It’s a little misleading to call this a Tampa trip since day 2 was entirely south of Tampa, and day 1 was largely around Clearwater. But however you call it, we’re having a great time.
It’s the morning of day 3 and I just saw a manatee surface ten feet off the shore, and maybe 60 feet from where I’m sitting on my room’s second floor balcony. It was quite the surprise and a wonderful way to kick off the last day of our trip. No photos, unfortunately- it came and went too quickly!
Yesterday was a day that shouldn’t have worked, but it did. Christina and I were caught off guard to find that the baseball game we booked was actually two hours south of us, not just one like we previously thought (due to some confusion around which field the game would be played at). We only found this out after booking an escape room near the baseball park, so we had to leap into the car and hustle to get to our game on time (Escape the Cape, Cape Coral).
After Escape the Cape, things didn’t get any easier. We got out of the room in about 30 minutes, which helped us greatly because even after getting out early we only had 10 minutes before the Red Sox/Braves game… And we were 30 minutes from the field. So we hustled over to the game and got there in the bottom of the second.
JetBlue Park, also known as Fenway South, was filled to the brim with fans with Boston accents- it was remarkable to see how many Bostonians either made the trek or retired to Florida. Our seats were just two rows above the Braves dugout! I’ve been pulling for the Braves quite a bit recently since they’re my father-in-law’s favorite team and I’ve watched quite a few games with him, so it was awesome seeing the players up close.
I also had a cool neighbor at the game- Barry from Chattanooga, who started the business that manufactures most of the college apparel you see at Walgreens among other places. That’s an underrated part of traveling- getting to meet people from everywhere!
After the game we had to rush (notice a theme here?) to get to mass up near Sarasota at Our Lady of the Angels parish, where we planned to meet Father Pat Legges, a fellow Chicagoan who is spending a few months down in Florida to help out. We made it to the church with time to spare and catch our breath. Father Pat was very nice (he gave us the scoop on where the nearest Culver’s is!) and we enjoyed his homily.
After mass, we headed back to our hotel/resort and explored a little. We walked the beach barefoot and went out on a pier, and a security guard for the resort told us a few things we could try around Tampa. We called it a night slightly early (9 PM) and watched a movie using my Moto Z3’s mobile projector.
Day 2 was a great journey spanning a huge chunk of southwest Florida. It’s day 3 and our flight is after 8PM, so we’ve got another full day of exploration ahead of us!
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