Tarpon
Springs
The afternoon
of the 30th, after everybuddy got biked out, we headed fer
Tarpon Springs, about 35 miles north of the Freedom Trail.
Tarpon
Springs was famous fer sponges since a long time ago, when
Greek sponge divers moved here from Greece.
We got there and the guy at
the Visitors Center told us we could park in their parking
lot fer free instead of paying four bucks to park across the
street, so right then and there Jim decided to always go to
that Visitors Center whenever we come to Tarpon Springs.
The old folks went through
the Sponge Museum, right next to the visitors Center and saw
a movie about how sponges are harvested from the ocean floor
by divers with some special rakes. Then it showed how
they clean the sponges and trim off the bad parts and figger
out how much to sell them for. It also showed all the
uses people have for the different kinds of sponges.
After that they went on a
boat tour, and Sparky and Sniffy got to go along. We
got to see all sorts of interesting boat junk yards and
stuff like that, plus there were a lot of really beautiful
homes and small islands all over the place. There were
also several boat storage facilities, and they stack the
boats up in some reel big shelves to get them out of the way
until the boat owner decides he needs to take a boat ride
somewhere, then they get his boat down with a special fork
lift made specially fer boats.
On the way back from where
the boat turned around fer the ride back to Tarpon Springs,
we got to see a dolphin that was acting wild and crazy,
racing reel fast then jumping reel high out of the water,
jest like in the movies. I guess he was reel excited
or something, or he was begging fer some chocolate chip
cookies or something like that.
I don't know zacktly what he
was up to, but he got so excited
that he was busy looking at the boat we were on and wasn't
looking where he was swimming, and pretty soon he jumped
reel high, and landed smack in the middle of the submerged
trees in the pitcher below at right. I think they had
to call Flipper to come and save him, cuz Lassie can't swim
good enough to pull that reel big fish out of that tree!
Tarpon Springs tour boats
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Tarpon Springs boat storage
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Tarpon Springs bird storage
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Submerged trees that dolphin
hit
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After the boat tour, we went
to a gift shop to look fer something
special, but most of them jest had a lot of stuff we didn't
need, if you ken imagine that. We didn't need no
sponges, so we din't get any of them, either.
We did find a reel cool gift
shop that had lots of things that nobuddy ever needs, but
besides that they had a statue of Captain Tuna, "The
Chicken of the Sea," which fit perfectly in the niche
we have downstairs.
Jim built that niche several
years ago to hold some knick knacks, but everything was
always too short, so when he saw Captain Tuna, he jest had
to have that statue, and it fits the space perfectly, right
above the boat that that
feller probably used to drive before he "turned
chicken." That
statue is about 14 inches tall, and looks like the old
feller is driving a boat and making sure nobuddy is chasing
him. The small steam
tractor on the next shelf down reely runs on steam.
You jest build a little fire in the fireplace in the tractor
and put in some water, and stand back and watch it race
along. We never fired it up yet, but one of these days
we'll do that. The bottom shelf is waiting fer
somebuddy to find something that will look reel cool there.
To find out more about Tarpon
Springs, jest click below:
Tarpon
Springs Information On
the way out of the Tampa Bay area, we went over the Sunshine
Skyway Cable Stay Bridge, and on the other side we turned
into the old bridge, which they turned into a fishing
pier. We had bought a Florida State Parks annual
permit, that got us into most parks fer free. The
lady at the gate to the fishing pier looked at our pass, and
charged us $2.14, cuz she said that pass only pays part of
that particular park. We
figgered she came up with that price by charging a dollar each
fer the old folks and 2 cents each fer us 7 guys. And that money was only good for us to stay there fer an
hour, so we made sure to get out of there on time, cuz we
din't have no plans to go fishing. There was them
pelican birds all over the place, so none of us guys wanted
to get out of the van, jest in case one of them decided one
of us looked like a meal. We
heard that a big freighter boat crashed into the original
bridge May 9, 1980, resulting in 35 deaths and lots of
damage to the structure. That old bridge was
demolished and the ends turned into the fishing pier.
The big bridge in the pitcher opened in 1990. You ken
read all about it on the websites below: Sunshine
Skyway Bridge & Pier Sunshine
Skyway Bridge Demolition & History Oscar
Scherer State Park After
passing through Sarasota, we went to Oscar Scherer State
Park, and it was a reel nice place to eat lunch, so that's
what we did. Me and Sniffy got to play on the swing
and climb up the chain, and jest mess around fer a while,
and nothing there broke or nothing, so they reely had sturdy
playground equipment.
The sign at the front entrance
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Gulf of Mexico in end of park
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Shady lane in park
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Sparky & Ty on swing chain
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From that Oscar Scherer park
we blasted off and went to Ft. Myers, which isn't reely a
fort, but jest another town.
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