7/21-7/28 Clearwater

We had such a great time with our son’s family that there was a void when they had to go back home. During the time we spent with them we went to Universal Studios, which was amazing! We enjoyed their hotels pools, and many meals together. When we all got to Clearwater we enjoyed the infinity pool looking out over the gulf that their new hotel provided. We walked to Clearwater beach, stuck our toes in the very salty warm gulf and went on a dolphin viewing boat ride. Yes, we saw dolphins, it was at least two pods with mama’s and babies! They jumped out of the water and played all around our stopped boat!

So much fun!

We are exhausted! lol

Unfortunately we had some housekeeping to do, laundry and groceries to buy. It’s amazing the time it takes to do these things, we have bike rides to take, pools to swim in!

And Swim in the pool we did, there was no one in the pool except for us. We had it to ourselves almost all day on Sunday. We floated around enjoying the warmish water, it felt like a big soaking bathtub…it was so great.

Yesterday, we decided enough laying around we needed to take a bike ride. I had found the Pinellas Trail. It’s a 45 mile trail that goes through Tarpon Springs. We started at John Chestnut Sr. park, this was at one end. This park seemed like a logical place to start, there was parking, which I really didn’t see anywhere else on the map.

We thought we would try to make it to Tarpon Springs and stop for lunch. We should be able to ride 8-10 miles, since we felt like we had been riding regularly.

As you can see from the map below, we had a terrible time just getting out of the park. (I really don’t read maps well) Then we got on the paved trail, it was along the highway. That we could handle but every couple of blocks you had to cross heavily trafficked streets.

Nope, just nope. Oh, and did I say it was all sun and at least 90 degrees?! Later we found out that Clearwater had broke a record, it was 97 degrees!!!

As you can see we managed 4.5 miles around the park and called it a day.

But then…

We rode to the boat dock and were going to turn around when we saw this light orange crushed rock trail, we could see it led to a boardwalk. No bikes were allowed so we locked the bikes up, grabbed our backpack and set off.

What a wonderful surprise awaited us!!

This boardwalk went all the way out to the end, where another surprise waited! But off of this boardwalk were several others that wound around and finally ended in a picnic table area. So, beautiful and all in the shade.

Honestly, it felt like it was 20 degrees cooler in the shade!

TaDa! Who would have imagained this would be at the end of this boardwalk?!

Here are a couple pictures we took from the top, it was stuningly beautiful. Blue skies, whispy clouds, blue water and that view, it just went on and on.

I didn’t get a picture of them but there were thousands of water lillies, the heads looked like they would be yellow when they opened up.

Who knew at the end of this disappointing day/ride was this wonder to behold?

Well, I know who…all I’m going to say is “God is good, isn’t He?”