Anniversary Week

While I had originally planned to play basketball in Houston, I changed my mind because it meant being away from my husband of 48 years. Instead, Arne and I had a wonderful three days in St. Petersburg/Tampa, FL. We drove down Tuesday afternoon and checked into America's Best Inn, only 22 rooms, and very friendly hostess with whom Arne got to practice his German. The inn reminded us of an old European hotel. 5 PM was happy hour and in the morning a substantial Continental breakfast was served.

Tuesday evening, we spent a few hours at The Pier, which is surrounded by Tampa Bay. It was nice to be by the water to watch sailboats and people fishing.

Wednesday morning we went to Sunken Gardens. The Gardens began in 1903, when plumber and avid gardener George Turner Sr. purchased the site, including a shallow lake 10 feet (3.0 m) below sea level, which he drained to form his private "sunken" garden. Over the years, the gardens became the property of St. Petersburg. It was a very serene, tranquil setting with large tropical plants.

In the afternoon, we went to the Salvador Dali Museum. Arne had been to the old one with our kids several years ago. He was somewhat hesitant to go again but I wanted to see it so he tagged along. We spent three hours there and thoroughly enjoyed it. This is a new building, not the one Arne was in previously. We learned much about Dali from the Docent who gave interpretations of many of Dali's paintings. I was surprised to see paintings which were before his surrealist period. Before this visit, I only thought of him as a surrealist artist. He certainly was an interesting character and, I would say, a creative genius.

Wednesday night, Arne and I went to a restaurant over by the Gulf for our anniversary dinner. I had a delicious salmon dinner but Arne's grouper was pretty bland. The waiter removed the charge for the Calamari appetizer to compensate. After dinner, we drove to a spot where we could walk out to the beach and watch the sunset over the Gulf. We didn't realize it initially but we were right by the condos where we had stayed when our niece, Amy, got married. That brought back some happy memories as all three of our children had joined us for that special event.



Thursday we checked out a day earlier than planned. The reason being we had tickets for Cirque that night. While the performance was at St. Pete Times Forum, I didn't realize it was actually 23 miles away, in Tampa. Since those 23 miles were in the direction of home, we decided to drive the remaining 80 miles after Cirque. Checkout was 11, Cirque at 7:30, lots of time to kill. We decided to go to the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa. We spent 5 hours there with hundreds of children in tour groups. It was very educational and we both learned some new things. We saw "Tornado Alley" in the IMax theatre. This 45 minute movie told about the researchers of VORTEX 2, the most ambitious effort ever made to understand the origins and evolution of tornadoes. They hope the data they collect will make possible earlier warnings of coming tornadoes.

That night, another great performance by Cirque du Soleil. This show titled Alegria (a Spanish word that means happiness, joy and jubilation). While there were many outstanding acts, we had difficulty seeing some of them due to our seats. I ordered our tickets six months ago and paid a premium thinking we'd have the best. While we got to enter through the VIP door, our seats were on the floor, third row. We had to move our heads according to the people in front of us. Very disappointing.