#Floridainaday

This past weekend Jimi and I were off to Tampa, Florida for the quickest weekend trip ever!  This was also my first time Florida, ever!  SO I was pretty excited.

California Sunset (Photo Credit: Maddie Dierkes)

We caught the red eye out Friday night and arrived in Florida at around 10:30am on Saturday morning.  By 1:30pm on Saturday we were down at the Tampa Cruis-A-Cade Boat Club for the family reunion.  

The boat club is right on the Hillsborough River with a dock lined river view, nautical community center and plenty of boats.  Jimi and I felt right at home there in a boat house on the water.  Jimi has a huge extended family and there were about 40-50 people there.  His roots are Italian and a lot of their family history is in Tampa so the reunion was full of loud conversation, great food, live music and lots of hugs.  It could have been overwhelming, except they make you feel like family, so I found it not to be overwhelming and rather it all to be very endearing and fun!

Hillsborough River (Photo Credit: Maddie Dierkes)

After so much great Cuban, Italian and Spanish food (and homemade connolis!), we took a boat ride down the Hillsborough River out into Tampa Bay for the tour of Tampa from the water.  I loved seeing the city from the water (this is one of my favorite things to do when in a new place, because you get such a different perspective then you do from a car).  Gorgeous big trees, beautiful Spanish, Cuban and Southern homes, bright colors, and lots of boats.  Tampa Bay is huge and wide open, it looked like it went on forever. 

Hello Tampa Bay (Photo Credit: Maddie Dierkes)

We were able to get a full nights sleep that night and the next morning we were up for a good breakfast at Datz which has an enormous and creative menu with things like Red Velvet Pancakes (below) and Eggs Barbacoa.  It has a cafe feel to it with lots of fun stuff to look at, plus it turns into a bar at night!

Red Velvet Pancakes (Photo Credit: Maddie Dierkes)

After breakfast we took a tour of Tampa from the car given by Jimi's dad, James.  We went down Bay to Bay which runs all the way around Tampa Bay to Davis Island where James grew up as a kid.  Then we went over to the Latin Quarter of Tampa, called Ybor City, where Jimi's grandparents lived.  This part of Tampa has tons of culture and is home to the famous restaurant, The Columbia Restaurant, which takes up an entire block and is beautifully decorated head to toe with tiles. 
  
Unfortunately, our flight out that afternoon was cancelled but thankfully, it happened before we left for the airport, so we were able to change our flight to that night and spend more time with his family for the afternoon.  After all of this we ended up only being in Tampa for a matter of 32 hours, but I still felt like I got a good look and would love to go again.