Anyway, we went to Tampa to spend Thanksgiving week with Valerie's grandmother and her late mother's husband, George. A good time was had by all, and this was a trip that was well worth the effort.
On one of our days out we stopped and walked along a gulf shore beach area near Clearwater -- and I use this town's name loosely, because I quite honestly have NO idea where we were. (I wasn't paying a bit of attention... I was either watching the scenery go by or playing with my Blackberry...)
The weather in the general Tampa area was hitting the 70 degree mark, but the beach felt a little cool when we were walking there (thanks mainly to a stiff breeze) -- I wasn't sure if I needed a light jacket or not, so I took it with me (and looked like an idiot for having one). In this photo the two predominant people are George and myself -- he looks like the confident resident and I look like the misfit tourist.After our beach walking exercise, we drove in a northward direction and wound up at a
place called the "Lucky Dill Deli" at the corner of US 19 (Alternate) and Alderman Road in Palm Harbor, Florida. I couldn't find a website to link in this article, but you can find plenty to read about if you do a Google Search for "Lucky Dill Deli". There's a lot of people out there who do NOT like this place, and yet it seems to pack in the crowds. The food we had was plentiful, reasonable in price considering the amount of meat they cram into the sandwiches and the in-house bakery case was amazing in itself.Thanksgiving Day was spent driving from Tampa to "The Villages", a golf retirement community where George has a small place to go to on the weekends (yes, he's an avid golfer). First off, this place is HUGE. If you like golf, check out the link to their website and take a look. Being that I'm not 55 and I don't golf, I don't think I'll be buying into this place anytime in the conceivable future. But I did notice a lot of old farts who were into cycling -- not the slow, bike path kind of riding but the hard core Lycra and high tech roadie style of cycling. So if I were to ever take up golf... there's the cycling option to be found there too.
Valerie's sister drove down to the Villages to meet up with us, and that's them with their grandmother smiling away in the photo. A few other family members showed up at the country club George had chosen for the meal and then we all sat down to a fabulous lunch (dinner?) that offered the choice of smoked salmon, prime rib, ham or the traditional dish of the day... turkey. Almost everyone at the table chose the turkey, although there was one who went with the ham.The food was amazing, and there was plenty of it. There wasn't an item on my plate that I didn't hesitate to finish (and I've never been a huge fan of yams and stuffing). Besides the turkey and the afore mentioned items we also had mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables cranberries, bread and a choice of soup or salad. Dessert was pecan pie with a scoop of pumpkin ice cream -- which was actually quite good, and the two complimented each other nicely.
We also spent some time walking around a couple of the malls in the Tampa area, and found that wheel chairs were readily available so we could push Grandma around and take it all in. She still gets around pretty good, but in places as big as these were the wheel chair was a real blessing considering the distances we covered (and the speed we did it in).
All good things have to come to an end, and we flew back to Boise the day after Thanksgiving. The weather here is cooling down, but still not as much as it should be doing for the season... and there's NO snow to talk about. The skiers are not happy about this, and if we don't start getting some "weather" and start putting some snow into the mountain ranges we're going to have a very dry year ahead of us.
Now that we're up to date... I wish you all the best until my next post!
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