Touring Tampara

Friday, April 1, 2016
Ken and I were up and around early so we could say farewell to Glen and Lana when they left this morning as well as make a run to Publix to buy 10 1/2 gallons of ice cream for the April campout ice cream social and get them stored in our freezer in the RV.  They went on sale this weekend so we wanted to take advantage of the 2 for $7.  Boy, are we ever going to have a full freezer and refrigerator when we  leave for that campout.  I've not filled the bottom bins of the freezer and still need to put in 3 more dozen muffins - 2 are in -- and for bags of cut up strawberries I've cut for the ice cream and breakfast fruit and frozen.  Sure hope we can get it all in.  Just before we leave we have to pick up 10 dozen eggs for the refrigerator along with several other refrigerated items.  Forget taking food for our selves :-)

Santiago and two of his younger boys arrived at our place early today to start removing the cement in our bad drive that just collects water with each rain.

He will be replacing it all with cement that hopefully is graded down toward the road and will keep the water out there rather than right in the center of our drive such that we have to step out into it when we get in and out of the car.  He is giving up this work this summer so we decided we had to charge ahead and get it done right now rather than wait till next season.

We drove down to LazyDays around noon for the first day of travel on the rally - this being a trip into Tampa that first stopped in Ybor City and the home of this historical museum in an old bakery building.

This statue to immigrants stands outside in the small park across the street since that is really the story about this area - the number of immigrants that found a new way of life in what was a town of about 700 and rapidly grew to over 30,000 many of whom came for the well paid jobs of rolling cigars. (a good roller could make $20 an hour compared to a teacher getting $5 an hour)

This Ybor City Seal was created to recognize the immigrants that primarily came from Italy, Spain and Cuba to roll cigars  The first immigrants arrived on the Hutchinson.

After a tour through the museum where we could see displays about the arrival and settling of the immigrants along with their life styles including the many social clubs that became a major part of the lives, we moved on to a tour of a home - small but sufficient -- that was provided for quite a low price.  At times several families might have lived in one of these homes with a kitchen, parlor and two bedrooms.  It must have been very tight, but then they all were doing the same and were thilled to have this much.

Below is the parlor

From there we drove to the Tampa Bay Hotel built by Henry Plant in 1905 to accomodate the well to do that he was trying to attract to Florida via his ships and railroads to have leisure time.  The hotel was enormous with a dining room built to handle 800 and grounds that offered all kinds of sports including golf which they knew little about.  

He had to bring in someone from Scotland to teach those staying how to play.  He spent 2 million building this place but ended up not drawing the numbers he had hoped and died several years later leaving it to heirs who were not interested in it at all.  It was sold to the city of Tampa for just a small sum.  It now holds the administrative offices for the University of Tampa along with some classrooms.  At one end is a gift shop and an area dedicated to showing some of the life of the resort via rooms filled with many of the items purchase and used throughout the hotel when it was built. A set of rooms off one hall represent a suite much like Plant and his family might have lived in when staying in the area with an office, bedroom and living room

Lights in the reading/writing room are still lit with the old Edison bulbs such as were put in the hotel

We walked down into the university area to see the huge room that at one time accomodated  800 diners with an orchestra providing music from the balcony area.  There just was no way to adequately take a picture of this massive room with its lighted domed ceiling.

 We finished the day with a wonderful dinner at the Columbia Restaurant, the oldest and largest Spanish restaurant in the US. Not only was the meal great, we also had wonderful Spanish dancers to entertain us.

We took time to line up on the front steps for a group picture before going out and just walking around to try and get some sense of the enormity of the place and its unusual architecture.

This fountain/reflecting pool area lies out in front on the circular drive

Beyond the reflecting pool and gardens lies the downtown area of Tampa including this building referred to as the beer can because of its shape.  It gave me quite a start to see it and the word SYKES in bright red letters at the top since that is my maiden name.  Its principal tennant is Sykes Enterprises.

Our final stop was the Columbia Restaurant - the oldest restaurant in the area.  It's Spanish architecture and food draws people from all over for a fantastic meal.  

We were lucky enough to be the three rectangular tables immediately in front of the stage where flaminco dancers provided a show toward the end of our evening

It is fun for me to return there and remember my first visit to this restaurant back in 1962 when my grandparents took me there for lunch.  Sadly I had no real appreciation for what sacrifice they'd gone through to take me there no how spectacular the place was.  We sat in this room at that time and I remember black waiters with towels over their arms standing around the room and up in the balcony area. (this was before desegregation)