more visitors

the parade continues---
this past weekend  (which we started at Bern's with my birthday dinner) continued with our group progressing to various eating and drinking and sight seeing venues during the weekend.

our sweet girl Alix came by to play... and to show us how cool she was in sunglasses...

Sheila, Mary and I went to the Ringling Home and Art Museum on Sunday morning and when we got back to River Cottage Laure Arno and Alix had arrived we all went over to Linger Lodge for gator and hush puppies (new experiences for our French amis)

then we all headed off to the beach for some time by the surf and to watch the sunset.

too soon the weekend was over and we all had dinner at one of the AMOBs and headed our separate ways...

but here are some photos from the weekend together:

my birthday wines

so it is now year two of a "new" tradition of going to Bern's in Tampa for a celebration for my birthday.

our wine collecting friends got together from NYC (Laure & Arno) and Chicago (Sheila & Mary) and Tampa (Chuck & Georgia - CBGB to you from prior posts) and Phil and me...

so we had sent the sommolier the list of things we were interested in and some guidelines on price etc...

and included in the photos here- are the wines we drank for my birthday -

to my mind the Rayas Chateauneuf du Pape was the winning wine but others had their own opinions...

for those who don't know of Bern's- they admit to more than 500,000 bottles of wines in their cellar...

and the food is good too! six of the eight shared a wonderful Chateaubriand (from the past) and the rest of the sides are included (soup salad potato and veggies)- what's not to love????

we had folks with birth years from 1942 - 1949 - 1954 (2) - 1962 - 1968 - 1976 and 1978... and I think I can say a good time was had by all!

a visit from TB

we have been lucky enough to get a visit from our buddy Tom.  That would be Tom of Canada last August and Tom of New Zealand and Australia (coming in December of this year)- my long time travel bud and Phil's long time political junkie buddy.

he arrived on Sunday mid day and we went to the Shake Pit for some down and out greasy cheeseburgers... always a success there but even more popular were the chocolate malts we each ordered.  from there a drive by where we will relocate next winter and then a brief visit to the Cortez fishing village where we stopped at one of the fish market places for some stone crabs and took a few photos (an egret in mating plumage) - then home to relax on the river and drink a bit of bubbly.

later out to our favorite Italian place where we indulged in the fabulous lasagne...

on Monday morning we headed over to the island for the family history tour...

then back home to pick up Phil and head to lunch at Linger Lodge (gator bites anyone?) and spent the afternoon working on some trip ideas for December's big journey.  Dinner was at Moore's for the fab soft shell crabs...  today we have been catching up on news and emails and are about to go out for lunch --- and some touring...

some photos from Cortez Village:

and one from our morning tour of Anna Maria- from the beach...

hable espanol?

OK - so the answer is no, unfortunately -

but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express recently (not really - just couldn't resist)

anyway- this is a post about Wednesday (this past one in particular)

On Wednesdays I am taking a class called "passport to Cuba" which is a six week exploration of Cuban history and culture taught by visiting presenters.  my friend Georgia mentioned that she was taking this class and I was able to sign up even though it had already met once.  So on Wednesday mornings I go to the Tampa History Center to learn about Cuba before I leave for my own trip to Cuba in April.

GA and I had lunch after class in the restaurant in the Center - it is a mini Columbia - an outpost of the renown Ybor City one founded in 1905 during the heyday of the Cuban community and cigar manufacturing here in Tampa. 

after class I went home and picked up Phil and we went to visit our friends in St Pete, where we went to a wonderful little Italian market and then had dinner on their lovely patio....

and just for fun after lunch on Thursday we took a "scenic route" home and on the way we found a surprise - a nice farm stand (right on the farm itself) where they had lovely heirloom tomatoes for sale.

wherein I come to the rescue of turtles...

LOL I thought the Victorian style chapter heading appropriate for yesterday's actions here on the River.

When I awoke I went into the main room (one of 2 and 1/2 rooms total) and from the window I saw an extremely LARGE bird sitting in the yard near the deck... then as I moved closer to the window and grabbed my camera I saw there were actually THREE large birds and that they were clearly black vultures - sitting and waiting...

after taking a few photos of them through the glass I saw that there was a turtle by the fence and she was laying eggs...so I snapped into turtle rescue mode and went out and yelled at the vultures to leave--- that didn't work very well...guess their fear of humans is limited.  so I went closer to them and started waving my arms and and moving towards them and finally they all flew off...

my poor momma turtle was still hunkering down and dropping eggs and I stood waiting for her just in case they came back to either eat the eggs or disturb her.  she finished and then waddled (I know - that is what ducks do but she was so slow and ponderous) off to the river and sunk herself below the water and eventually swam away...

I was of course messing with mother nature but seriously - I want little turtles not well fed vultures to be my experience at River Cottage...LOL

so here are some photos of the dramatic events...LOL

there she is back in the river...

below- a blue heron in flight:

 and a great white egret wading and fishing:

and the big guy is back and waiting for his dinner:

all in a morning on the river here at River Cottage: