Way Too Much Fun - Tampa, FL

Yikes, it's been a while. Since we haven't been doing any actual RV travel for the past few weeks I haven't been updating here, but in the interest of making sure everyone knows where we are, here goes.

We spent nearly two weeks down in the British Virgin Islands in mid-February. We've been going down there for the last 10 years but this was the first time we stayed on land rather than on a sailboat. How did it compare? I would say pretty well, in our situation. For first (or even second or third) time visitors, there is no better way to get to know the BVI than on a sailboat since there are so many little islands, bays, anchorages and great spots that are only accessible that way. Staying on land obviously limits you, although there are numerous day sails available to get you to some of the highlights. Don't even think about a cruise ship - that is absolutely not the way to experience these islands. For us, since we are frequent visitors the land based stay worked out just fine, and gave us plenty of time to reconnect with old friends down there.

For the first week, we stayed at Grand K Suites in Cane Garden Bay, Tortola. This is a three unit building up the road behind Myett's, just off the beach. We had a full kitchen, living area, balcony, bedroom with king size bed and a full bath plus powder room so space was not an issue. The owner, Sandman, is also a part owner of Myett's along with his brother and sister-in-law, Kareem and Valerie. You quickly learn that everyone in Cane Garden Bay is related - they're all Rhymers, up and down the beach. Along with us, our friends Jack and Patti were also at Sandman's place, in an adjoining unit. Other friends Mike and Karen stayed at Myett's,

The six of us had a great week. One day we did a day sail on White Squall over to Norman Island where we snorkeled the caves and then had lunch on the Willy T. The rest of the time we spent pretty much vegging on the beach every day, dancing at happy hour at Myett's every afternoon and going to dinner at a different place each night. There are five bars/restaurants in Cane Garden Bay that we could get to just by walking down the beach. One evening we decided to cab it over to the next Bay and had dinner at Brandywine, which was absolutely fabulous.

The second week, Karen and Mike sadly left us to return home. The remaining four of us took the ferry over to Jost Van Dyke where we had a three day stay booked at the Perfect Pineapple, a little cabin just behind White Bay. The view from our front porch:

White Bay is my special happy place:

Every year when we visit White Bay we take an updated "tree picture". The tree sits in front of our favorite bar, One Love. This year's installment:

A drink menu from one of the funky little bars:

I'll have the "cup of shut the f..." well, never mind.

We had a great couple of weeks in the islands, and coming "home" to Tampa wasn't nearly as painful as it had to be for the rest of our group, who were all returning home to Chicago. Brrr...

We didn't have time to let the grass grow under our feet, since just a week after we got back to Tampa the next event was Music on the Bay. This is a large scale event put on by several of the central Florida Parrothead Clubs as a joint venture. A lot of really big names in trop-rock played the event, but best of all for us, 38 members of our Chicago club came down for the event (a few missed the group photo op).

It felt like we had the band back together! Sharon and Bob stayed with us in the moho - and while you have to be pretty good friends to share tight living accomodations (with only one bathroom!), we did just fine.

MOTB was a fantastic event and we all had a spectacular time. Besides all the club members from Chicago, Illinois was represented by the Boat Drunks, who headlined on Saturday and then our very own good friends Todd Donnelly and Pirate Greg who along with the whole Mr Myers band played on Sunday. That was sort of the culmination of the whole weekend, with all of us up by the stage while the boys played our favorite songs...it was like Christmas morning for this girl.

There were highlights:

.

And low lights:

Ewwww, said Cheryl and Dee!

By the way, thanks to Ron Horne and Carol Echelberger for some of the pictures I stole.

So MOTB behind us, we said a sad "till I see you again" (I refuse to ever say goodbye) to all our hometown friends. But on to the next weekend where the ride continued.

Our friend and favorite Trop-rocker, Brian Neale was in town after playing MOTB and he had a couple of gigs lined up in Ft Myers and Punta Gorda for the weekend after so we headed down there to see him with some of the Tampa Bay folks that we've become friends with. We also had the opportunity to meet up with New Hampshire transplant and friend John, who came out to Hurricane Charley's to see Brian and join us also. 







So it's been a bit of a whirlwind here. In the next week we're looking forward to meeting up with several of our new local friends. Meanwhile, we've been attending to the day to day business of life such as a doctor appointment here and getting the car serviced there - our trusty old Honda has close to 200,000 miles and still runs great but does need a little TLC now and then. We've been riding our bikes on the great Tampa bike trails too. Our plan is to stay in Tampa until around the beginning of April (when Bill should be done with his physical therapy) and then head out. We will be leaving the moho behind somewhere (TBD) while we fly into Chicago for a week in mid-April, then continue west. Till then!