A Walk on the Beach

While the northeast is buried under lots of 'snows', we are grumbling about our chilly weather. The sun peaked out and the Turk and I dashed out to the beach to see what we could see. And we saw nature enjoying the day without those pesky humans...except for us!  

Bike Ride to....Greece?

Cold winter finally blinked today, leaving us with a sunny and warm (70 degrees) Sunday.  Wanting to take every advantage of this day I thought -  We MUST ride our bikes...we MUST ride to....Tarpon Springs!

Tarpon Springs is the Greek community 10 miles up the road.  It was the sponge diving capital of the US until the red tide came one year and wiped out the majority of the sponges. They still dive, but I think they plant the sponges so the tourists can enjoy it.  This town really does have a large Greek population who look and even speak Greek.  And they have really good Greek food...but only in a few places.

We hopped on our bikes and hit the Pinellas Trail. It was sunny, with a slight breeze, and best of all, it was WARM.  We biked into Palm Harbor and continued north to Wall Springs Park. This is a great park built around a ...you guessed it..springs. In the 20's, people would come from up north to bathe in these springs.  It was like a spa.  The park stretches to the gulf, surrounded by mangroves for a very birdy and natural coastal setting.  No sandy beaches here, but lots of trees, nice facilities, the bubbling springs and their fish, and a 3 story wooden tower you can climb to view the area.

But we ride past the Springs because we are on a mission. A bit up the road, I hear screeching. Not bird screeching but almost like really loud obnoxious teenager screeching.  We pull off the trail to discover the Primate Sanctuary!  

The animals are all rescued and while there are alot of primates (including the arguably oldest chimp in captivity). There are also exotic birds, snakes and other critters.  But we just stood at the back fence that is near the Trail and watched the crazy chimps playing around. We didnt go in - yet.  But we will make that another adventure!

Back on our bikes, peddling, peddling north we passed the Tarpon Springs trail sign.  When we got into the downtown, we saw a farmers market.  Never passing a farmers market without stopping - even on our cross country trip - we stopped in.  There weren't alot of farmers, but there were a mix of bakers, coffee makers, and cheese guys.  We snarfed a taste of pierogi which was ok, not great.  Then on the bikes again...through town to the sponge docks.  


Once we got to the sponge docks I felt like we had arrived at any third world country tourist location. Barkers were on the sidewalk trying to get you onto their sponge boat trip. Restaurant staff were outside yelling their specials. There was even a woman just yelling for her friend, in Greek (actually some unintelligible language, but i'd prefer to think of it as Greek considering we were in Tarpon Springs and all).

After wandering around amongst the other people who were gleefully enjoying the warm day, we needed to EAT and Mykonos was the spot. We had to wait almost 30 mins to get in bur everyone who left was very happy - a good sign!  We ordered a Greek salad and combination plate. It was delicious and even with biking over 10 miles, we couldn't finish all of it.  The salad was chunks of tomato, cucumber, sweet onions and peppers with black olives and chunks of feta in a tasty lemon olive oil dressing. The combo included a dolma, pastitsio, mousaka and gyro meat. 

Mark doesnt like Greek mousaka, preferring the Turkish version. But even he had to admit the grilled eggplant was really tasty. The dolma had a wonderful tobacco'y flavor - although that doesnt sound good, it was. Pastitsio is like a Greek mac n cheese with a layer of ground meat. The cheese was rich and filling and we could only eat part of it. The gyro meat was tasty and not a bit was left behind.

We rolled out of Mykonos to get on our bikes and head home.  We had to take it a bit slow considering the additional weight we were now carrying. Our original plans had included a stop at Strachans Ice Cream in Palm Harbor on the way home, but that will have to be for another day!

Girls and Manatees

Sara and Tulin each took trips to visit us in February. After all the bragging I've done about Florida's great winter weather, it was a bit embarrassing to welcome them with layers of wool sweaters, hats and mittens.  While Sara visited first, we tried to put the blame on Tulin for the cold. After all, she flew in from Missoula MT (checking out University Montana) and the temperature was only 6 degrees different!!!

Undaunted, we still managed a hike on Honeymoon Island to visit the nests of the ospreys and bald eagles. One thing about cold weather in this area is that you know where you'll find the manatees.  So we headed down to the Tampa Electric power plant in Apollo Beach which is, apparently, a winter manatee resort!

 

 

Not very exciting pictures, but you have to understand that the manatees are at the SPA!  They are relaxing in the 80 degree waters along with their spotted ray friends who kept jumping out of the water and flopping onto their bellies with a loud SPLAT.  And the warm weather attracted some snook who also jumped out of the water spinning and wriggling their tails - quite a site!

You can imagine how the Turkish fisherman was pacing the dock trying to figure out how to catch one.  There is a fishing ban on snook right now because so many died in the cold waters which resulted from the continuous freezes we had.  There were also a bunch of manatees who didn't make it.  The sea turtles were struggling as well and volunteers were at the beach picking the cold-stunned turtles up to go to various shelters.