Made it back to the trailer around 2:00 a.m. last night after spending two nice days down in the Tampa area. It was another hour after that before I finally made it to bed, so it is a wonder that I'm up and about already.

    The dance last night was a repeat of the Friday night dance in that the band was hot, the calling was good and my dance partners were all beautiful and wonderful dancers. Still surprised about how many people know me down there in Tampa as I have only been to that dance one time before. But I guess I have been to their weekend dance, The Snowball, 3 times now and a lot of the people are ones that I have run into at other dance weekends before.

    Had a very pleasant day yesterday leading up to the dance also. First on the list was a couple of hours spent down by the city docks and waterfront strolling around looking at all the sailboats. There must of been a race going on in the afternoon as quite a few of them were getting underway and heading out of the harbor. Really pretty seeing them all out in the bay with spinnakers flying.

   Ate a quick lunch at a little bar/bistro there along the waterfront. A nice fish sandwich and some ice tea out on the deck overlooking the bay. From there I was off to the Salvidor Dali Museum for a couple of hours. Actually spent nearly 4 hours there, and probably could of stayed longer, but that was all the change I had for the parking meter, so I'll have to go back in the near future.

    A fantastic art museum that had been set up by a local couple who had been friends with Salvidor and his wife Gala. So they had at least 100 paintings that they had bought from him in the 40+ years that they knew him. Then there have been many more paintings donated after the museum was built, so it is a large collection of art from this one guy.

    I found it fascinating to wander around and look at all the different paintings. They have a lot of docents that do 45 minute tours of some of the bigger works and then they also have ear phones and tapes that will tell you about a bunch more of them. You need to do both because there is so much going on in some of these paintings that if you don't do it, you are going to miss a whole lot of information hidden within the scene. I was also surprised to see that he had several distinct periods in his life and a type of painting that was associated with each of these time frames. His most famous period of course was when he was doing his surrealistic style stuff, but I actually found the period right after that, up until he died, to be some of his more interesting paintings. Through it all though was this sense of awe about what he saw and how he put it down on canvas. Even the painting he was doing in his teen years was pretty amazing. He would of been a marvelous person to spend an evening or two talking with over dinner and drinks. He either had to be seriously psychotic or a true genius, or most likely... both.

    Part of the appeal of the museum is the building that it is housed in. I don't believe Dali actually had anything to do with the design of it, but it was certainly designed with him in mind. I will post a picture of two at a later date once I get them downloaded and sorted out. They also have one of the best museum shops inside the museum. It was one of the few places I've been in where I wished my living circumstances were different, because there were a lot of things that would of found their way home with me. As it is, I had to be satisfied with one of several  styles of shot glasses they had in the store.

   So back at the trailer here in McIntosh for one more day. Will take it easy here for the day and then hook up and travel up the road towards Gainsville in the morning. I'll have two weeks in the state park, Paynes Prairie, up there before putting the trailer into storage and heading north for the holidays. Right now though I need a shower, then lunch and then.... maybe a nap.