Tuesday morning we leave for Sarasota - the traffic is fairly light but the 'road' interesting -
a good many bridges and one particularly long and very steep - tolls here and there 1 .25 or .75
- we aim for the Tourist Info office and arrive just about noon - with their assistance we pick the
Hyatt-Regency which is very nearby - have lunch and get settled.
Then it's off to St Armand centre - a shopping centre developed many years ago with help of
John Ringling (of the museum) - it's a large intersection with 4 'quadrants' of stores - mostly
high end but not all - lovely summer clothes like 'oh my gauze' - and restaurants - back to the hotel
for a rest and back to St Armand for dinner following a Mardi-gras parade (which we missed) but
many people, musicians still walking about in their costumes, playing - kinda fun!
Wednesday - after a fabulous buffet breakfast - beautiful for the eye and tummy - pecans for the
taking!, roasted fruit, house made gravlox, thick cream cheese, lots of good bread-croissant, muffins - eggs, roasted potatoes etc etc -- we are served by a lovely waitress 'Millie' from Venezuela - she keeps us supplied with really good coffee (haven't had that much this trip) - she
is delighted we say Bueno Dias and 'gracias'
We are off the Ringling Bros Circus Museum of Art - a fabulous setting on 66acres beautifully
landscaped and kept.
We open the place at 10 and leave about 4!! The miniature circus which is huge!! - is fascinating and the many videos some of which talk about the use of the railway to transport the circus are
very interesting - living in a railway centre I can just remember the circus parade as the animals
were taken off the train and moved to the circus site .....then there is the house of the Ringlings
it is absolutely Beautiful!!! - made to resenble a home in Venice with all the Arabic or Moorish
influences - it seems comfortable to live in and look it -- it was built to entertain guests and offer
them activities - a private 'resort' on the water --
Then the Art Gallery - another beuatiful building, although I didn't care much for the choice of
paintings there are an impressive collection!

We finish the day with dinner with friends Ken/Morna from Ottawa - crabcakes (a first) for me and another helping of Key Lime pie!!

Thursday I hope for a swim before we leave for Tampa - but it is raining quite heavily so reading
the newspaper (the Wall Street Journal) is the activity of the morning!
We leave about 12 - stop in St Petersburg for a very tasty lunch - soup of creme of salmon with
shrimps-tasty!! Pam gives in to the knowledge that she had the best cookies ever at the Dali
museum just down the street so we stop there before leaving, in pouring rain, for Tampa--
and I mean pouring! and windy!! - hands firmly on the steering wheel (Pam's driving a Toyota
corolla) - remeber StP claims 361 days of sunshine .....
We return the car and head for a ribs bbq nearby the hotel - wow! if this is 'southern' bbq count me in!! - 2 big juicy pork ribs, small serving of coleslaw with very light dressing but not oily nor
mayonnaise type - and a few ffries - is this good or what? 13.95!! - oh yes as I leave I purchase
a homemade pecan pie (no chocolate, yeah!!) sitting by the door!! - ok a mini-pie but it's still
really really good!!
that's it off to bed - Pam is up at 4am to catch her flight! - a Happy St Valentine's Day!!