Vacation 2010-UPDATED

We've been at Tradewinds Island Grand resort for the last week. What a lovely place!
Here's picture of the wonderful sunsets we get to see every night:



The full moon last week was also breath-taking:



Having a deep interest in NASA, I pulled the scheduled observation times of the International Space Station and the Soviet's Progress spacecraft to see when they'd fly over Tampa. We were treated to several times during the week. No photos---they just look like little stars gliding slowly across the sky (if 17,000 mph can be considered 'gliding slowly', hehe).

One bad thing happened last Wednesday. Karen's 80+ year old mother fell at her condo, breaking her right femur. She had surgery to repair it last Friday, and continues to recoup at Palms of Pasedena Hospital where she's resting comfortably (as comfortable as can be, anyway).

Fireworks on the beach last Thursday night were both unexpected and wonderful. We're looking forward to more here at Tradewinds over the next weekend. woo-hoo!

We were eating at the Grand Plaza resort restaurant, a roof-top rotating restaurant on the beach, when we spotted something large swimming parallel to the shore. It was probably a manatee, but what was humorous was this gentle creature would approach groups of people and would subsequently scare the hell out of 'em. We, and our neighboring tables, enjoyed that!

Every late afternoon, 5:30-ish, we can watch schools of dolphins cruise up and down. Several times, now, we've watched the playful mammals leap out of the water.

Tomorrow, we plan to take a little cruise to Egmont Is. for snorkeling (sp?), shelling and a picnic lunch. Should be a great time, too.

I'll be updating this post as our vacation stretches into its second week.

Leave a comment, or not. It's all sandy here anyway.

UPDATE:
We met Jay's new interest, Sher. She's a nice woman, employed as a concierge at the Hyatt. Wish I had a pic... oh well...

The trip to Egmont Island was ok, but had the sun shone, it would've been much better. Water visibility was only in the 5' to 6' range, so snorkelling was a bust, but the boat ride was pretty cool. After snorkelling, they took us to the boat dock on the opposite side of the isle, where we ate lunch and went exploring. Karen & I had no sooner split up when Miss Florida USA 2010 came walking around the corner. I was lucky enough to introduce myself to Megan Clementi and her handler offered to take our picture together:

She was super-friendly!

The weather hasn't been too cooperative the past couple of days... rain off-shore traversing back and forth. But we're getting by. Here's a pic of Karen taken from our balcony about 200 yards away:



Fireworks last night here at the hotel were early and somewhat abbreviated due to rain & t-storms. Still a good show, but the crowd rapidly dispersed when the rains came. More are planned for tomorrow night just up the beach from us. Should be a pretty good show!
I'll continue to update this post as I can. We'll be flying home on Tuesday.
Later!

7/6/10: Phew! Flew back today, and, Boy are my arms tired! ugh--even I can't believe I just wrote that! Sorry.
Hotter than Hades here in Columbus! How do you people stand it?!
Hey, stay tuned! Seth's going to show me how to transfer video to digital and I'll post the fireworks we could see from our balcony! Should be up in the next couple/three days.
Or not. It's YOUR loss...