We had a couple of hours free this morning before we had to take the bus to St. Petersburg to board the American Glory, so we went back to the Riverwalk. Last night, we’d walked north from the hotel; today, we walked to the southern terminus at Sparkman Wharf, where the big cruise ships dock. It’s also a popular eating and drinking area, but we were there far too early for any of the restaurants to be open, so it was pretty quiet and we left to go see the northern part of the Riverwalk in the daylight.

One of the first places we passed was the Heron Residences, which is ready for all of the winter holidays!

A bit farther along, we reached USF Park on the Riverwalk and paid our respects to the school’s mascot.

We saw pelicans chilling out on the pilings in the channel.

We walked as far as the University of Tampa and discovered that there are minarets on the buildings there (we couldn’t see them last night).

We returned to the hotel to meet the bus taking us to the Port of St. Petersburg and the American Glory to begin the cruise…soon enough, we were out on the water, along with many small boats enjoying the beautiful day.

We passed the Sunshine Skyway bridge about an hour after leaving port and headed into the Gulf of Mexico towards tomorrow’s port of call at Marco Island.

This afternoon, our guest lecturer Rachel Perkins talked about the hydrogeology of Florida (it’s complicated and interesting), and this evening we enjoyed Rob Ondras “Rockin’ on the River” (rockabilly with lots of Elvis). And of course there was food and drink – Luca Annunziata, a winner on Chopped, is the executive chef on the American Glory, and we’ve been enjoying his cooking!

We’re off to a great start!

Our early-morning flight turned into a mid-morning flight thanks to late arrival of the incoming aircraft and Air Traffic Control restrictions; unfortunately, we didn’t discover that we’d been delayed until after we had left our hotel and gotten through security, so we had plenty of time to have breakfast in SFO Terminal 3 before having second breakfast on the plane about 11am Pacific. :-) And we did get to enjoy the miniature Golden Gate Bridge they’ve added to the airport roadway~

We got to our Tampa hotel, the JW Marriott, about 7pm Eastern; it’s the University of Michigan football team’s headquarters hotel for the ReliaQuest Bowl, so there are a lot of big guys wearing Michigan gear here! Our room overlooks the water, and if you look very carefully, you can see a menorah atop one of the buildings across the water.

After dinner, we walked the Riverwalk, passing the Winter Festival and the University of Tampa (which Apple Photos identified as a convent in Moscow!).

Tomorrow, we board the American Glory for our cruise to Key West.