Day 13: St. Petersburg

The weather just has not cleared up!  It was another chilly and cloudy one, making any time on the beach less appealing.  Gulfport is a jewel of a little town right on the bay just west of St. Petersburg.  Very artsy, with lots of crafty, artsy shops and adorable and colorful houses.  We strolled the main street and visited a few shops and then headed back to our airbnb to get the car for the day’s adventure.  I’ve included a few photos of Ciara’s place here — she’s an actor/director/artist and her home and the gardens are evidence of her efforts.  She’s rescued a woodpecker with a broken wing who lives on a branch in her kitchen!

Our destination Pass-a-Grille, just south of St. Pete Beach. This is a sliver of land between the bay and the gulf — a beautiful beach of white sand and lots and lots of shells. On a bench at the edge was a mailbox with a journal inside and visitors were encouraged to share a message/thought/perspective, so we added a message before we had a typical beach bite at the cafe on the sand.  A quick drive up to see St. Pete Beach completed our gulf experience for the day and so we drove over to St. Petersburg proper to see what it’s all about.

St. Petersburg is a smallish city but it houses the Dali museum; we were too late to visit it today,  We settled for a drive through the old section of town, with streets of older, Florida bungalow type homes.  After a quick dinner, celebrating Erica’s birthday a few days early, I grabbed a cab to take me to an airport hotel. I leave early tomorrow morning from Tampa for my next adventure — a week in Costa Rica with my niece Molly.

So this adventure is over, and it was amazing.  Florida is a beautiful state, with many different personalities.  I felt like we experienced so many of them, in part because of the airbnb approach to our trip.  It was certainly new to me, and it proved to me the intent of that sharing economy — a chance to meet people and experience a play like a native instead of a tourist.  It worked!