This travel update is for part two of our two-week stay in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. It covers January 9 through 13.

January 9, 2002 – Monday: running some errands

We were out driving around today running some errands. This morning Patti had a meeting with a financial person at PNC bank, where she keeps her money. Then we went by Costco to get my hearing aid fixed. The right one stopped working yesterday, I think because the wire going to the speaker broke. Anyway, the Costco girl fixed me up in about 30 minutes with new speakers and cleaned everything up. I still recommend Costco for hearing aids, they sell several different brands and are good at recommending which brand is right for you. They charge much less than a doctor of audiology and their service is great.

When we got home we walked over to the Bier Boutique which we’d walked by previously and got some lunch. They advertise Bacon Bison Burgers, of which we each ate one. The sun was shining on most of the table and I asked the waitress if I could roll down the blind a bit but she said no, not and lunchtime. So, we sat away from the far corner of the table, just a bit of which was shaded. Most of the food was in bright sunlight though which made it a challenge to see when I picked it up and brought it towards me into the shadow. I needed “high dynamic range” capability on my eyesight. But the burger did taste good.

January 10, 2023 – Tuesday: The Presentation

We’ve been working on this presentation for a while now and today was the day to deliver it. We delivered the presentation at Scott’s office, he’s my financial advisor and does Zoom calls with his clients sometimes. We had decided to see how his clients would like a different sort of presentation.

Basically, the presentation talks about what we’ve done for the past 5 years as far as being nomadic and traveling. Here’s the splash slide which has pictures of us in lots of different places.

I’ll paste in the first three slides so you get the idea.

We’re going to convert the whole presentation into a PDF file which we can email. If you want to get the entire presentation as a PDF let me know and I’ll email it to you.

January 11, 2023 – Wednesday: The Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg

We’d made plans with our friends Nadine and Phil to go to the museum today so we walked over there and met them at 10:30 AM. We walked past Mirror Lake on the way.

St. Pete has a lot of very pretty little lakes with walking paths around them. It was about a 30-minute walk to The Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg.

“From a collection covering almost 5,000 years of civilization in thousands of objects extending from antiquity to present, to fascinating traveling exhibitions, to exciting events in the heart of downtown’s scenic waterfront, the MFA is here for your discovery. The MFA is proud to have within its walls the only comprehensive art collection of its kind on Florida’s west coast. Highlights include masterpieces from Monet, O’Keeffe, De Kooning, Wiley, and others, a sculpture garden, and one of Florida’s most respected photography collections.”

This is a nice art museum. It’s not huge, which makes it easier to take in. There’s a Rodin temporary exhibition right now. I’ve always liked Rodin, here I am with one of his sculptures which is called “The Shade”.

I also liked “Orpheus”.

At lunchtime we walked across the street to a restaurant then I got our selfie in front of this Banyan Tree. I was glad I remembered to get a picture of the group this time.

After lunch we went through the permanent exhibit which has art from the past 5,000 years in 10 different areas, as you can see on this map.

In the Asian Arts gallery I liked this “Walking Buddha” from Thailand created around 1370.

This is actually a stone inlay of a vase of flowers done in Italy around 1625, it was really intricate.

I usually like the French Impressionist stuff, this is Francis Picabia “The Church at Montigny, Effect of Sunlight”, 1908.

We had a nice time with Phil and Nadine at the museum then walked back home with a couple of stops at a pharmacy and a convenience store along the way.

January 12, 2023 – Thursday: catching up

I went for a jog this morning then spent most of the rest of the day on the computer catching up with paperwork. Patti made risotto with mushrooms and chicken for lunch.

January 13, 2023 – Friday: packing up

Tomorrow we move to Mulberry, Florida so today we finished up a few things on the laptop then went out to lunch at a place recommended by our friend Scott. It’s called Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish. Here’s Patti out front with the sign.

Here’s a bit of the history of this place, it’s been around for over 70 years.

“It was 1945, WWII was over, and America was on the move and it was no different for Ted Peters and his family. He got into the fish business with his stepbrother, “Red Hot” who had come from upstate New York in 1931. While working at the Fisherman’s Co-Op at Madeira Beach FL, Ted Observed the fish smoking process where most were smoking in the woods or in the back yard. Ted said, “Put it out there where people can see that thing.” So, he salvaged an old smoker and put it out on Blind Pass Road in front of the Blue Anchor, the first restaurant he owned in the late 1940’s. He would run out and open the smoker so that people driving by could see and smell the fish spread out on the smoking trays. He knew that just as the sun and sand drew tourists to Saint Petersburg Beach, the smell of his fish smoking would bring customers to his restaurant.”

I had the smoked mullet and Patti got the smoked mahi mahi, both were delicious.

The mullet was butterflied and the mahi mahi was a fillet.

I was able to pick just about all the meat off the mullet.

That was a fun experience, Patti had never eaten smoked fish before. After that we drove out to the beach but it was a chilly, windy afternoon and we stayed just long enough for a selfie.

In the evening we packed up some stuff, getting ready for our move to Mulberry tomorrow.

Future Plans:

• January 14 – 23: we’ll be house and pet sitting for my brother and his wife while they’re on vacation. We’ll be at their house in Mulberry, Florida.
• January 23 – May 2: we’ve got a “vacation cottage” reserved at Flamingo Lake RV Park in Jacksonville, Florida. That’s where I’ll be recuperating from my Cochlear Implant surgery that’s scheduled for February 13. We’ll need to go back to the audiologist at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville frequently so she can make changes to my programming.
• May 2 – June 2: we’ve got a mobile home reserved at the Twin Shores Mobile Home Park on Longboat Key near Sarasota. We’ve stayed at that park before but in a different unit.
• After June 2, no plans yet, but we’re thinking about doing a road trip up the east coast to Maine and back.