Hi,
No quotes from Chase’s almanac today, I’m in Florida and the book’s in Pittsburgh. I was able to squeeze five nights out to come down for some sunshine. 🙂 Two years ago when I came down to West Palm, they had the coldest day in 25 years! Last year when I went down to West Palm, we broke records for the coldest day! I was a little nervous of this trip, but the weather’s spectacular. 🙂
Since I’m only here for five days, I didn’t want to spend a day driving down and a day driving back, so I flew down and am staying with my good friend Jeff, he and Karl own and run The Inn on the Mexican War Streets. Not only do they have a wonderful condo on the water in Tampa, but Jeff is a great culinarian (he taught culinary for years) and we’ve been having these wonderful b’fasts and dinners here. The sun burns me like a two year old, so I need to be careful, but have been out in the sun for about an hour each day and getting a little bit of color. Spent some time around Tampa/St Pete, I’ve been here before a couple of times, but this is the first time with a “local” and it’s a very nice area (generally, I still prefer the east coast, but do like what I’ve been seeing here). Here’s a picture of Jeff and myself at the Vinoy hotel in St Pete, a historic hotel with this huge Chihuly chandelier in their ballroom.
While in town, we visited the Chihuly exhibit in one of their local art museums. It was nice, but nothing like the exhibit when Chihuly was in the Phipps Conservatory. Now that was spectacular. We didn’t make it to the new Salvatore Dali museum that recently opened here, Jeff had recently been there and I didn’t want to be pushy.
Well, my flight is due in Pittsburgh at 2 p.m., when I left for Florida, I had three reservations, I am now almost sold out Friday night. #1 I hope the flight isn’t late. #2, I have some hustling to do on my way home from the airport.
Wish me luck, 🙂
ed
