls (Clark). Finally, at 4 o'clock, we set off again to continue our bike explorations -- this time heading south.
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| More than a couple of sailboats on the south side of the marina |
Our route took us past a few museums including the Dali Museum which has been recommended to us by more than one person.
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| Dali Museum |
and the St. Petersburg airport.
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| Albert Whitted Airport |
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| Airport Tower |
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| Plane coming in |
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| Helicopter going out |
Outside the gates of the airport, we read a little about aviation history on this historical plaque.
In the same park area, we saw a line of food trucks. The businesses had creative names like "Riddles on the Griddle" for a waffle wagon, and one of them in particular that caught my attention.
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The "Crustacean Station" Food Truck
"Got Lobstah?" |
Shortly after that, it seemed like our travels south would end, but looking down the side street, I spied USF on a building and convinced Clark to ride down the street to check out the university grounds. On the way there, we saw some interesting vessels.
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| Sir Winston Charter Yacht |
Sir Winston yachts offer charter cruises for weddings and corporate events of 150 to 400 people.
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| Twin Sir Winston Yachts |
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| Joint Frost from Willemstad, Curacao |
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| Coast Guard boats and a work boat |
At USF, the University of Southern Florida, we found several marine research buildings and related equipment.
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| Knight Oceanographic Research Center |
Near USF we found the Coast Guard Station and the CG vessel 556 we spied twice out in Tampa Bay.
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| Joshua Appleby Coast Guard Vessel 556 |
Across the water, on the Coast Guard grounds, we could see a number of red and green buoys that were huge!
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| Storage area for buoys - ocean / bay sized |
After our very interesting jaunt around the USF grounds and spying on the Coast Guard, we headed back to the boat. Since the ride took us right by the marina office, Clark decided that we should stop there to see if they had any packages for us. They had three -- two large boxes and one small envelope. Fortunately, I had carry bags with me, so we took the items out of the boxes and transferred them to our bags for easy transport via bicycle.
While at the marina office, we saw a couple of birds who looked like they might be getting ready for a face off.
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| Crane versus Pelican near the Marina Office |
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| Majestic Crane |
After leaving the marina office, with packages and empty boxes in hand, we made our way to the recycle bins to drop off the cardboard before continuing on to the boat. By now it was getting late in the day and the sun was setting for the night.
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| Our view of the sunset on our ride back to the boat |
By the time we had completed our tour south and returned to the boat, we had added another four miles to our day's bike travel. What a great day!
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