It was overcast when we woke up this morning, and the forecast called for rain this afternoon. After topping off the fresh water tank at our host, we drove to Venice Beach for another walk on the beach. Nice walk on a cool morning and we even found two more shark teeth.
I was a little surprised at the number of cars here early in the morning, but we walked in on a large crowd of people on the beach doing yoga. Beach yoga, it apparently is a thing here.
Somehow, I just can’t see myself doing this sort of thing, even when I’m ten or fifteen years older. For one thing, I think my physical therapist would yell at me. Sitting cross-legged on the ground would probably undo the effects of all the exercises she assigned for me and do further damage to my lower back. A recent MRI resulted in a report two pages long of all the things that are wrong with my back. Lots of medical gobbledegook about stenosis and disc bulge and disc desiccation, among other things.
I think I’ll stick to walking.
We stopped in a few curio shops, mostly the ones that deal with shark teeth and jewelry and purchased a few gifts. It’s a lot easier finding shark teeth in a store than it is on the beach, but many of these places will sell you some pretty expensive tools for finding your own on the beach.
We found out there are several grades of shark teeth. The ones that we found are mostly on the bottom end of the grading scale because they have been worn smooth by the surf or have parts broken off.
So all that work and we found the junk.
Our plan was to drive back to Dunedin and then bike into Tarpon Springs. At a distance of about five miles, it would have been a nice ride. But, looking at the weather and impending rain, we drove to Tarpon Springs instead.
It was a wise decision. We would have been riding in the rain.
We found a parking place in a neighborhood a few blocks away from the Greek section of town. Initially I had parked in a pay-lot right downtown and wondered why it was nearly empty. When I went to pay it rang up at $30, so we drove away, figuring we’d save the thirty bucks and take a few extra steps. Now I know why it was empty.
Just after we got downtown, it began to rain, and then pour. We did bring umbrellas which kept our heads sort-of dry, but we didn’t think about the shoes. Soon there was water running down the streets, sometimes several inches deep, so our shoes got soaking wet.
We stopped at Hella’s Bakery for a mid-afternoon snack. The chocolate-strawberry-genache layer cake looked amazing so I ordered a piece of that. Deb had baklava. The cake was good but wasn’t quite sweet enough for a Dutch palate. Deb told me that’s why she ordered baklava. That’s always made with loads of honey.
We stopped in a few other stores but the rain and the water running down the streets made it a little difficult so we sloshed our way back to the RV.
On our drive in to Tarpon Springs, Deb spotted a Greek restaurant along the road. It advertised a BOGO special on Wednesdays: two Gyros for the price of one. Leave it to her to spot a deal. She got online and looked it up. The reviews pegged it as one of the best Gyro sandwiches in the area, even including the Greek section in Tarpon Springs. And today is Wednesday. This doesn’t happen very often, that we are at a place on the exact day when it is open or offers a special. We usually arrive when it’s closed or not available. So on our way out of town, we made the detour to this place. Not much room around here so I double parked the RV and left the engine running while Deb ran out in the rain to fetch a couple of Gyro sandwiches.
We then drove out of town to our campsite here in the Cypress Creek Preserve. It took over an hour to get here due to the pouring rain and the horrible Florida traffic, but we had those sandwiches once we parked for the night. And the reviews were spot on. They were delicious. And huge. We got our money’s worth with that meal.
So if you are in the area, Gyro King just south of Tarpon Springs is a great place for a sandwich.
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