Given that we were scheduled for such a long layover, I thought it would be a good idea to rent a car and drive down to Sarasota and revisit some places from my past. I got the idea from my father, who is a flight attendant for a rival airline that we won't name,(but they LUV everyone) who recently had a long layover in Fort Lauderdale and went up to Boca Raton to see the haunts from his childhood and visit the cemetery where my grandparents are buried.
As luck would have it, my good friend Bobby was the purser on my trip last week and he decided to come along on this little adventure (of course now the pressure was on to make this interesting).
We landed in Tampa from San Juan, P.R. late on Friday. Bobby and I were up and at it at 8:30am on Saturday to pick up our rental car. I had made a reservation at Dollar, but Bobby just had to go with National so he could get his Emerald Aisle points, but after arriving at the airport we learned that National is one of two rental car companies that is not actually on airport property so we had to take yet another shuttle bus to the actual rental site (it was actually no big deal, but I had to put this here just to make a jab at Bobby).
We started off with a stop at McDonalds for a drive thru breakfast as we did not want to throw down the small fortune it would cost to eat at the hotel. We made our way over Tampa Bay to St. Petersburg because I wanted to head down to Sarasota by going over the Skyway Bridge. This bridge was an important memory of my childhood. As a child, my parents and I would go over the original bridge to visit my grandma and grandpa in St. Petersburg. In May of 1980, there was a terrible accident and the southbound bridge collapsed when a freighter ran into the structure in foggy weather. I think anyone living in Florida at that time remembers the Greyhound bus that went down along with six other cars killing 35 people. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Skyway_Bridge#The_Blackthorn_tragedy) As a small child, this terrified me, and I remember after the accident, anytime we went over the bridge, I would close my eyes until my parents told me we were over it. I can still remember the sound the tires would make as we drove over the metal grating of the bridge's floor. Of course the old bridge has long since been demolished and replaced with a much larger and safer bridge.
Before going over the new bridge we stopped at the last bit of land on the St. Pete side to take some pictures. It is here that the Blackthorn Memorial is located. On January 28, 1980, this Coast Guard cutter was involved in a collision in the bridge's channel that killed 23 seamen. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Blackthorn_(WLB-391) I have no memory of that, but it happened the day my grandfather died, and my parents can remember seeing the wreckage from the accident as they were driving over the Skyway Bridge to head up to St. Petersburg to be with my grandmother.
We took some photos here and then as we were about to leave Bobby stepped in an ant hill (twice).
After making our way over the bridge (I did not close my eyes this time) we stopped at the Skyway Fishing Pier on the south side of the bridge. It is what is left of the approaches from the old bridge after it was dismantled. You can get some great shots of the new bridge and a lot of people go fishing there. Bobby tried to chat with one man who was fishing and wearing a shirt that said "Virginia is for COAL Lovers" but the man was not interested in talking to Bobby, possibly because Bobby was wearing his "Obama Surfs" shirt that he bought on a layover in Honolulu. I found that rather humorous. Two extremes.
After leaving the pier, we headed south into Manatee county and down to Sarasota. I had decided we would have lunch at Yoders' Restaurant. Sarasota is home to a small population of Amish and within their little community is this fantastic restaurant (
http://www.yodersrestaurant.com/).
They specialize in "comfort" foods and fantastic pies. I had Beef Stroganoff and Bobby had the Pulled Pork (I obviously abstained from the pork products) and for dessert I had the famous Peanut Butter pie (I gave up chocolate desserts for Lent) and Bobby had Chocolate Cream Pie. Words cannot describe how incredibly wonderful my dessert was so I will just leave it at that.
After we stuffed ourselves royally and walked around the restaurant's little shop (I bought a Christmas mini snow globe for my lady friend Kirsten, mainly because I was told that anytime I find anything with her name spelled correctly, I was to promptly buy it and who would have guessed that they had one left that had her name on it.... the Amish think of everything), we made our way to my house in Country Place, the subdivision I lived in from 1979 to 1986. As we entered the subdivision, we saw a Miscobie duck near the lake. These ducks used to scare the crap out of me and I remember them biting me when I tried to feed them bread and cheerios.
I mainly wanted to see if the Maple Tree that my dad and I planted in 1983 was still there (we had named it Mr. Maple). The house looks completely different and has obviously had some exterior renovations (it is now 30 years old). It is now a cream color, has a brick circular driveway, shingles, and tons of landscaping. When my parents built the house it was white with blue trim and had white Spanish tiles on the roof.
None of the original people from my street are there anymore (save for one family I believe) but there was a man who lived next door to my house who was working in his garage and I asked him if I could walk thru his yard to go to the back and see if my tree was still there. Sadly, Mr. Maple is no more (Maple Trees do have a short life span, so I would like to think that he was able to live out his whole tree life). I was able to get a few shots of the backyard from where the tree would have been of the windows that were my room, adjacent to our swimming pool.
After soaking in all the changes, we headed out of County Place and towards Gulf Gate Elementary School, where I got my learnin' from Kindergarten to Fourth grade. The school looked completely different.... they must have actually torn down the entire thing and rebuilt it from scratch. I was appalled, so much so that I took pictures on my iPhone and emailed them to Andy and Kate, two of my oldest friends, and fellow Gulf Gate Tigers. Kate was already aware of the changes, but Andy, like me was saddened. About the only thing still the same was the mascot.... the Tiger.
From there we proceeded to Cass Street and Gulf Gate Woods. This was the first house my parents built after they were married. I never lived here, but I wanted to take a picture for them. As I was trying to do so, the lawn man who was treating weeds in the yard asked me what I was doing and when I told him my parents used to live here and I wanted to take a picture, he told me he wasn't comfortable with that, so I snapped a few shots and made my hasty departure (although I think Bobby was ready to rumble).
After leaving Gulf Gate Woods our next stop was Siesta Key and Birdsong Lane. This was the house I lived in from birth to 1979. I don't have that many memories of it (I remember the orange shag carpet, the time I put the car in neutral while my mom was washing it and rolled into a mailbox, and a neighbor lady's dachshund named Tar Baby) but I still wanted to check it out.
The property values here have really skyrocketed, not because the houses were anything special, but because they are located on Siesta Key and in close proximity to the beach. I was surprised to see the house next door for sale for $499,000. I can only imagine what it was selling for before the market tanked?!
After leaving Birdsong Lane, we made our way down Ocean Blvd. and parked in what we hoped was a gravel parking lot because Bobby was craving a Guinness. We stopped at a bar called the Siesta Beach Club that had Guinness on tap (seeing as I had also given up alcohol for Lent, I had a Becks NA beer).
From there we made our way down to the public beach. Bobby wanted to get some beach time in and you couldn't have asked for better weather, so we took a little break and relaxed here.
I think Bobby was not expecting the water to be as cold as it was, but he braved the cold and went swimming. I laid down on a towel and relaxed, enjoying the salty air and the pleasant breezes. (The little speck beyond my feet is Bobby in the ocean). It's moments like these when I really like my job and how past Christmas' in Caracas and snowstorms in Omaha totally were worth it if it got me to this point.
I wanted to get back to Tampa before it got dark because I wanted to drive by my Tampa house and snap a picture, so I had to forcibly pry Bobby from the beach so we could begin our drive north.
We managed to arrive back in Tampa before sunset, and drove thru my old neighborhood in Temple Terrace so I could snap a picture of my house where I lived from 1986 to 1994 when I moved away to go to college (my parents and sister moved to Texas shortly thereafter).
After leaving Temple Terrace, we headed down Busch Blvd. to Mel's Hot Dogs. It's a dive that I used to frequent as a kid, but they serve the best Vienna Beef hot dogs (Chicago Style). Anyone from Tampa knows this place.
I had "my usual" (even though the last time I ate there was probably 15 years ago), a cheese dog with fries and a side of beans.
After stuffing ourselves sufficiently, we made our way back to the off-property rental car site and were fortunate that the hotel van driver was willing to come directly to the location to pick us up instead of having to go back to the airport to catch the hotel shuttle.
This little adventure lasted over 12 hours and we were exhausted, but it was great to see places from my early childhood. Everything looked smaller than I remembered it. I guess when you are a kid everything looks bigger.
The wake up call that Sunday was a rude awakening though as it was Daylight Savings Time, and so we lost an hour of sleep, waking up even earlier than we are used to before beginning a 12 hour duty day and heading home.
I had the honor of attending a high school prom last week. My ladyfriend, Kirsten, is part of a group of educators that coordinate the Lewisville High School Grand Ball, which is a prom for students with special needs. It was a fun filled evening with a pirate theme! 
