Walk in the park - Tampa River Walk

The first thing we hear this AM was a plane coming in.

Spent last night at the Country Inn near the Tampa airport.

Plan was to call the local FL dispatcher at 8 AM when the 'office' opens. And I did. But this is an issue with this dispatcher ... the trip was gone yesterday and they didn't get around to removing it from the load board. :(

So now we have no work and no plans for the day because it was supposed to rain. Radar shows a long, narrow band of showers coming in from the west but disappearing before hitting land. And then out of nowhere, a small cloud appears out of nowhere but goes south of where we are ...

So both BB and I watch the load board all morning. We do eat breakfast at the hotel today.

At a little after 11 AM, house keep knocks on the door. I yell that we are still here but a few minutes later they are back. So this time I open the door and say we will be out by noon. Only then did we look to verify that check out was noon, it's not. It is, or was, at 11 AM. So I quickly call down to let them know we will be out in a few minutes.

When I go to check out, I comment on the good cookies ... as I am leaving, the person says "there will be more in a few minutes ..." I glance around. I've never seen cookies in the morning, only at check in.

Back in the car, BB looks at the hotel receipt and it has amounts on it. It is supposed to be rewards points. So I go back in ... and there are cookies ... lots of cookies. There is also a tour group waiting for their shuttle. That may be why the cookies ... and my receipt was OK ... it is showing the amount that Choice is paying the hotel because we used rewards points.

BB had mentioned the History Center a few times this week but today she finally decided she wanted to go. It is a lot less than the cost of the zoo, etc.

And it is downtown. GPS was fun. It doesn't always warn me which lane to be in ... and it never did get us to the pegged parking garage. We finally parked next to where the cruise ships load. BB did a selfie and sent it to 'the girls.' ... and said 'bye.' :( A couple of interesting comments but one was right on it ... G'ma would never go on a cruise.' :)

We paid for three hours at the lot and about two hours at the History Center. We only looked at two of the three floors and then it was time to eat.

We ate at the Columbia Cafe. We each had a Cuban and BB also had a salad. Food took a while and was good, but ... then we both agreed that the best Cuban we have had was in Key West in some warehouse building.

I had not looked before eating, but across the street where we parked at the cruse area ... there is <> a food court area with a dozen vendors we could have eaten at.

The parking was pay with an app online. It was supposed to let us know when we only had 15 minutes left. It did not. For a while BB could not access the account so she started a new account as it first looked like the other one never started. Lots of time spent but finally added another hour and a half because it took us most of an hour just to get our food. (and there were not even a half dozen other customers)

Now we had time so we walked the 'River Walk.' Nothing like the one in San Antonio. The advantage of this one is never having to cross the street for 2.6 miles. It does pass near at least one park and other places there are trees / bushes on both sides, but nothing 'neat' where we walked. Only saw four (likely) homeless people sitting on the benches. After that we noticed that most benches here are made so people can't lay down on them, they would need to sleep sitting up.

The cost we be the cost of parking where you can find it. The walk is all paved and it most places is 6-12 foot wide. And all looked to be about six feet above water level.

Lots of Water Taxi's and other types of boating options.

By the time we were done there we didn't have enough daylight hours to get to Fort Myers. I did call the office and told them we would be at their FL safety meeting on Thursday so now we will be here two more days.

It was about an hour to Sarasota and we could get there before dark.

Comfort Inn. I could only eat half my Cuban so BB and I split that half for our even meal.

Load board

US - 105

IA -0-

MN - 2

WI - 4

The only trip out of FL we have seen is almost 8 hours away and is only a four hour trip. Not something we can do after our safety meeting. We will keep watching the board.

Tomorrow we plan on eating breakfast in the old town. Then visit a park and a couple of cemeteries. We have looked at a couple of botanical gardens but some are expensive. The only major free one we have found was up in Clearwater and now we are gone from there.

We had thought of staying at the same hotel as the safety meeting but then BB looked at the reviews and now we are not. We'll stay somewhere nearby.