Just a Typical Bike Ride Around Town

On a day off I decided to grab the old camera and take a bike ride.  My route is now circular:  I head up to catch the bike path downtown, then head south on 3rd Street, hit 22nd across back to Shawshank.

I didn't get too far till I saw this quarter of a watermelon sitting outside this corner grocery store.  As I crossed the street I noticed that the other quarters were also sitting outside as a kind of cheap advertising.

These students are practicing their marching routine.  This is Gibbs High School and they have a Junior ROTC program which, it would appear is what this is.

Moving toward downtown we pass the Morean Art Center.  It is  a place where artists do a lot of ceramic work.  It's mentioned here because they attach some of the work to these steel fences for the bikers to see as they pedal by.

Amazingly there is very little vandalism with this stuff.

At a small auto importer I saw this Rolls-Royce sitting outside.  

The bike path goes right through this warehouse area.  

And when you exit the warehouse, you see the city skyline and Tropicana Field.

We are cruising down 1st Avenue and toward downtown.

Not a lot of traffic at the moment.

To the right is the Progress Energy Field parking lot and home of the Farmer's Market.  PE Field is the former Spring Training home of the New York Mets (Al Lang Field).  As you can also see the buildings end and we are getting close to the Bay. 

As I cross Dali Drive, I pedal down toward Demen's Landing.  Looks like something is happening this weekend at the park as they are building this outdoor theater.

I find a bench to have a swig of water and turn around to see the city skyline.  This is where I come to take some night shots. That's also the public marina and docking area.

Turning around now and finding a bench, I see a kid fishing off a dock and that's the recently closed Pier in the distance.

To my right at the bench down the sidewalk a ways I see that it is presently occupied by a homeless person.

A guy walked  by and gave me this card.  I didn't call.

A couple of sailboats are heading out to the Bay, and there is a good wind for sailing today.

The kid fishing seems to have caught something.

In the category of, "Anyone can catch a big fish", this kid seems amazed that he caught anything at all.  He did a lot of staring and didn't take it off the line, instead dipping it in the water.  I didn't stick around to see if he was going to keep it or let it go but he seemed odd, more content with playing with it than releasing it.

Heading home to Shawshank I headed down 3rd Avenue. 

That crane is a long long way up there.

This is the University of Florida area here and that store behind the bus is a Barnes and Noble.

Hey, guess what, there's the Lynx getting ready for a sail away.  That yacht in front is the Sorcha and belongs to the owner and founder of a local company Jabil Circuits.

Saw this interesting motorbike along the road.  This is a Honda Ruckus and looks to be a pretty solid scooter type bike for getting around town.

This is a bridge that passes over a small creek and had never really noticed the artwork before.

What is that guy doing?  Running from the law and his still?    

Next time I'm over here I'll get all the panels on both sides of the road.

This bridge has some age to it and is pretty neat looking.

Wasn't much going on along 22nd Street back to Shawshank.  Except:

• One guy was cussing and bitching because he was at a bus stop and the bus didn't stop.  He was very happy to let everyone around know how mad he was.
• I passed a house that had "Child Porn" scrawled on it with spray paint.
• One guy was cooking up a batch of barbecue on the sidewalk ready to sell.  It was mouthwatering.
• One guy working in the yard had a stereo system cranked so loud that it drowned everything else for 2 blocks either side of him.  Time to dial 9-1-1.

The above phallic symbol complete with evergreen testicles means you are getting very close to Shawshank.  It was a good day off and a nice ride.  Once I got home I decided to take a dip in the pool and made it an even better day.

Once again, I implore all of you to take your cameras wherever you go. You will always, always always see stuff worth snapping.  Even the simplest of subjects can become noteworthy.