Peckish Travels

After a night in Des Moines, then Iowa City, and then Janesville, Wisconsin, Bob and I took a bus to O’Hare where we flew out late Tuesday night for London. We will be here for three nights before heading to our next housesit in Royal Tunbridge Wells on Saturday.

Bob surprised me by bidding for upgrade to Club World seats on the American/British Airways flight. While we have flown overseas in Premium Economy before, this was our first time sitting side-by-side in our own cubicles where we could lie horizontal when it came time to sleep. It also gave us access to the Flagship Lounge in O’Hare which was wonderfully calm. It was a great experience— once we figured out how everything works.

I slept great in my little cubicle. Bob didn’t sleep as well, but we both felt that the flight seemed so much quicker than usual.

In London, we are staying at a Marriott Residence Inn near the London Bridge Station. We touched down early — a little before 11 am — and we’re at the hotel about 1:15 pm after taking 2 trains and a metro and then walking about 10 minutes from the station.

After getting settled in our room, we went for a walk around our area.

There are so many areas to explore in this city!

Bob and I are back together in the Midwest after he left on New Years Day to drive to Des Moines for some doctors appointments that he was able to schedule. He is fine and has had a productive time while spending time with his sister and brother-in-law.

On 12/30, Bob and I finished our housesit west of Austin for Hollywood and Henry and had two nights by ourselves before I started a second housesit for friends in South Austin. The photos below are from the last of our and then my time in Austin. We had a lovely, relaxing stay and were able to spend time with friends and care for some sweet pets.

The following pics are from my walk downtown from my south Austin housesit. The temperature while I was in Austin reached highs in the low 80s F.

One day I went to see the Lady Longhorns play basketball at the new (to me) Moody Center. I parked in the neighborhood where Bob and I used to live and walked about 40 minutes to the arena on the University of Texas campus.

Tomorrow, Bob and I catch the bus from Janesville, WI (my hometown) to O’Hare airport for our flight to London for our next housesit.

While I have taken a bit of a holiday from blogging, Bob and I have been keeping busy while doing three housesits around Austin — central, south, and west.

The last time I blogged we were in central Austin. Before we left there, I had a great happy hour meet up with three friends in a hotel restaurant overlooking Town Lake and my beloved hike and bike trail, upon which I trained for a number of marathons, triathlons, and even an ultra-marathon.

Also while we were still at the apartment in central Austin, we walked to the UT campus to check out the current exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center. The Harry Ransom Center is a humanities research center, library, and museum that collects and preserves literary and cultural artifacts. We go every chance we get, as they have been the recipient of personal collections from a number of famous artists, writers, etc. The current exhibit was a fun presentation of materials left to them in 2024 from Lorne Michaels, the creator and long-time director/producer of “Saturday Night Live.”

It was a great exhibit. We could have stayed all afternoon, especially since there was an area that was running some of the most famous skits on a loop.

In South Austin, I sat for two cats for friends, while Bob started our housesit west of Austin. I always enjoy time with these two purring companions and will be back with them again on New Years Day.

Our current housesit, another repeat, is in the hills west of Austin near the town of Bee Caves. There appears to be a very peaceful coexistence here between the home owners and their pets and the deer population.

A quick update on some of our activities in Austin. Last Tuesday, Bob walked from the apartment to downtown Austin for a late night meet-up with our nephew who was in town for work. Unfortunately, Bob didn’t get any photos of their visit at a downtown restaurant/bar, but he snapped a photo on his walk.

The next evening Bob and I walked a few blocks to a pizza restaurant. We ate off the happy hour menu and scored a coupon for another free pizza there as they screwed up our order. Afterwards, we walked down 37th Street (between where we are staying and the restaurant), where the block of houses was getting prepped for their annual walk-through Christmas decorations.

On Thursday, we walked around the Hyde Park neighborhood (where the apartment is located) to check out a few local sites and shop for some food to bring to our friends’ house that night.

On Friday, Bob and I walked to the UT campus to watch the Longhorn Volleyball Team compete in the NCAA tournament. Our current homeowner only has the Prime streaming service with no local tv and the tickets were sold out, so we went to the Student Activity Center next door to the gym to watch the game.

Tonight, my graduate school Alma mater (Texas) plays my home state (Wisconsin) tonight to advance to the Final Four. Texas has won the national championship two of the last three years, but Wisconsin is playing strong and Nebraska is the top ranked team this year. Bob and I will likely be tuning in and out online as we get a bit too stressed when it gets to this level.

Bob and I finished our first Austin housesit yesterday and went almost right to our second one. We did have a couple of hours in between. Surprisingly, we are doing our current housesit at the same apartment complex (not the same building or unit) that I lived in my last year in graduate school. Bob also lived here for a short time after graduation and before we found another apartment to move to. Small world and a bit of a full circle moment.

Happily, while the complex looks much the same, the area around it has vastly improved, so lots of places to walk to for grocery, restaurants, and shopping.

We had a nice visit and short walkthrough with our young homeowner yesterday before she left on a trip to LA and then Thailand, where hopefully she won’t get caught up in the Thailand/Cambodia hostilities.

We will be caring for Darcy the dog, specifically an 18 year old Dachshund, and Taco the tortoise. Darcy has Cushing’s Disease and wears a diaper overnight. That’s a first for us. Otherwise, she’s a very happy, spry old lady who makes some interesting grunting noises to get your attention.

Today, we walked across the street to the Triangle Development (retail/restaurants/grocery/muti-unit housing) to check out a pond that the homeowner told us about and pick up some groceries for a roasted tomato and pepper gnocchi recipe that Bob is making tonight.

Bob and I had a brief farewell meeting with our St. Petersburg homeowner to catch up on his travels and talk about our love of St. Pete, his condo, and the sweet Lulu. It was definitely a memorable sit. The great weather didn’t hurt and the lack of hurricanes at the end of the hurricane season was a blessing as well.

We left for a “short” four hour drive to start heading towards Austin, Texas, and our next four housesits. We realized too late that we were getting into post Thanksgiving traffic, so the four hour drive took a bit over 5.5. The GPS arrival estimate seemed to get later every time we looked at it. However, other than a slow pace, the weather was good, and we didn’t have any other travel issues. We did, however, arrive to find our hotel’s elevator was broken, so we had a few trips up a couple flights of stairs with what at the time seemed like a lot of stuff (3 suitcases, food bag, and a dirty clothes bag). We travel with more when we go by car as we have all of our worldly possessions with us (mostly some clothes for different seasons that we pick and choose from when we fly).

Monday we left Florida and the Eastern Time Zone to drive through Alabama, Mississippi, and part of Louisiana. We hit a small amount of rain, but the drive was easy in terms of traffic flow. We spent the night in Baton Rouge.

The route wasn’t that scenic, but I need to take photos every once in a while to help pass the time. As you’ll see, I focus on bridges and bodies of water and state lines.

Tuesday, we had a 6.5 hour drive to Austin, Texas, at least 3 of which was in Texas and much of that seemed to be spent getting through Houston.

We’re grateful for no car troubles along the way and the ability to catch up with friends. We’re sitting for a friend now, who left early this morning to fly to Central Florida (small world) for a family wedding. We were able to catch up with her yesterday and meet Sammy or Cowboy Sammy soon to be just Cowboy.

There likely won’t be a lot of blogs while we’re in Austin as we focus on catching up with friends rather than sight seeing.

Today was our day to learn about all things Salvador Dali, at least as presented in the Dali Museum in St. Pete. This is in fact our second trip to the museum having been to the museum in another, smaller location at least 25+ years ago. The current building, which was designed by architect Yann Weymouth, opened in January of 2011. We watched a show about the building a few weeks ago. It is designed to be hurricane resistant and combines the rational with the fantastical, including a geodesic glass bubble known as The Enigma and a helical staircase).

A few photos of the building before discussing the artist, the artwork, and museum experience.

The tickets for the museum were $32 each. It would have been $15 more per person for one of the dome shows, but Bob and I had already done the immersive Van Gogh experience a few years ago in Austin, so we chose not to do that today. We really enjoyed the museum. In addition to looking at the art exhibits, they offer free films about Dali, surrealism, and the museum, free guided public tours of the art, special exhibitions, a virtual reality experience to go into a painting, a cafe, and a great museum shop. While we didn’t eat at the cafe, we took advantage of everything else (though just window shopped in the store). Highly recommend a visit.

If people know anything about Dali, they associate him with surrealism and melting clocks. Both correct, but as we learned, he was really only actively involved with the Surrealists for about 10 years. His art then moved into nuclear mystical.

His technical skill was evident from an early age, and he was able to go to a prestigious art academy in Madrid, though never graduated. At some point, he felt he was good enough and didn’t need to prove himself to instructors or anyone else.

The vast majority of the museum’s collection comes from Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, who collected Dali’s art throughout their marriage and formed a friendship with Dali. They later wrote numerous books and articles on Dali, trained the docents of the Dali Museum (the first building) when it opened in 1982, and in 1989 received the Cross of the Officer of the Order of Isabella the Catholic from King Juan Carlos of Spain in recognition of their scholarly work.

The name of the painting reminded Bob and I of a big head(less) head sculpture we had seen in Iceland in 2022.

Which painting do you see? Play with the size of the photo and see if you can see the other one. Right now, I see Gala, but on my phone it looks like Abe Lincoln.

Bob and I headed to St. Pete Beach this morning once the thick fog cleared. I wish I had thought to take a photo of it from the condo because it seemed thicker higher up.

St. Pete Beach is about 7 miles from downtown St. Pete and lies on the Gulf of Mexico. It is a barrier island community of about 9,000 known for its white sand beaches and claims to be the Sunset Capital of Florida. It is also home to the Don Cesar Hotel, which is why we were there, as it was recommended as a place to check out by our homeowner.

St. Pete Beach is not known for having lots of parking and non-guests at the Don Cesar pay $38 for valet (only option) parking at the hotel, so Bob found us a bus route that goes to St. Pete Beach for a nominal fee of $4.50 round trip. The ride took about 25 minutes, and we both got to enjoy seeing new views of the area. The bus system is called the SunRunner, and the route was Sun to the Beach. The buses are hybrid electric, and this route runs every 15 minutes.

The route ends at a Beach Access point, complete with boardwalks to the beach, a shower for rinsing off, and public restrooms.

After coming back out on the boardwalk, we walked about 1 mile along the busy Gulf Boulevard to the Don Cesar Hotel.

Bob and I were back along the bayfront today. It has become our happy place, and there was more to explore. It’s Saturday, so the market was hopping across the street in the parking lot of Al Lang Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Rowdies Soccer Team.

We walked past the market to get to the bayfront and then turned south to walk to Albert Whitted Park, which lies between the municipal airport terminal and the air control tower.

Bob and I always enjoy walking around college campuses and we had noticed that there was a college campuses near us, so we had to go check it out. It is the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. That name made no sense to us as St. Petersburg is not located in South Florida, so we thought it must be a satellite campus for a university in Miami or Fort Lauderdale. It is a satellite campus, but the main campus is just across the bay in Tampa, so don’t know, but guess it’s south enough.

Just a note, Bob reminded me the other day, as he reviewed the blog, that we have been referring to Tampa Bay the body of water, but most people think of Tampa Bay the city which is just across the (Tampa) Bay from St. Petersburg.

St. Pete offers a free trolley called The Looper which goes around the downtown area with stops at many of the popular attractions— Dali Museum/Mahaffey Theater, Al Lang Stadium, the Arts District, Central Avenue retail/restaurant area, and the hospitals. We decided to ride the loop today just to see if we’d see any new sites.

There is a Bay Trail that runs along the downtown area along Tampa Bay north to the perky sounding Coffeepot Bayou which borders the very nice Old Northeast Neighborhood. The walk was a bit different than we were expecting as part of the trail was blocked while they are setting up for this weekend’s Countryfest.

The downtown area is getting dressed for the holidays. We need to get out and walk around at night in a couple of days when they have all the decorations set up. It’s definitely a Florida version of the holidays.

Back to the Bay Trail…

One of the lovely sites along the trail is the historic Vinoy Hotel, the land for which was purchased by Ahmed Vinoy Laughner in 1923. It opened on New Year’s Eve 1925. It was used as a training center during WWII and then closed in 1974. It reopened in 1992 as a luxury resort after a $93 million restoration. It has associated condominium properties and its own marina. We walked in to look around. Not too shabby…

We now had Tampa Bay on our right and St. Pete’s Old Northeast Neighborhood on our left. This neighborhood was established in 1911 and was the city’s first residential subdivision. It is known for its beautiful architecture, tree-lined streets, and proximity to downtown.

Some examples of the homes…