It was just after 10:30 when we headed out for our sightseeing adventure. We stopped at the park office to see if by chance we would be able to spend one more night in site #2. The forecast was for rain tomorrow and we would really much rather not have to travel in the rain. Unfortunately, our site has been booked by someone else...drats! The fellow at the office did recommend we visit Channelside in Tampa. It sounded like an interesting place to visit and a good way to see part of Tampa.
We found it in our GPS and soon Serena was directing us there. “Channelside” is the downtown Channel District along the riverfront where cruise ships dock (Tampa Port Authority). And there happened to be two cruise ships in. This is the bigger one and a smaller one "Rynham" is around the other side...don't think we got any pictures of it.
...then we headed out on a walk along The Tampa Riverwalk.
Our first stop was the Tampa Bay History Center...lots of reading...
It's a beautiful walkway along the river and the weather was really nice...turned out to be fairly warm in the sun...
We walked across this bridge to the other side of the river...
...to this area...
This is the Tampa Convention Center...
Here is a view of the cruise ship from the other side of the river...
We did a loop, returning across another bridge to the Channelside Bay Plaza and decided it was time for lunch. There were so many restaurants to choose from...including “Hooters”...okay, Steve, we’ll go there. We have never been to a Hooters Restaurant...and we were really surprised at the number of kids in there. We quickly learned that it really is just a family restaurant...yeah, a bit provocative... We found the waitresses rather unfriendly...Steve thought it was probably because they were very busy; I figured it was because of the outfits they had to wear (LOL!).
After lunch we went on a tour of the Victory Ship America...typical history stuff...it was okay but the cost was a little steep at $10 each. It was built in 1943 for WWII and has been decommissioned and re commissioned between the Korea, Vietnam and the first Gulf war. It’s basically an armed cargo ship.
Oh, we do have a picture of the other cruise ship...it was taken when we visited the Victory...
Well, we were all walked out by this point...and it was going on 3:30 so we thought we would head home. We stopped at the gatehouse on the way into the park to check if, by chance, our site had become available for one more night. No such luck...I guess we will be leaving tomorrow.
Back at the trailer, Steve decided to pack up as much as possible so he wouldn’t have to do it in the morning...in the rain. I was inside on the laptop researching our next campground. We are heading to the Homosassa Springs/Crystal River area and unfortunately, there are no State Parks in the area. We finally decided on Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park. It’s a little more than we wanted to spend but if we stay a week, it’s a little more reasonable. It is a Passport America campground but of course, it’s the wrong season to be able to get the discount.
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