Travel to and from cities in the southeast can be a bit “iffy” at this time of the year. Rain patterns, particularly thunderstorms, are active and places like Atlanta and Tampa have their wettest months of the year. We flew to Tampa the last Thursday in July and sure enough when we arrived in Atlanta, our connecting hub, there was a ground stop, AKA ground halt, in Tampa. A line of thunderstorms had blown in from the Gulf and no one was flying in or out. After a four-hour delay, we arrived in Tampa, happy we had not been diverted to Orlando or Miami. The “normal” flight path between Atlanta and Tampa is a straight line. The two pictures included here track the paths that our flights took, Atlanta to Tampa on Thursday, Tampa to Atlanta the following Tuesday.

Our time in Tampa was fun. There was baseball at the Trop, the White Sox stomped the Rays, a lot of reading, eating at our usual haunts, several hours of board and card games, tequila and beer drinking, one wedding observed, and some impressive thunderstorms. One location not far from our condo had 13 inches of rain in a 24-hour period! A true frog strangler. The wedding was a small affair, only 12 people, but very nice. We ended up talking to the guy who was responsible for set up, complementing him on a job well done. However, we had a first, for us, among all the beach weddings we have seen over the years. The bride, who was not young, but not old, wore a full length white dress, pretty formal for an event between the dunes. As she walked along to the “altar,” we wondered how in the world would she ever get all of the sand out.

Like most other tourists and just about every resident of Clearwater Beach, we are enamored by the incredible sunsets, the sun splashing into the Gulf of Mexico every day, only to repeat itself the following day. The best shows included at least some cloud participation and one or two wind sailors to add more depth, color, and action to each photo taken. We plan the end of each day around sunset, always knowing the exact time of disappearance. We walk out onto the balcony 15 to 20 minutes early to watch the buildup, observing with interest the behavior of the others down below who have joined us, or maybe we are joining them, for the event. If we go out on the balcony early enough, we can watch an “ants to the cheese” type event as hundreds of folks come from wherever they were to join the watching festivities on the beach. Each ending, followed soon enough by darkness, is disappointing. However, the fun is not over. We get to watch it again tomorrow. And, no two shows are the same.