Tampa Tour with Pelicans and Flipper

Yesterday was non-stop. I woke up at 5 a.m. to my alarm (which I usually don't use) and came to Dunkin' Donuts to blog before driving to downtown Tampa to meet my friend Sue for a long walk. Sue routinely walks early in the morning -- which is sensible in Florida -- so I knew I had to be there early! We met near the big public market known as the Armature Works and walked along the Hillsborough River down past the Convention Center and then back up through the middle of downtown.

I know Sue and her husband John from college, where we were all editors at the student newspaper. She is probably my oldest and most consistent friend, and although we only see each other every six months or so, we're able to pick right up again with our conversation as if we'd just been talking the day before. So it was great to walk and talk and have her show me around my hometown, which has changed so much since I lived here that it's almost like a new city.

Afterwards we went to...

...Goody Goody, a diner in the Hyde Park neighborhood. It used to be located north of downtown but that old building was demolished and the new owners saved the name and the historic sign and moved it to a trendier area. I had a big ol' veggie omelette, and then we walked down to scenic Bayshore Boulevard and to the old apartment building on the water where we used to live, way back in 1991 or so.

Sue says her phone app reported that we walked eight miles altogether! I'm skeptical, but technology never lies. (Does it?)

Then I hopped in the car and drove over the towering Sunshine Skyway bridge to see Dave's parents in Bradenton. (They usually live in Michigan but they're snowbirds, so they overwinter here.) We had lunch (more food, ugh) overlooking an inlet of Sarasota Bay populated by pelicans as big and clumsy as pterodactyls.

And here's today's Florivideo™, which will bring all this activity to life for you:

I gave it some musical accompaniment with a Cuban flavor, to celebrate Tampa's Cuban heritage. (And yes, I admit it, I was distracted by the hunky jogger! I had to strongly resist the urge to follow him with the camera rather than the scenery. But that would have been creepy.)

I tried to help Dave's parents iron out some difficulties they've been having with their laptop computer -- mainly with the sound -- but I succeeded only in setting the clock correctly. I think the bottom line is they need a better computer. We Skyped with Dave back in London.

Finally, I hopped back in the car and came back to Tampa, just in time to go to dinner with my stepmother, stepsister and her husband. I had a bowl of clam chowder and a salad. I feel like I ate about 6,000 calories yesterday, so thank goodness for all that walking!