The Adventure has Begun — Part 1

We have started our big European Adventure.

The trip starts with a leisurely drive to Florida with the first stop in Biloxi, Mississippi.   I still have some comp rooms for two nights, so we took advantage of the opportunity.   It will probably be awhile before we stop in at a casino again for some time.  Plus, the room were at no cost and it included 2 meals free of charge.   We didn’t  leave with extra money in our pockets, but it was a good time anyway.  Two of our favorite friends met us there on the last night.  It was fun hanging out with them one more time.

Next, we headed to St. Augustine, Florida to spent a few days there walking the area.   This time I used hotel points to get a free room for that two nights.   It’s always enjoyable  strolling down the historic area of this town.   One shop that is always a must is Kilwin’s.  We ended up buying 2 lbs of chocolate goodness.

From there, we headed to St. Pete for a 3 weeks stays.   We had some last-minute things to take care of before we journey across the ocean.   Of course, we stopped at many of our old stomping grounds.   We had meals with some of our friends and enjoyed their company.

The familiar surroundings of St. Pete were fun to visit.

We made a list of places to stop by and enjoy again.  The list consisted of 17 places.  Out of that number, we did make it to 13 of them.  Got to say it was great having a cold beer at some of these hangouts again.

One of our favorite places is Biff Burger.  We had many of good times at this places and our kids and grandkids always liked to visit the place.  This time, it wasn’t as much fun and the business wasn’t quite the same.   There are new owners and apparently from news reports, the place is going into foreclosure.  So sad to hear after years in business.  We had planned to go there a couple of times, but only made it there once and that was enough.

We hung out another favorite, Brown Boxer, a few times and enjoyed the time.

Two new places were visited by us.

One was on Madeira Beach, Beach Dive Bar.   It’s a fairly new location and meant new friends there.

One activity we wanted to do was to go to the beach.  We managed to get down to the beach front only a few time and walk the coastline.  The Red Tide had made it way up through Pinellas coastline which made it unbearable at time.  There were hundreds and hundreds of dead fish along the sandy beach everywhere.  The smell from the dead fish was so strong some days the beach was completely empty.

So we didn’t get to swim in the Gulf and lie on the beach as much as we had planned.  There were lots of other things to do that kept us having fun.

We walked the boardwalk at John’s Pass to wander in the shops.  Stopped by the Wine shop and got ourselves one of those delicious Coronaritas.

All in all, it was a good stay.  In a bittersweet moment, we had to pack and head to Miami for the last days in Florida for now.

Please check out the page below.  It’s a Go-Fund Me for our granddaughter who has a great opportunity to go n a class trip to Ireland and Scotland.  She just needs a little financial assistance.   Thanks

https://www.gofundme.com/61nk0eo?        pc=fb_co_shareflow_a&rcid=84a22bcf68134a018784fff91017f852

60plusandfearless

Dianne

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