Sights and Sounds of Tampa

I'm reading Le Road Trip and savoring every word.  It's what I love to do.  I'm all about road trips!  Mine have never seemed important before because I often just do ordinary things, stop at someplace cute, watch people and notice interesting architectural details from where I sit on a bench or stone wall or from a car window.  Hey, that's what she does!

While in Tampa yesterday, I was having an enforced longer than usual wait and reading my book.  I suddenly thought.  Yes, France is wonderful, but right now, right here, I'm in Tampa.  Lots of people would like to be in Tampa, Florida, USA.  Save the book for nighttime reading and open your eyes!

I looked around at very ordinary busy street.

I saw palm trees waving and quite a few interesting people going by and so since my camera was at home I wrote down what I saw.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Across the street a very rotund man wearing a cap and a backpack was cycling with a cigarette dangling from his lips.

I heard and saw rescue sirens, fire engine sirens, the roar of a motorcycle and the hum of traffic along with the occasional bass of rap music floating out open car windows.

An old truck with more primer than paint, with a back window sealed with plastic wrap and duct tape rubbing noses with a new shiny red sporty looking KIA.

A middle aged couple, she with a bobbing, bright red umbrella for shade and he carrying a green recyclable grocery bag ambled by silently.

A young man biking across the street weaving through traffic into the parking lot of a restaurant.

That restaurant suddenly invoked visions of a middy blouse, a pipe and huge muscles with anchors tattooed on them.  I wonder if they serve spinach?

Tropical Palm trees enhancing the landscape at a pretty green and white gas station.

Two women struggling to pull open the heavy door of an ice cream parlor.  I could almost feel the rush of cool air billowing out.

Fat, yellow school buses following each other on their way to pick up shouting children.

Flags flying from car windows, a la post 9-11.

A Camouflaged trailer, lettered JARHEAD LAWN SERVICE.  That would be former Marines working hard making a living, despite the economy, I mused approvingly.

A pedestrian boldly jay walking, breaking the law in front of everyone. Are tickets ever issued?

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a sweet tiny dog leashed about the neck pulling along a giant of a man as if he weighed nothing.

Suddenly the phone rings...and I am startled out of my imagination and it's time to pick up my husband, Bill.  I remembered my phone has a camera and I snap a picture.  Looking at in now, the scene has become ordinary.  If I publish it, your imagined view of Tampa will be shattered.   I considered doing a watercolor of it as the author of  Le Road Trip does but my talents lie elsewhere. Perhaps this alteration of my photo will hint at the beautiful impressionistic view I had while seated at a bench under an oak tree dripping with Spanish moss.

Linking to:
Treasure Hunt Thursday
Feathered Nest Friday
Tuesdays Treasures
Potpourri Friday
Friday Block Party
Pomp Party
Sundays in my City