Jan 8 -15 Tarpon Springs, FL

We drove a couple hours north to Tarpon Springs,known as the sponge capital of the world, a historic small city with an unusual mix of Greek culture and Victorian & Floridian architecture. It was incorporated in 1887 and grew around the sponge diving industry in the Gulf of Mexico. The internationally reknowned Sponge Docks are located here -still harvesting sponges and a great little museum/interpretive center along with dozens of little gift shops,boutiques and wonderful restaurants and bakeries. We decided early on that we would sample as many of the eateries as we could while we were here, Greek being our number one favorite food. One problem, the meals are soooo large that we could only do every second night as we had mega-leftovers to use up the alternate nights !! Tarpon Springs has been an arts destination since the early 1900s, when Geo Inness, the father of American landscape painting, made his home here. It is perhaps most famous for its 100-year old cross-diving ceremony, held annually on Epiphany, Jan.6 We checked into the Bayshore Cove Mobile Home & RV Park, backing in 4 feet off the river wall, with dolphins, manatees, mullets traversing from the power plant with its' warm water outflow through to the bayous in town. Life couldn't be any better !! It has been a really cold week -requiring our Alaska parkas and mitts at times. It has been so cold for so long that fish are dieing in the rivers and ponds and birds are ending up with frostbite to their feet. The farmers have been using so much water to save their fruit crops (spray them to creat ice over the outside and save them from freezing) that they have lowered the water table and are creating huge sink holes in the area (I-4 was closed down in one direction for 2 days to try to get rebuilt). We went into the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa to attend the largest RV show in the US. It was a sunny day, 72F, so was fun to finally be warm. Had dinner with friend, Denis Gingras and his friend Darryl Moore, both from Alberta but wintering here, at Ozona Blue in Dunedin. Toured the historic part of Dunedin in the afternoon. Will need to add photos later as I can't figure out how to attach with this new computer.