Spring Break in Florida

My daughter at the Sponge Docks of Tarpon Springs





We moved out west from Florida almost 10 years ago. My son however, was born in Arizona and had never been to Florida. My daughter was only 3 1/2 when we moved and had been back to visit at age 6. We came from the Suncoast area of St. Petersburg and Clearwater right on the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. Over Spring Break we went back for the second time to visit dear friends, old familiar places and to eat fresh fish. We got great airfare and thought it would be a good time of year to go. Unfortunately to take advantage of the great airfare it meant leaving really early on a Sunday morning, 5 am to be exact which of course meant getting up in the middle of the night yawn. Returning was about the same, we came back on Saturday and our flight departed at 6 am. We wish we would have been able to at least squeeze in another 2 days but we were thankful for what we were able to get. We packed a lot into the days that we had.

We arrived late afternoon even though our trip began before the crack of dawn. We met my dear friend from High School and her lovely daughter for dinner. Of course it was a restaurant that was known for it's fish. Our first full day there we spent at Busch Gardens with a good friend and his daughters. It was really nice weather and we spent the entire day there until they closed, lots of rollercoasters that day. Day 2 we went to visit the old places. We saw the last home we lived in, old stores, my husbands High School, dear friends at the Print Shop we had both worked at together. We went to the St. Petersburg Pier and walked around like tourist watching Pelicans and looking at the Bounty ship. Our daughter got a St. Pete t-shirt since she was actually born there. It was a lot of fun taking her to places she was too young to remember. We took the kids to a park near our old home and we were amazed by the squirrels. We don't see very many of them in our area. We must of looked like freaks taking so many pictures of the squirrels LOL :) like we'd never seen them before. We had lunch at the best Pizza place, Toby's Little Italy in St. Petersburg. They make THE best pizza in our opinion. Vito's Pizza and Venezia's in Mesa come pretty close to it but a totally different atmosphere. On day 3 we went to Disney World, I've always loved it, grew up going to it many times. It was a bit more crowded for my taste but we don't have the luxury of living within an hour and a half from it anymore so we enjoyed ourselves. It was fun taking my daughter on my favorite teenage ride, Space Mountain. On day 4 we traveled back from Orlando and went to Ybor City in the Tampa area. It's a very unique place with beautiful old storefronts and Cuban history known at one time for cigar making. My favorite place for vintage & repro. vintage jewelry was La France which was still there. It is housed in a storefront that has been there for 100 years. My husband is a huge sports fan so we had to visit the Lightning Hockey and Tampa Bay Buccaneers Stadium and new training facility with oodles of memorabilia. We finally made our way to our day 4 destination which was Clearwater Beach. We had a hotel room overlooking the city and the beach. The sand is the best I've ever seen, beautiful soft white sand. My son who loves to dig in the sand, couldn't get enough of it. That night we met more dear friends for dinner at a restaurant known for it's grouper sandwiches. It was great to see our friends and catch up and the sandwiches were yummmy. My son apparently now LOVES fried clams. On day 5 we headed up toward Dunedin which is where I last lived before marriage. I went by my High School and took pictures of the 2 homes my Mom and I had lived in. We then went up to Tarpon Springs to the Sponge docks. We met my dear friend and her lovely daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. Tarpon Springs has quite a bit of Greek history. The Sponge Docks have many shoppes that sell sponges taken from the ocean floor. There are many restaurants and bakeries that have Greek food there. A well known place called Hella's has a bakery with mostly Greek pastries such as Baklava but they also had Italian ones too, like my favorite Cannolis (yum!). That night my husband went to spend time with his High School buds and the kids and I went with my dear friend. There was a Mall she wanted to show us. We went out to dinner with her and her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend. That was our last night there sniff, sniff. I wish the beaches and the people could be in Arizona somehow. It was a memorable trip and I'm glad we went before the summer heat came. I don't think I'll ever take another early flight like that again, that wasn't fun getting up in the middle of the night. I spent the day we returned sleeping on and off late afternoon and into the evening. I'm guessing I had jet lag, but I'm all back to normal again. Still trying to get back into reality :) We came back this past Saturday.