Tampa/St. Pete - January 2011

Well, it's travel season again and I'm up. My new client is in St. Petersburg Florida. I haven't been there since I was a kid. When I was in the third or fourth grade, my family went to Busch Gardens in Tampa. I didn't have time to revisit.
This is my lovely room at the Hampton Inn on Beach Street. It was great. It had a balcony overlooking the Yacht Club.

Ok St. Petersburgians - what's up with the street names??? My hotel intersected with 1st Avenue N. If I drove two blocks over, I was on 1st Avenue S. These two streets are parallel. I asked the desk clerk where the CVS was because I forgot a brush (and that's a whole different story!) and he said it was on the corner of third and third. Seriously - it was on the corner of 3rd Avenue S and 3rd Street. No wonder my GPS was having such a hard time.

The view from my balcony. That's the park in front of the Yacht Club. St. Petersburg is pretty small. But for such a small town, the traffic is ridiculous. After my first meeting, I had to drive 7 miles to get to a GNC (I forgot my vitamins) and it took me 30 minutes. Yes - 30 minutes to drive 7 miles.
This hotel next to me is a historic old hotel that was built in the early 1900's. I meant to take a picture of the sign and I kept forgetting.
My first night after my client meeting, I decided to walk around. I'd heard that the weather was going to be rainy in the next couple of nights so I wanted to take advantage of the nice weather. The views around town were just amazing. The photos don't do justice at all, not even with my fancy new camera lens that I got for Christmas.
This is the park across the street from my room. I'm taking the photo from my balcony.
Palm trees are everywhere.
The touristy thing to do is "The Pier". It's an actual pier where you can fish among other things. There are some restaurants and shops. This bench and statue, which I thought looked kind of neat, is outside the St. Petersburg Historical Museum. Unfortunately, it closed at 5 pm.
The entrance to the Pier.
This is one of the many beach front parks along the water. It was dusk and the colors in the sky were just beautiful. Sadly it turned into a really foggy night. My goal was to have dinner and/or drinks at this restaurant on the Pier that claimed to have the best views of the bay. No point on this night.

I didn't walk out on the beach. As much as I love the water (the bay, the ocean, the lake, etc) I hate the beach. The sand gets everywhere!
This is a view of St. Petersburg - one of the coastlines...
These pelicans are everywhere. On the Pier, there's a place called the Bait House. They sell food to feed the pelicans. There's someone there purchasing food which is why all the pelicans are gathered 'round. As I was walking around this building, there was a lady yelling to "get this bird off me!". She asked me how to make them go away. Apparently, the lady caught a fish and the pelicans wanted it. There was pelican poop everywhere.
St. Petersburg.
I loved the way this tree was lit up. After I realized there was nothing to see on the Pier, I decided that I'd drive over to Tropicana Field, which is where the Tampa Bay Devil Rays play.
Walking back to my car, this was one of the buildings that was lit up.
Not a great photo. I thought it might be lit up a little more but it wasn't. It was right about then that I realized how dark it was over here and how there were NO people. I ran back to my car.Then I saw this sign and stopped to take a photo. I really did think my life was in danger because this was a scary part of town but when a photo op presents itself, you gotta do what you gotta do.

If I end up going back to do training, I hope to go during baseball season. I'm not much of a baseball fan but I really enjoy going to ballparks away from home.
The next night, I wanted to walk around a little more so I ran back to my hotel room after my client meeting. I was changing and when I looked outside, this is what I saw. The wind was crazy strong and it was pouring down rain. I'd parked my car by a parking meter and fed the meter all the change that I had. The meter was expiring about 6 pm but at that time it was pouring so I thought I'd be safe. Those bastards were out in the rain giving people parking tickets at the expired meters.

In an effort to generate good karma, I just paid the blasted thing. $25.
The next day, it was clear as a bell and just gorgeous out. This is the Pier in the daylight. The Pier is an inverted triangle.
St. Petersburg.
The Yacht Club. Those don't look like yachts to me but what do I know?
This is the Tampa skyline. Yes, on the way to the airport, I pulled over just before crossing the bridge and took pictures. I have to tell you, the pictures do NOT do the view justice at all.
Tampa Bay. There was a really cool picture in the other direction but I didn't see it until I was driving. The bridge going the other direction goes up so I could see the Tampa coast under the bridge. It's really hard to take a picture while driving at 70 mph. I decided to pass.

There is this really cool bridge (I-275) that goes from Tampa to St. Pete and it crosses the bay. I LOVE driving over the water. I don't know why but I think it's very calming. I got out of my client meeting much earlier than expected. I could have stayed over and tried to catch the first flight out the next day - which would have given me time to drive around and see stuff - or I could try to catch the next flight home. As much as I wanted to check out the town, home won out.

All these places that I go to for work are nice but there's no place like home.