"The Everglades / Tampa" Tampa Travelogue by paradisedreamer

We got up at 5am. Sam was not at all impressed with having to get up so early. It took some cajoling to get her out of bed but we were on the road by 6:30am. Sunrise was fantastic but Marc would not stop for a photo opportunity - he was in drive mode.
We got onto the Tamiami Trail (Tampa - Miami) just after Miami and oour next stop was Shark Valley in the Everglades. We arrived just in time for the first tram tour at 9:30. We sprayed ourselves from top to toe and covered Sam in sunscreen. The tour was fantastic, we saw a lot of alligators as well as lots of new babies. About halfway you come to a lookout tower and from the top you can literally see for miles. It actually looks like the African savannah except for the fact that it was all water (the reeds look like veld). The bird-life was also very prolific - don't ask me names, white ones, grey ones black ones big ones and little ones and ones they dive into the water for fish.
Sam stumbled and scraped her knee at the tower so she was a bit sulky and tearful for the second half. The fauna and flora was absolutely spectacular. I am sop glad that we had the time to at least get a glimpse of the Everglades.

North of the Everglades City we stopped for lunch and people passing by kept saying 'Hey how are ya?', people are so friendly here!. The Mr Camero pulled up. He had the red Camero with custom flames down the side and tinted windows. Then he stepped out, Jeans with the crotch to his ankles, white vest, bandana and gold chains with THE swagger, damn he was cool lol!

We eventually got to Venice (On the West coast just south of Tampa).. By this time we were very tired and just wanted to find our hotel. Of course it wasn't that easy and we had actually driven past it. At least tomorrow we don't have such a long drive.

On the way to dinner we drove down to the beach, It was really stunning with the sun setting. We went to Sony's for an all you can eat rib dinner. The portions were enormous and we had salad as well. I had a horrible headache and added to my really painful knee (I put it out before we left but it is just getting worse) It was with relief that we got to bed. We were all snoring by 8:30pm (our new bed-time!).

It was another beautiful day. My knee was feeling much better and my headache was gone. We had a good breakfast at the hotel before setting off for St Petersburg. It didn't take nearly as long as I had imagined.

We first went to the Salvador Dali museum. It was expensive ($14 each) but an excellent exhibition and since he is my favourite artist well…It is apparently the largest collection outside Spain. Sam was very impressed when we showed her our paintings in the books in the gift shop.

We then drove along the coast to Clearwater beach. It was a little too 'Umhlanga' for us. Far too built up, concrete city. Nevertheless it is a beautiful beach with lovely soft white sand. We spent a great afternoon walking along the beach and Sam played in the sand. It was fairly overcast which was actually a good thing or we would have been burnt to a crisp.

It was then time for us to make our way towards Busch gardens where out hotel was. We hit some pretty bad traffic and started getting worried when we passed trailer park after trailer park. A friend had told me it was not in the best area of town. We were staying at the Safari lodge and after some of the motels we passed, it was a relief when we found it and it was OK, it had everything we needed. We were just across the road and down a bit form the entrance to the park.

The LP recommended Mel's hotdogs as a good place to eat and it was directly opposite our motel so no guesses as to what we had for dinner that night!