Walk in the park - Honeymoon Island

No alarm, no dogs barking last night after management knocked on the door. When we left in the AM, I mentioned it to the front desk. They knew all about it. The only dog they knew about was below us (and was a service dog.) BB was not with me then, but she is 'almost' sure that she saw the dogs in that room when someone was let in earlier in the night ???

No hotel breakfast today. We want to get some outside things done before it starts to rain.

1st stop is a place called Sandpiper. Five indoor tables and the rest are outside. We ate outside. I had a croissant and BB had a (mostly) vegetable bowl.

From there it is five miles to Honeymoon Island State Park. Our 2nd stop for the day.

We stopped at the visitors center. We were advised to walk on the gulf side of the island. If you walk inland or on the bay side of the island you are likely to be lunch for their mosquitoes. And yes, we did see a few, but didn't get bit.

The visitors center had a list of the birds that people report seeing each day. We didn't pay much attention. We did see a few oysters on the ground and a few more that people were picking up and putting in bags. Also a couple of kids were playing with hermit crabs that they had found. Other than that, a million shells. We gave up trying not to step on them.

We walked for about an hour and a half on the beach. Sandy beach. There is a paved bike trail inland along the drive that I think goes for miles across the causeway and into town.

Cost to get into the park was $8 per car. The only bathrooms we saw were on the 2nd level of each building. The buildings are on stilts with a ramp to the 2nd floor. Long ramp.

It rained a little while we were walking but not enough to wet the ground.

Grave Days - Curlew - Palm Hills FL

It is in the next town, but only a couple of miles from the State park.

By chance we saw the area when the grave should be located as we drove in. So we walked that section once and some of it a second time. Not finding the park, we figured that the parker was under the tarp where the next quest was to be buried.

After not finding it, I went into the office to see if they could tell me where it was. They said they could, but I wouldn't understand. Then the person comes and walks us to the areas to the area we had been walking. We both milled it. :(

At this point we have nowhere else planned to go. The zoo is $50- , the aquarium's run from $50-180 and the closest safari is $125. Busch Gardens is $100+. Yes, our meals sometimes cost that much for the two of us but not ready to spend that much to look at things like that. (I just looked, we would get 50% off if we have our MN zoo membership with us)

4th stop of the day is Bay Pine National Cemetery. It is about 15 miles/30 minutes from where we were. I knew which way I wanted to go so I wasn't really listening to the GPS. Turns out that my way was one mile further. I wanted to get on a US highway and it wanted me to take city streets. Didn't know the difference then so we took the city streets.

Grave Days - Bay Pines National

When we got to where the GPS said to turn, the gate was locked. Google had said that it would be closed today but we thought just the buildings. I was already turning so we u-turned and then we saw a sign that said 'War Memorial Park.' Sounded half right. Nope, it was the park that was adjacent to the cemetery.

When we got stopped, I looked at the map and saw there was another main entrance. At some of them, only the main entrance is open. Today was one of those day. Once on the grounds, we followed our noses as the GPS still wanted us to go through closed gates.

Most national cemeteries have all info on FindaGrave or on their own website. And they are well marked so we went straight to the area and these stones were numbered so it was an easy find.

Still too early to head to the hotel so we head to another cemetery about five miles away just off this street.

Grave Days - Memorial Park - Saint Petersburg

There was someone working, but walking right where we came into the cemetery so I stopped and asked where to find the section I was looking for. He had no idea but called over a guy on the mower. They didn't know the section name either ... and then I told them HOW it was listed ... that was different. The BB that I thought was the grave location was actually the section numbers they use when talking about an area.

This cemetery has <> 50,000 graves and is split by roads into three sections.

Once we find the right section, we walk the whole section before we find it. It is in almost the exact opposite corner as to where we parked our car.

Opps, I thought that the people I was looking for here were husband and wife. They were not. So now we had to go back past where we had originally turned in and found the right section. So we walked. Walked for about 30 minutes before we found the one marker we were looking for.

The other area of the cemetery has markers in the ground forming a grid, but I didn't have access to those numbers. The 2nd area did not have the grid part in place yet.

NOW we are ready to head to the hotel. I've looked at a map and this street will cross the freeway in a few miles. GPS wants to save me 5 feet by having me twist and turn through the neighborhood streets. I go my way. That part went OK.

But closer to the hotel, we get near the airport and the GPS stops talking. I don't know that so I keep going straight ... into the airport. Hey, it is an airport hotel. That adds an extra mile or two to our trip.

6th stop is the Country Inn. We could have stayed where we were, but this one is closer to the rental car return and has a hot tub.

Instead of getting in the car for food, we walked to the Mission BBQ a few blocks away. Good and tender food. BB had chicken, I had pork. Blueberry cobbler was good too.

Now, back at the hotel, we are noticing that we are in a flight pattern for the airport. Hope it does not keep us up tonight. Can't complain about that, it is an airport hotel.

BB did look at the trips a few times. There had been a FL to AZ truck but it was a used one and we are not ready to go.

Now there is a 100 mile trip that we may take tomorrow. Our way of saying we are 'waiting for work.' :)

I got paid for my last trip, BB did not. Well she kind of did. Dispatch had put money on her fuel card right away for the first RV that didn't go ... and then put more money on her card for the 2nd RV that did go. They didn't realize that they didn't do until it came pay day. BB had realized it earlier today before I got paid.

(while I am typing this, there was a tornado on the east / ocean coast of FL, a couple of hours away from us.

Load board

US - 117

IA - 1/0

MN - 6

WI - 2

No plan for tomorrow. No breakfast plans, no state park plans, no grave plans. We do need to either return our rental car or extend it. No work at home, no work to get us home. Likely we will stay here, maybe through the weekend.

There is a company meeting near here on Thursday ...