Tampa and the Gasparilla

Kayla Richerson
Feb 18, 2022
2 min read

Most people remember dates by what happened or what they were doing, and I used to as well. Tennis today? Must be Tuesday. That kind of thing.

Since living in an RV we’ve completely shifted our lives, and that includes our perception of time. Now we remember dates by where we were.

Like for example, we swam with manatees a couple weeks ago. For us, it does not feel like two or three weeks, but rather months and sometimes years. I guess we’re truly breaking the human construct of time!

⬆️ (Not really relevant but a thought I wanted to share)

Late January and early February we stayed half an hour away from Tampa Florida. Tampa was a clean, bright and airy sort of city, which is more of our style.

The campground we were at was a little walk from Tampa Bay, and it was wild. There were tons of raccoons and they would shamelessly eat your trash.

I don’t know how we do it (we didn’t plan this) but we arrived just before the Gasparilla Pirate Festival. This is Tampa’s biggest festival, where a fully loaded pirate ship docks in Tampa Bay, invades the town, and after a big parade, the pirates retrieve the key to the city from the mayor.

The ship is actually the only working, fully loaded pirate ship in the world. Cannons were firing and music was blaring.

Check it out ⬇️

We also took a day trip to Sarasota, and visited the John and Mable Ringling Museum. It was once the winter home of the famous ringmaster, and now includes a museum and art gallery.