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See The Big Cinnamomum Tree...
Jim standing in front of the big tree in Clearwater, Florida

And see it free!

That's right, the reel big Cinnamomum tree in the pitcher is pretty old, and it's there for you to look at, fer free!

It's located right next door to the Perkins Family Restaurant, 2626 Gulf-to-Bay Blvd., Clearwater, Florida.  No appointment or ticket necessary!!!!

NOTE:  Tell them Sparky sent you and you'll be able to get anything on the menu at regular prices.  (Their Mammoth Muffins are reely great!)

While the old folks was in Perkins eating, I saw the cook go out with his big ladder and climb up into that tree and pick some of those cinnamon berries that he uses to make those cinnamon Mammoth Muffins.  That way, the cinnamon is reely fresh!


Tourist things we missed in the Tampa area:
Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Pinewood Cultural Park

Rent-a-Harley

Salvador Dali Museum

Cap'n. Moby's Pirate Cruise

Big Bob's Deep Sea Fishin'

Jack's Wind Surfing Rentals

Betty's Walking Tours

To see other things that we might have missed, click below:

Tampa Area Things to see Information   


Things we don't miss about the Tampa area:

The heavy traffic!

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Sparky's Florida Trip Header, representative of things seen in Florida

Page 7
(By Sparky)

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 excitedTwo dolphins jumping like the one that landed in the tree 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
Tarpon Springs tour boats

Tarpon Springs boat storage house
Tarpon Springs boat storage

Tarpon Springs bird storage posts
Tarpon Springs bird storage

Tarpon Springs submerged trees that dolphin landed in
Submerged trees that dolphin hit

After the boat tour, we went to a gift shop to look fer someStatue of Captain Tuna, "The Chicken of the Sea"thing 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 thatNiche where Captain Tuna's statue now lives 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 SuSunshine Skyway bridge from old fishing piernshine 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. Resting birds on Sunshine Skyway fishing pierWe 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.

Oscar Scherer State Park entrance sign
The sign at the front entrance

Gulf of Mexico leaking into the park
Gulf of Mexico in end of park

Shady lane in Oscar Scherer State Park
Shady lane in park

Sparky and Ty climbing swing chain
Sparky & Ty on swing chain

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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COUNTDOWN TO

GET READY...
IT BEGINS
MAY 3

The news media has been announcing for several days now that Mosquito Season will officially begin on May 3rd, so stay tuned to see how well we do with only one can of Off!

They also are telling folks to clean up their property, dumping out any standing water in buckets, birdbaths, yard junk, etc.

What about all the swamps?  Maybe somebuddy could drain those as well!

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Copyright (C) 2004 by James J. Meagher