Did the caricature thing in Daytona Beach and Tampa Friday and Saturday!

Some photos from a recent gig.

Just found this Tuesday amongst stuf f – I shouldn’t probably say I’m proud of this ribbon, but I am. It was some nearly 30 years ago I got this at a Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour at the University Square Mall in Tampa, Florida. The franchise moved out of Floria in the mid-’80s.  The ribbon was given out for eating an enormous amount of ice cream. That was back when I could do it and not gain a single pound.

Two more Florida based mysteries read. One of Mignon Eberhart’s Tampa Bay novels and a later Miami-based Mike Shayne mystery. Eberhart writes of a fictious Florida County on the east coast with a pretty good understanding of the area. The Shayne novel is after the actual series by Dave Dresser. This one stays pretty true to the original series, just with curse words. I veered into one of Vince Flynn’s latest, ‘Protect and Defend’. Another good thriller.

Sandra and I went down to Punta Gorda to review a number of places for one of Sandra’s travel guides. Jennifer Huber, with the visitor bureau was kind enough to meet us for dinner at an interesting Mediterranean restaurant and then to a wonderful 1910 building that houses an ice cream shop, Chubby’s. Above is a sketch of the are underneath the porch of the 1910 structure.

We also covered the new Muscle Car City. It’s a museum of ‘muscle cars’. The most incredible part is that it’s in an old Wal-Mart building. See photos at Genuine Floria, by clicking here.

We later had some excellent seafood at Peace River Seafood and then Sandra and I made a return trip to Chubbys.

Wednesday we started off with breakfast at Brenda’s Restaurant, which also houses the Masons.  Brenda lost her original place because of Hurricane Charley in 2004 and the Masons were very kind to let her move in and save her business. Which clearly is a large and loyal one.

 Then we continued on to hiking parts of the Babcock Rance. Below is a sketch of what’s left of a tree.

We made our way south out of Charlotte County and stopped in Bradenton and toured Robinson’s Preserve, along Tampa Bay and across from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Collectively we hiked 7 plus miles. Below is a sketch from there. We had hoped to stop at the infamous Shake Pit, but is had closed early. Instead we took US41 south through Ruskin and Gibsonton, Sun City Center and Tampa. We stopped in Temple Terrace and had some vittles at the Dairy Queen.