Skip to main content

My First Road Scholar (Prev. Elder Hostel) Trip

 "Signature City: St. Petersburg, FL March 19-24, 2023

My dear friend, Deb, had told me for years how much she loves St. Pete for its art: ceramics and glass. She spent 4 months there for several consecutive years. I was longing to go myself, but didn't plan ahead a year in advance to go this February. Then, along came the Road Scholar (formerly "Elder Hostel") catalog loaded with options.

Arrival in St. Pete was uneventful and I had most of the day to walk around, explore and get lunch before we could register at 4 PM. I got a little turned around, but people I asked on the street were friendly and helpful. I started to understand the unusual grid of streets there!

I opted to book a "solo" room at the Hyatt Place Downtown; our designated hotel which is included in the trip total.  Many women with us were traveling solo too; and I felt very comfortable in our friendly group.

I had a flash of wisdom before leaving and pinned my "crochet" brooch on my name badge as a conversation starter. 


At 5PM when I registered, our leader, Carolyn, was the first to notice it, and happened to be an enthusiastic crocheter! I was soon referenced as the "crochet lady" after wearing the only crocheted shawl that I brought.!

At six pm, the whole group met and we began to know each other with introductions. At our welcome dinner, I randomly sat with 3 others and it became obvious very quickly that this is a group of savvy travelers. The record of number of trips taken was an amazing 26 by one lady! 

I highly recommend this tour group for anyone over 55. The days were full of interesting things to see with adequate time to catch your breath in-between and at lunch. I plan on booking another trip with them sometime soon!

Our days were packed with bus and boat tours; museums and galleries with reasonable breaks; breakfast, lunch and dinner provided most days. Midweek we had the afternoon and evening free to re-group as we wished. Anyone can walk through a museum or gallery and enjoy what is there; but on this tour I learned the value of expert speakers and docents who thoroughly understand each piece on display. I would not have chosen to go to the historic Albert Whitted Airport for lunch or on a tour of St Pete murals with an actual mural artist! Speakers at both places had valuable historic information that added so much to what I actually saw and understood.

Day 1:

Eco-Tour Vessel: Specimen collecting in Tampa Bay
Many dolphins played near our boat!

St. Pete Museum of History
A collection of hundreds of baseballs donated to the museum
Day 2:
Our brilliant sky!

 


                                                                    Muralist Tour 
                           St Pete plans for murals and pays the artists who are chosen 

 


Albert Whitted Airport-First commercial airport

View from Hangar Lounge where we had lunch




                                                            View from the Dali museum

I quickly learned the value of docents in a museum dedicated to such a complicated artist!

Salvadore Dali' Museum






James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art
Collection of Raymond James

Florida Craftsmen House

On our free afternoon, new friend Margarete and I took a trolly to the Florida Artisan House, which is also a fantastic historic bungalow. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the art and found treasures to buy!

St. Pete Pier
Later, Margarete and I continued to the St. Pete Pier where we had dinner and enjoyed the 360 degree views!
Pelicans patiently waiting for a fisherwoman's catch!
 




Weddings are held here



Sunken Gardens
Formerly owned & created by a private family; now owned by the city of St. Pete




Imagine Museum of  Glass
"Don't touch anything but the floor" said the docent!


Glass-Blowing Demo 





 
                                                                 
                                                                Chihuly Collection

At an early morning gathering on the 6th day, we said goodbye to many new friends, hoping to see each other again on another Roads Scholar tour!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Craft vs. Fine Art: How is Crochet Blurring the Lines

I was awakening to the world of crochet in 1972,a time of immense artistic expression through fiber arts; and crochet was not the “ugly stepchild” at the time. In fact, Ferne Cone Gellar who I admire as a successful fiber artist said in “Knitting: The Stepchild of the Fiber Arts?” ( Fibercraft Newsletter 1978), “Has knitting been slighted among the areas of the fiber arts? The very word ‘knitting’ evokes images of the little old lady in tennis shoes. Over the years, I’ve learned to ignore all those jokes.” Cone Gellar went on to publish Crazy Crocheting in 1981 and encouraged her readers to create more than bedspreads, providing ideas such as “things to play with or to display on a shelf or hang on a wall.” A photo of single crochet from bread wrappers served as inspiration.  In 1972 in her book, Creating Art from Fibers & Fabrics , Dona Meilach wrote: “Why are fibers and fabrics becoming increasingly appealing to artists? Most artists agree

Wartime Crochet With Attitude, Part I

Wednesday, October 30, 2013 Karen Ballard and I have a mutual love of free form crochet. We met for the first time in a class taught by Prudence Mapstone of Australia at the Chain Link Crochet Conference 2011. I admire Karen's vast knowledge of needle work history and am grateful for her willingness to share with us as my guest blogger this week. Karen wearing a World War II-era knitting hat with stubby needles on top Karen's Heritage Heart,  with flowers symbolic of her heritage, is currently on tour with Prudence Mapstone's traveling "Hearts & Flowers Exhibition" in Australia and New Zealand   World War 1 Attitudes About Crochet by Karen Ballard In 2008, I coined that term, "Workbasket Campaigns" to describe the organized efforts during World War I (WWI) and World War II (WWII) coordinated through the American Red Cross {ARC} and the Navy League to create needle crafted items.  These items were mostly knitted but also sewn, qu

What is Free Form Crochet?

Monday, January 6, 2014 This topic came about from the title of my article recently in Fiber Art Now magazine.  "Crochet As Art: A Conversation with 5 Free-Form Crochet Artists." Yes, the 5 artists I wrote about, all of which are in  my book  The Fine Art of Crochet , are free-thinking when it comes to their creativity. They are free-wheeling with the hook and use unique fibers in many cases. Once you read the article, tell me what  you think? Are these artists doing free-form crochet? In order to define free-form crochet, we must look way, way back to it's origins: Irish crochet. A brief history of crochet, including the Irish method, written by Ruthie Marks is available through The Crochet Guild of America . Unfortunately, there are no images on the site. On her blog, Nancy Nehring has a beautiful montage of Irish Crochet in reference to a class she taught in 2013 at Lacis . I wrote an article in Old Time Crochet Magazine (Spring 1998), "History of Irish Croc