Winter in Florida

1999 was the first year we did the "snowbird" thing and spent the winter months in Florida.  We rented a house on the beach in the Pass-A-Grille section of St. Pete Beach, Florida for Jan-Mar.  However, with 3 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths, it was a little large for the two of us.  One of the features of the house was the upstairs bathroom.  The shower alone was large enough to hold a party for 25!   Another feature of the house was our birds.   St. Pete Beach is home for a colony of wild parrots.  Actually, they are parakeets.  But, since they are as large as a mourning dove, they are called Monk Parrots or Quaker Parrots.  Our landlady, who calls them her "beautiful birds", asked us to feed them while we were there.  We had as many as 25 show up to feed one morning.  Click here for a few photos of the Pass-A-Grille area.

We enjoyed 3 months of beautiful weather while in Florida!  Nothing like we remembered winters in St. Petersburg from when we lived there in 1963-65.  Beautiful weather!  Temperatures ranged from warm to cool with almost no rain.  Unusually warm and sunny for the winter months.  And every day ended with a gorgeous sunset.  Click here for a selection of sunset photos.

Fortunately, friends visited and helped us to make good use of all the space in the house.  Good friends from Maryland, Vince and Barbara Mallozzi, spent several weeks with us.  Tim and Marianne Tanner from Canton, Ohio, came down for a week.  Cozette and Tony O'Neil from near Huntsville, Alabama visited one weekend for the Florida State Fair in Tampa.  And Janice Davis visited from Gautier, Mississippi for a few days.  We also enjoyed the company of some great neighbors.  Carol and Arthur from Minneapolis, Minnesota, rented the house next door for two months.  And Steve and Connie were long term tenants in a one bedroom apartment in one corner of our house.  Steve is a "man of the sea", who operates a home based business called Marine Technologies.  He also is an artist.   His second home based business is sculpting in glass.  His work is mostly side lighted sculptures of marine scenes and beautiful women in flat pane glass.  His works range from small wall hangings to complete doors.  Gorgeous work!!  Connie, who is from Brazil, is his main model.  Steve and Connie are also volunteer sailors on the Bounty, which is a replica of the original Bounty that was built for the Marlon Brando movie Mutiny on the Bounty and winters in St. Petersburg.  Then there was the "mystery man" in the one bedroom apartment in the other corner of our house.  Steve said that he wasn't around much and he wasn't kidding!  In three months we never saw him, not even coming or going, nor heard him when he was there, except for the faint sound of a radio playing at times.  We never saw a car that we could attribute to him.  We know he existed, though, because his mail was picked up regularly from the mailbox, which was just outside our front door, and Carol once saw a woman leaving his apartment.   But those were the only conclusive signs of life in 3 months we were there.  A mystery that I still wonder about.  Click here for photos of our friends.

Sue and I took sailing lessons while there.  The Annapolis Sailing School operates year-round at St. Petersburg.  We completed two 5-day sailing courses, Basic Keelboat Sailing and Preparation for Cruising.  Our instructors were Cindy and Bill.  Click here for sailing photos.

I ran 12 races in the 13 weeks we were there.  One was the Disney Half Marathon.   Runner'sWorld Online Forum friends Scottydog and Celeste were there, along with their spouses Gail and Doug.  Click here for Disney Half Marathon photos.  Tim Tanner and I ran two races one weekend he was there.  One was the Gasparilla Classic.   He ran the 5k and I ran the 15k.  The next day, we ran a 5k on the beach just a mile from our house.  I have no photos from those races.  A couple of weeks later, a Pass-A-Grille 5k race was held with the start and finish line literally just outside my front door.  Grandpa Charley stopped by to run that one with me enroute from Maryland to Sanibel Island near Ft. Meyers, Florida.  Vince and his daughter, Claudia, who lives in Tampa, did the 1-mile walk.  Arthur and his dog, Boz, also walked the mile.  Click here for Pass-A-Grille 5k race photos.  I also got to spend time with Frank Soder, a good running friend who I originally met on the internet, at several races.  Frank is in his 60's, has been a runner all his life and is known as the "conscience of competitive running" on one of the internet running forums (Merv) that I frequent.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me at any of the races where I saw Frank.

We reluctantly left Florida on March 25 to head home via Alabama and Mississippi.   The first stop on the way was Mobile, Alabama, where we met CJ, Bren and Larry, friends from the Runner'sWorld Online Forums, for the Azalea Trail 10k.   It was great to see them again!  Click here for Azalea Trail 10k photos.

Next, a couple of days at my brother's home in Vancleave, Mississippi, where we enjoyed seeing our newly born great-nephew and visiting with Janice and her family a few miles down the Pascagoula river in Gautier.  Finally, an overnight stop with good friends, Tony and Cozette, at their ranch in Gurley, Alabama, just outside of Huntsville.  They raise llamas, horses, miniature horses, miniature donkeys and a pot-bellied pig, along with assorted dogs, cats and ducks, on their ranch.  Click here for photos.

It was good to get home, but we look forward to doing it again next year.   Probably with some changes, though.  Sailing will play a greater role next time.....maybe even a primary role.