Ending a trip

It is my last full day of goofing off, and it was a quiet, but good day.  I left Fort Myers early and headed to St. Petersburg and the Dali Museum.  That was eye-opening.  It is a great story how it got there--Cleveland didn't want it, so St Pete volunteered.  I think that Cleveland might be kicking herself, but this was before Cleveland got so cool with the R&R museum and good stadiums.

Dali has talent, of that there is no doubt.  His early work was in the style of the very best impressionists and technically, you can tell his work is very good.  However, I suspect that he might be just a few fries short of a happy meal, to use one of those trite phrases. Wow.  Weird weird stuff, like LSD hallucination weird stuff.  I am glad I went, but even though I looked hard in the gift shop, I couldn't find anything that I liked enough to buy and put on my wall.

One of my goals was to travel Florida on the backroads and byways and I really did fail at this.  It was/is too easy to hop on a freeway, and often, those little state highways are nightmares of stoplights, strip malls, and uncontrolled intersections and farm machinery.  I did do better today and took Highway 19 from Tampa/St Pete up to Tarpon Springs.  At times it is a dreary drive, but at least it wasn't freeway driving.

Tarpon Springs is one of the best surprises of the trip.  Someone at the conference mentioned it and said it might be fun.  It is the sponge capital of the New World, and a community made up of mostly Greeks.  It is cute, touristy, laid back and fun.  The downtown had nice antique shops and a great book store (now the former home to an early Modern Library copy of Madam Bovary, with a dust jacket that I have never seen-yay!).  Closer to the sponge docks are streets with Greek restaurants and well, sponge stores.  A way above average Greek meal was dinner--it was 50 times better than the non-existent Greek place in St Cloud!  It was good advice that brought me here, and I am glad I made the effort.

Tomorrow I head back.  I have 39 minutes between flights in Atlanta, and I bet no one is taking bets on that one working out.  We will see--why rush?  The waiter at dinner tonight said why go back?  He suggested I stay and work at the place and just move to Tarpon Springs.  I am not sure about that, but I know that I shiver thinking about Minnesota weather again after a week of 80-85 degree weather.