Roaming Tigger’s Florida Adventures

RT and I have been in Florida for a week. The first half was spent in Bradenton with the Hubster. We had a number of adventures.

Almost as soon as we hit dirt in Florida, we headed out on a sunset cruise. We did actually get a sunset on this particular evening, so Tigger wanted his picture taken.


Early flight had meant early wake-up, so we went to bed shortly after the AFC Championship game ended (boo, ratbirds!) Besides, we had plans for Monday morning.


Apparently, John and Mable Ringling (yes, the circus Ringlings) based in Sarasota, Fla., where Mable built their grand home: Ca’ d’Zan (which means House of John)

With all the landscaping around the mansion, it was hard to get a good view of the full house, but RT gave it a good shot.


After we took the docent tour of the first two floors, we spent a little time on the back patio. You can see that the entire back of the house is full of art glass, and really, this is just the middle-third of the mansion.


Then, we went over to the Circus Museum, which is also on the grounds. Tigger thought it might be cool to be part of a Trained Animal Show in order to see more fo the country


But then he tried it for a few seconds and really didn’t like it very much.


And, just for the record, the Hubster and I were there as well. This is us on the boat dock. John Ringling invested heavily in real estate and owned everything you could see across the water. (click through to embiggen … if you must)


On Tuesday, we took advantage of one other piece of our package, a tour of Pirate City, winter home of nobody’s Pittsburgh Pirates.


Our tour guide had clearly been taught to fear showing people anything interesting. Even watching a dozen high-A guys play catch made her twitchy. So we were polite and moved along. To the South Florida Museum! Which has a very famous resident!


Snooty, the Manatee! Snooty is in the middle. His tank buddies were Charlie and Epac, who have their tails tagged and are getting ready to be released back into the wild. The manatee presentation was a lot of fun, and we learned lots of stuff about Snooty and other manatees.

Tigger was fascinated by the manatees once he’d met Snooty, so we went to the marina to see what we could see.


Tigger was a little bummed that this was the best we could do “in the wild.”


So after some lunch, we headed back to our room, where Tigger found some friends on the beach that reminded him of home.


It wasn’t much of a beach day, but this was a great way to end it.


A few more days, currently in Vero Beach, and we’ll both be headed back to the real thing.