Dogedun and St Pete

Aloha good people of the interwebs.

I realize my last post about East Norriton, Pennsylvania was on the south side of Lamesville so lets see if I can make it up to you with this one.

I just got back from St. Pete Florida recently and if you’re the kind of person that likes high-octane explosive action, werewolves and half naked lesbians slathered in oil, then let me recommend another blog. However, if you like to lay on the beach while sipping a rum cocktail and petting a dog, then stick around…you’re gonna want to hear this.

First, a little history lesson followed by a quick geography refresher.

11 years ago my dad moved from Queens, New York to a fictitious little town called Tierra Verde. I say “fictitious” because it’s essentially a made up place located in what is a basically a gated community in St Petersburg Florida. Imagine if everyone on your block got together and decided they wanted your street to be it’s own town but not have to go through the legalities of incorporating or being formally recognized by the United States…that’s Tierra Verde.

I try to go down and visit him twice or three times a year. And why the hell not? It’s beautiful down there. St Pete sits on the gulf side of Florida and is home to some of the most amazing beaches in the world. In fact, my dad lives within walking distance of Ft De Soto Park which is consistently rated in the top 5 of the Best Beaches in the United States.
http://www.americasbestonline.com/beaches.htm

Suck on that Jones Beach!

Plus, there’s so many great little towns all within an hour or so drive of St Petersburg.
 Take a look at this map.

The drive north on Gulf Blvd (699) is amazing. Almost every one of those towns…Treasure Island, Madeira Beach, Indian Shores, etc etc…have something worth seeing or exploring. And as most of you know, I sure do love me some exploring. So let’s explore.


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One of my favorite places (not shown on that map) is a small town called “Dunedin”.  Located about 30 miles north of St Pete, Dunedin is small town charm and southern hospitality all rolled into one of the most dog-friendly cities on the planet. And if you’ve read any of my other posts, you know that means a lot to both my wife and myself. In fact, Dunedin is so dog-friendly, the locals have renamed it “Dogedin” and dangle that tag proudly from a collar around their neck.

 Almost every restaurant, every bar, every store, every warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse and outhouse is open to dogs. And Dunedin has A LOT of dogs. Which, if you’re a dog lover like us, is great. However, if you happen to be, say, a cat, I would not recommend it. But then again, if you are a cat, chances are you’re not reading this as it’s well known, cats are banned from blogspot.

The town of Dunedin covers a lot of area, most of it given over to residential housing. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a “suburb” as it’s not geographically laid out that way. Dunedin is split between the main highway that runs north and south along the water and an actual Main St that divides the town east and west.
And just like every other “Main St” in the United States, Main St Dunedin is where all the action is. It’s not a hustling hub of never ending lights and sound like say, Duval St in Key West or Freemont St in Las Vegas but it ain’t Mayberry either.

To the casual observer, Dunedin is a quiet non-assuming quaint kind of place, but look one layer deeper and you’ll find a town with a thriving artist community that is steeped in Scottish history. There’s no local pony show exaggerating the town’s virtues and history like you would find in a place like Salem, Massachusetts. Just the opposite. Dunedin and its residents, are very low key. Not in a dismissive manner. In fact, the people of Dunedin are some of the friendliest and most out-going of all Floridians…it just seems like they know they’re sitting on one of the best kept secrets and don’t want too many people in on it. I for one, don’t blame them. Large groups of people have a tendency to fuck up a good thing.

As I mentioned, Dunedin has a fairly impressive art scene for a small town. It’s the kind of art that I like to call “casual”.
I don’t mean this in a negative way…actually just the opposite.  All through High School and College I studied art history. At first, because I had to and later because I had taken a real interest in it. And while I have a deep appreciation for the “old masters” (yaaaaawn), the one thing I’ve found to be almost universally true, for me anyway, is that none of it is particularly welcoming. I don’t look at a Matisse or a Cézanne painting and feel like I know these people or even that I would want to. From a historical standpoint, it’s intriguing. From the social end, I can’t wait to get the fuck away from these people. And for me, that’s always been my argument in terms of what makes great art “great”.

Sure somebody can create a photo-realistic painting of a one-eyed pirate baby riding a furry rhinoceros, but if it doesn’t evoke any kind of visceral reaction then it’s a less then a successful artistic experience. Just because you put something in a gold leaf frame, doesn’t automatically make it art.

Here’s a perfect example…I have a friend who lives in Key West (not using her name here cos I’m not too sure she’d want to be associated with insane ramblings….she’s a professional and I am, lets face it, less then professional) She’s an artist whom, in my opinion, is able to capture the essence of Key West better then any other artist in that town and seeing as how Key West has more “artists” then LA has “actors”, that’s saying a lot. But she does it in a very welcoming, whimsical kind of way.

Now some might look at her paintings and think they look like cartoons and that’s ok. It’s a very limited way to look at it, but fine. To each his own. But to me, this is art. I can look at it and not only see the painting, but I can see the painter. I can understand what they painted and why. And most importantly, I can relate to it. I don’t feel like someone who should be standing behind a velvet rope admiring this painting in quiet reverence. I feel like I belong in that painting and that’s why it’s successful.

This is the kind of art that you find in Dunedin. It’s fun. It’s inviting. And like it’s people, it goes out of it’s way to make you feel at home. Some call it “outsider” art, some call it “folk” art and some call it “visionary art”...I just call it art and move on.

And speaking of moving on, let’s move on.

We spent the first half of our trip staying in Dunedin itself at a small mom and pop motel called The Seaside Artisan (see, I told you it was artsy).

The Seaside Artisan is a cute nine room little place located on Rt 19 about a block and a half away from the entrance to Main St. It’s small, it’s clean, it’s cheap, the owners are extremely gracious and welcoming and just like everything else, it’s pet friendly. If you’re not the type of person to be concerned with the extraneous particulars of life, then the Seaside Artisan is for you. It’s funky. It’s quirky. It’s got personality and it’s cash only. And at $65-$70 a night, you can’t possibly go wrong.

From our base at the Seaside Artisan, the wife and I took a couple of little side trips here and there, but the one I want to talk about most is our trip up to Weeki Wachee to check out the Weeki Wachee Springs State Park and it’s world-famous mermaid show.

Weeki Wachee Springs is a decades old Florida attraction and a living, breathing, swimming piece of roadside Americana. The park was first opened in 1947 by an ex-Navy seal (at the time called Frogman) and has been home to hundreds of performing mermaids. No, not real mermaids…don’t be a wisenheimer…women dressed as mermaids. Real women, dressed like real mermaids…not like that uncle that nobody wants to talk about.

The spring itself is the surfacing point of an underground river and is the deepest naturally occurring spring in the United States. Not all that impressive to read about, but amazing to witness for real. In addition to mermaids, the springs are also the winter home for manatees due to it’s constant 72 degree year round temperature.

Actual picture of manatees taken at the springs...not just some shit I dug up on Google

The park itself is a throw back to a simpler time. As far as I know, this is the only attraction of it’s kind still in operation. Places like these used to dot the Florida roadsides but as time went on, the American attention span became shorter and shorter and people expected a bigger entertainment whack, just in smaller bursts. So one by one these family oriented theme parks began to vanish. Places like Circus World, Cape Coral, Masterpiece Gardens, etc have all long since disappeared but Weeki Wachee remains. And while it does, I thought it was important to see.

The park itself is not all that big if you compare it to a place like Disney World or Six Flags but it’s clean and well maintained and feels like it’s a living entity instead of an automated machine. The people are real, the smiles are real and you don’t need to take a tram from your parking spot in Goofy to get to the front gates.

Aside from the underwater mermaid theater there’s also a small beach and Buccaneer Bay, the onsite waterpark. You can also take a river cruise (which we did) or take in one of the live animal shows (which we did not). You can also rent a canoe and explore the springs on your own. Something that I would love to do…while my wife went and did something else…something that didn’t involve being so close to nature…something that possibly included shoes and the purchasing of.

If you ever happen to be in or around Weeki Wachee, and honestly I can’t think of a single reason that you would be, stopping at the Springs State Park is a must. For more information check out http://www.weekiwachee.com and to see what the park was like in it’s glory days, take a gander at this…



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ENTER PHASE 2:

So after spending a few days bumming around Dunedin, we packed up our shit and headed south to St. Pete Beach and set up shop at The Post Card Inn. http://www.postcardinn.com/

“Hip, affordable and resolutely casual” is how Travel + Leisure describes it, and while that’s certainly true…depending on your definition of “affordable”…it’s also stylishly ultra modern yet retro while maintaining a shabby chic vibe. Sounds strange right? Well, to some degree it is.

The Post Card Inn is not the type of hotel you normally find in a place like St Pete Beach. It almost seems out of place. Like someone plucked a trendy boutique hotel out of South Beach. Shook out all the arrogance and pretension and dropped it down here just to see what would happen.  The Post Card Inn is almost a nurture versus nature experiment because the locals of St Pete, most of whom are blue collar salt-of-the-earth people, have adopted this place and made it their own. And nowhere is that more evident then at the PCI Beach Bar and Snack Shack located just steps from the sand. Fancy in it’s nothing fancy approach, the PCI Beach Bar looks like an old smoke house made from scraps of driftwood, Frankensteined together with nails and hot glue. It’s covered in both local and tourist graffiti, serves ice cold beer and is a perfect spot to watch the volleyball tournaments that take place less then 10 feet away.

The entire property is well designed and impeccably maintained with a vast open feel. The sleek modern lobby and the rooms form a U-shape around a well-manicured garden area that leads up to a gigantic swimming pool.

Just beyond that lies the bar, then the beach. Careful planning and care have been taken in every step of the redesign of this entire property with the exception of ….

The rooms themselves aren’t necessarily “bad”…they just don’t live up to the rest of what the hotel is selling. When you first enter the building, you step into a spacious lobby that is contemporary to the point where it’s almost avant-garde. It’s very minimalist in it’s design, but conveys a modern sensibility. The rooms are also minimalist, but in a way that just comes off as lazy. It’s almost as if they ran of out money and interest.

The walls of our room were painted in flat contrasting colors and adorned with “inspirational” quotes that, again, came off as mainly uninspired.

It didn’t help that the entire room smelled like someone sprayed Lysol on an Elephant’s nutsack. But truthfully, you don’t come to a place like this to spend any extended period of time in your room.

This was our second time at The Post Card Inn and as chance would have it, the second time we’ve been there for their anniversary / holiday party / tree-lighting extravaganza. Not a big to-do or knock em’ back kind of hootenanny, but entertaining nonetheless. An impressive Christmas tree (yes, it’s a CHRISTMAS tree…not a Holiday tree) in their courtyard, children performing CHRISTMAS songs, free buffet appetizers and lots and lots of booze. What more could you ask for?

In short, a very cool place to hang out, but not necessarily the best choice in which to stay. The Post Card is located on Gulf Blvd and is literally surrounded by hundreds of other hotels. My advice, stay at the Howard Johnsons right next door for a fraction of the price and and hang out at the Post Card for as long as you can stand it. The rooms are probably nicer, they all share the same beach and the PCI Beach Bar and Snack Shack are open to the public anyway. Save some clams and spend it on booze.


Well peeps, that’s all for now. The road is calling and it’s best not to keep her waiting.
See you on the flip flop.

Oh, and one last thing….woman eating a banana.