Beauty and the Beach

Oprah called. She is concerned about the accuracy of the information contained in yesterday's blog. While she had not endorsed it, she has informed me that she will not give any future support to what possibly may be a bogus report. Mel

We have moved southwest to a midway point between Tampa and Orlando. Our intent had been to cross the Florida state line into southeast Georgia. But the weather reports indicated snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic states and we just are not equipped to deal with those kind of conditions.

So we left St. Augustine, Florida about mid-morning. We weren't twenty miles south when the clouds lifted, the sun shone and the air heated up. I quickly changed from jeans into shorts as I wasn't prepared for such a rapid warm up.

Mel being Mel, as we neared Orlando, announced, "We are going to Disney World for lunch." Not everyone would detour from their path to drop in at Disney. He drove right into MGM Studios, got us a parking spot up in front where the tour buses park. We were steps from the main entrance. We used our passes to get into the park, strolled up the main street, veered left to Prime Time Cafe, put our name in at the podium and in ten minutes, were seated, ordered and ate our lunch. This was all done in less than an hour and we were back on the road, heading to Tampa. We arrived at our campsite at 3 p.m. and were tucked in for the day.

Then, we waited for Brian's arrival. He flew into Orlando's Sanford Airport from Rockford, but his plane arrived late and he was unable to stop in and see us. Instead, he drove on to his friends', Vishal and Roshan, home, where he is staying for his long weekend.

Because his friends had to work today, Brian was able to spend the day with us. He drove to the campgrounds about eight miles from his friends' place. We took his rental car to my sister's, Carol. From there, Carol, Bill, Brian, Mel and I drove to Clearwater Beach so Brian could see the Gulf of Mexico. We ate at the Palm Pavillion, a beach bar. The photo was taken from the deck of the restaurant. Then, we returned to Carol's and Bill's to visit.

When we left their home, we decided to take Brian over the Sunshine Skyway in St. Petersburg. As we neared the city, it started to rain, but we decided to detour to show Brian Fort Desoto Park, our favorite RV campsite. We drove throught the RV park, then to the fort, then to east beach so he could see the bridge before we crossed it. On our way back to the highway, we toured him through West Shore Estates at Tierra Verde, filled with million dollar homes. Then, we crossed the 12 mile set of bridges over Tampa Bay, quite an engineering feat. We ended our day at Jesse's Steakhouse in Brandon, Florida. A good time was had by all.