Tampa Bay Hotel

1891

Pasco Winter Quarters: Slept good last night. Mike not feeling too swift though. Made a smoothie and sat down with the computer to balance my check book, take care of e-mail, etc. Then around 1:00 we headed to downtown Tampa to see the old Tampa Bay Hotel which was built in 1891. This is a wonderful historic hotel built on the Hillsboro River by Henry Plant as a railroad hotel. In 1898 Teddy Roosevelt and his roughriders were billeted here during the Spanish American war. The Moorish architecture is so different. An amazing place. After walking around there we headed over to Indian Rocks Beach to have an early dinner at Keegans Sea Food Grill. It was featured on the show, “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives”, and Mike has wanted to eat there ever since. He had octopus and I had blackened grouper. Very good. Indian Rocks Beach is a cute little community—not very touristy. Just north of there is Belleaire Beach which is even nicer but a lot more expensive. Drove back along the Gulf and got home around 7:00. A sunny day with a high of 69.

Sun, 11/16/08

Pasco Winter Quarters: Had a hard time sleeping last night since the people next to us have a wind chime outside near our bedroom window. Dinged all night long. Finally got going and tried to find an Office Depot to get some copies made. Finally got that done and headed over to Sandy and Dan’s. We went to a cute little restaurant for brunch and then back to play spades. Played all afternoon. We left in time to get home and watch Desperate Housewives. A beautiful, sunny day—but cool.